i fucking hate the “this is the good luck post.” Girl stop contributing to a superstitious environment with ur anecdotes there’s a million goddamn notes on it it’s statistically reasonable that a bunch of people remember the good things that happen after they reblog it
It is so, so funny how much Dick downplayed this in retrospect.
Out of context, it felt like Dick was just making excuses for being a cold asshole to Kory. You know, standard dumb teenage boy inconsiderateness exacerbated by Batman-isms. I operated under this assumption during my first couple of reads because I hadn’t had access to the Batman books. I now have the context.
An earlier ask reminded me that there’s still one sequence of Batgirl (2009) that I’ve always wanted to break down because my frustration with it is palpable so…why not. This is as good a time as ever. Let’s talk about Issue 24 and extended fantasy sequence that makes up the very end of this series.
See, apparently—and I have not been able to find a first-hand record of the interview that confirms this, so take it with a grain of salt—Brian Q. Miller decided that, since the universe was getting reset in the wake of Flashpoint, his Batgirl was getting canceled and Stephanie was getting retconned out of existence for the New52, he would use a fantasy sequence in the final issue show off all the wonderful ideas he never got to do because of editorial meddling or whatever. Which is… fine. Y’know? I get it, it’s utterly self-indulgent but not an invalid way to deal with your book getting canceled before you can finish all you set out to do.
The thing is though, sequences like this don’t just exist in the vacuum of their Doylist explanation. The entire narrative point of fantasy sequences like this, whether they’re fear gas, or lotus eater machines, or especially the Black Mercy, isn’t just to have a cool spectacle for the audience to look at, it’s to take a part of the character’s inner life and put it on display for everyone to see.
So the question I’m asking here is: what does a Watsonian reading of finale sequence say about Our Heroine, Stephanie Brown?
Quick primer for those of you who may be unfamiliar: the Black Mercy is an Alan Moore creation, originally introduced in the story he wrote with Dave Gibbons for 1985’s Superman Annual #11 – “For the Man Who has Everything.”
If you’re my age, you may be more familiar with this story as a fantastic episode of Justice League Unlimited, which has the notable distinction of being the only Alan Moore adaptation that the old warlock actually likes. The basic story of both is the same: Batman and Wonder Woman (and, in the comic, the Jason Todd Robin) arrive at the Fortress of Solitude for Superman’s birthday, only to find that Mongul has trapped Supes under the influence of the Black Mercy, a magical alien parasite that digs its vines into its victim’s chest while trapping their minds in an illusion of their ideal perfect life.
“For the Man Who has Everything” is regarded as one of the best Superman stories ever written so it’s honestly kind of a surprise that the Black Mercy has only shown up a handful of times since then. But I’m not complaining, because it means the concept hasn’t been diluted much… with this appearance in Batgirl being a notable exception, in weird ways that make me really wonder what was intentional and what wasn’t.
See, this whole thing starts when Steph confronts her father, Arthur Brown, alias the Cluemaster, in his prison cell. And Arthur—a second-rate Riddler knock-off whose only experience outside of Gotham was an extremely brief Suicide Squad adventure to Iceland where everybody died—just, has a Black Mercy, an incredibly rare and dangerous magical alien super plant, sitting in his prison cell. As you do.
Arthur then puts Steph under the Mercy’s influence to cover his escape from the cell, but he doesn’t subject her to the Black Mercy for real, he crushes one of the blossoms and blows it in her face, which his dialogue implies is something he regularly does to himself as a recreational experience.
Which means that, despite the following pages making a big freaking deal about “spores in her system” and Barbara gushing about how special Stephanie is for being able to, quote, “fight the Mercy and win,” it’s all a load of shit. Arthur didn’t need to be rushed to the hospital every time he took this drug, so it would follow the Stephanie doesn’t either.
That would actually make a lot of sense for Arthur as a character—for all his faults, he’s usually written as caring for his family and not wanting Stephanie permanently hurt (a sentiment she generally doesn't return). Hell, his last appearance before this one was trying to get revenge for her death. If that was intentional, it would mean that in the above panel, Stephanie knows that Barbara’s conclusion about her “fighting the Mercy” is full of shit and just, isn’t telling her.
I have no confidence that it was intentional—given the rest of the series I think it’s far more likely that Miller & Co. just didn’t want the icky flower vines to mess up Steph’s boobies and thus came up with a convoluted alternative that they immediately forgot the rules for—but I wish it was because it would actually be an interesting character turn. Black Mercy stories usually hinge on the emotional climax of the enraptured hero choosing to give up the beautiful illusion of a life they can never have in order to return to the hard world where they have real friends and heroic responsibilities waiting for them. Just ask anyone who still cries over this scene:
Stephanie not getting that moment and only escaping because it’s a temporary drug would imply that she’s still very susceptible to her own desires. It’s a way that she’s fallen short compared to others who’ve been subjected to the full Black Mercy experience. And who knows, maybe she could’ve pulled herself out of it if the illusion had lasted longer… but maybe she wouldn’t have. She can’t know. And that doubt could sit with her.
It doesn't. But it could, in a better story.
And then there’s the illusion itself. Keep in mind as we go through this, this montage, in-universe, represents Stephanie’s idea of her ideally perfect life. Just for comparison, in “For the Man Who has Everything,” Superman’s ideal life has him living on Krypton as a normal man, married with children, happy and content in his normal life. Batman saw his parents’ murder foiled and the life that could have unfolded without that tragedy to define it. Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), in another story, saw a world where his parents never died, his family is happy together, and his mentor Sinestro never turned evil.
Stephanie? Stephanie sees herself as Batgirl, posing dramatically and beating up random street thugs in a metaphorical continuation of her current status quo. Then there’s a sequence where she’s fighting the Queen of Fables alongside the four female heroes, all of whom except for Supergirl literally appeared out of nowhere in the last issue with no explanation because we need to pretend that Stephanie is very popular and well-liked and not a stuck-up loner who rarely leaves Gotham City and almost never talks to anybody but her boyfriend when she does.
But y’know, this scene makes sense right? Steph dreams of being a successful superhero and fantasizes about going on grand superhero adventures with other superheroes, fine. That’s all well and good.
Then comes the Blackest Night page which is just... ugh.
I am so glad DC vetoed this idea because it’s genuinely embarrassing. I get (finally! it several painful re-reads) that what Miller has been trying to do with Stephanie this entire book is pretend that she can be Captain America or Superman: a character who doesn’t so much develop or change as they do lead by example and inspire others to have hope for the future just by being themselves. So of course when he hears that Blue Lanterns are powered by hope he neeeeeeds that for his precious Batgirl—an idea that he apparently carried over to the Smallville Season 11 comics, but we’ll come back to that in a moment.
The problem of course being that Stephanie had never been that kind of character before Brian Miller decided she should be, and he did absolutely nothing to work his way up to earning her that status. So shit like this comes across as, frankly, blatant attempts to turn her into a Mary Sue, especially with how badly he refused to deal with her actual history and established character.
But again, remember: in-universe, this illusion isn’t being imposed on Stephanie, it’s being created by her, by her mind. This is part of her greatest desire. So where other heroes long to be safe and happy, surrounded by their families, Stephanie, apparently, wants nothing less than to be a literal Messiah figure. And I’m not exaggerating there—Blue Lanterns are supposed to be the holiest beings in the universe.
Just… the ego that implies. Yeesh.
After that comes a black-and-white photograph implying a time travel adventure where the three Batgirls (presumably from different eras in their own timelines) go back to 1944 to fly with the (male) Blackhawks. I’m not going to post it because there’s not really anything to say about it and this is already a long post but Stephanie’s stupid utility garter belt is drawn so HUGE it takes up her ENTIRE THIGH almost up to the crotch and it’s super distracting.
Then comes this scene.
Which mostly just drives home how much Steph hates her boring average school life given that she’s fantasizing about being attacked by supervillains at her graduation so her secret identity can be exposed to her entire graduating class. Thing is though, you’d think this should be a nightmare. Her identity has been exposed! She’s being attacked out in the open by supervillains and she doesn’t have her gear or weapons! Her classmates and—explicitly up in the audience—her mother are in danger, because Stephanie is Batgirl!
But because this is a Black Mercy illusion, we know it’s not a nightmare. This is, explicitly, something that Stephanie wants to happen. It’s part of her fantasy life, her greatest desire. And yeah, if we’re being generous, she probably isn’t thinking that people are going to get hurt. In her fantasy, she probably just gets to show off and save the day and be venerated as Gotham University’s Great Hero, like Buffy getting crowned the Sunnyville Class Protector. But even that, the most generous of readings, implies that she has never internalized the lesson that she should have learned back in War Games re: the great power of being a superhero coming with great responsibility. It absolutely flies in the face of anybody’s attempts to insist that no really, she’s only doing this whole superhero thing because she cares about other people SO MUCH.
Following that is page of what’s clearly Neo-Gotham, flashing forward many years into the future, where Steph is wrangling some kid into bed (while wearing her wedding ring on the second knuckle because otherwise you wouldn’t be able to see it and that might imply she’s a single mom) with the Batsignal shining out the window.
Which leads us, at last, to the page I have the most to say about, and the one that is my biggest inspiration for make this post:
I. Hate. This page.
I hate it because it gets regularly reposted without context on Tumblr and Reddit so the Steph simps can gush over how much they wish it was real and how Stephanie should get to be every single member of the Batfamily because she’s just so awesome and not one of them ever stops to think about what any of it would or should actually mean in-universe or out.
This page exists because Brian Q. Miller was originally a writer on Smallville. He joined the team around Season 5, served as showrunner for Season 10, and used the connections he made there to get some comic book jobs, including Batgirl and the spin-off comic Smallville Season 11. In “Season 11,” they finally showed the Smallville version of Gotham City and Batman, who is accompanied by only a single sidekick: not Robin, but Barbara Gordon as an (adult) female Nightwing who eventually becomes a Blue Lantern (hence the Blackest Night page earlier).
Now again, I cannot find the original source for this so I’m going off fandom rumor and wiki trivia, but supposedly, Brian’s original pitch was that the Smallville character would also be Stephanie, making her the only Batfamily member to ever exist in that universe. DC’s editors supposedly made him switch to Barbara instead, which was smart of them, because it’s way more likely that the people picking up the Smallville comic would be excited to see her, one of the most famous pop-culture characters ever invented, and not a satellite character like Stephanie who’s only familiar to a niche market. (This for the record is the same reason Babs is the Batgirl in Gotham Knights.)
So that’s the out-of-universe explanation for why Brian would stick this idea here, but stop and think about this for half a second: why the fuck would Stephanie want to be Nightwing?
Nightwing is not like Batman, Batgirl, or even Robin, it’s not a larger symbol with a legacy behind it. If you say the word Nightwing in the DC Universe, you’re referring to only one of two things: either you’re Kryptonian and you’re referencing a legendary figure from your lost planet’s mythology (either a god or a culture hero depending on the continuity), or you’re talking about Dick Grayson. Every other character who has ever taken on the name in a non-Kryptonian context has done so because of their relationship to Dick: either to piss him off (Jason), because they were inspired by him (Cheyenne Freemont, the Nightwings, Nite-Wing in a negative capacity), or in memoriam/penance after his death (Damian in the first Injustice game).
But Stephanie doesn’t have that kind of relationship with Dick. At this point in her career, they’d barely spoken, and all of their meaningful interactions had been with him as Batman. Nightwing means nothing to her. She has no emotional connection to identity, not even the desire to be “part of the legend” that drove her to chase Robin and Batgirl. So then, why? Why is this part of her fantasy?
Well… because if Batgirl isn’t the second-most popular superhero in the franchise after the Big Bat himself, then Nightwing is. And all Stephanie has apparently ever wanted is to be everybody’s favorite superhero, loved and adored and told how she’s so very special and wonderful, forever.
---
In Conclusion – As you might’ve noticed back in the panels where Steph was getting dosed, Brian Miller actually calls out his own bookending, having started the story with a climax where Steph got exposed to a fear-gas-based-anger drug and ended it with one where she encounters the Black Mercy. Like I’ve said before, the narrative purpose of hallucination sequences like this are to lay the characters’ psyches bare and show us who they really are on the inside.
In issue 3, Stephanie’s anger/fear gas exposure (and the resulting philosophically frustrating speech) presents Stephanie as someone whose primary motivation is her own self-interest, the sense of control and personal triumph she gets from being a superhero. All through the series, the way she handles her rare rescues (and, even more tellingly, the few people who don’t immediately recognize her greatness) only backs that up.
And now, the Black Mercy sequence, the very last thing to happen in the entire series, just solidifies it: after 24 issues, she hasn’t changed. Her only desire, the only thing she cares about, is that she gets to be a badass superhero who goes on adventure after adventure without worry or care for anyone around her, even after multiple people have literally died over the course of just this book. Who cares? They’re not Stephanie, so they don’t matter. It’s all about her.
I will never understand what anyone saw in this series.
"You're lying about reading chapter books as a 8-10 year old! No kid does that." - Extremely dumb take from someone who is probably illiterate.
A lot of books that are popular with children are chapter books and 200-300ish pages long.
The Percy Jackson series, Little House on the Prairie, Harriet the Spy, Alice in Wonderland, The Rats of NIMH series, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, The Chronicles of Narnia series, Black Beauty, the Redwall series, the Artemis Fowl series, fuckin Animorphs.
Kids who get into the 100-200 page books like Goosebumps, pretty much everything Beverly Cleary has written, and books like Charlotte's Web [184 pages], start looking for longer books because they're entertained and enjoying themselves.
Sorry you were failed by the adults in your life and you never learned how to enjoy reading, but that's no reason to pretend that kids don't read. Maybe take an adult literacy course or something.
I hate to keep bringing up Harry Potter in these posts, but the American edition of Goblet of Fire clocks in at about 750 pages and Order of the Phoenix is 870. I’ve read shorter Russian novels.
The vampire arc was not what I expected, even if the set up was predictable at parts. It is… resoundingly uncomfortable, particularly with the sexual manipulation and other undertones. Which I suppose it is meant to be. Still, I’m impressed by how uncomfortable I was.
Dala, the to-be-revealed vampire, is a creep off the jump. The way Dick starts pining for her and the intensity of it starts strange and becomes repulsive on reflection, given that it was entirely driven by supernatural compulsion.
Like yeah, no shit no one has affected you this way before. (Don’t worry though, it won’t be the last :D)
We’re told about her kind much later on, but they’re not vampires, I think. They’re vampiri, with the distinction being that it was a curse wrought upon the patient zero, and later his sister, a few hundred years ago via a snake. This is done on account of them being The Worst. And they really try, in every way possible, to cram the very notion of taboo into these folk.
But like, okay, jumping ahead, we get to the part where Dick is eventually lured out and attacked. And it just… really really rubs me the wrong way.
The fact that it’s partially a hallucination, meaning Dick’s perspective is not reliable, the sexual undertones of turning someone, even the “come to my waiting arms… don’t you love me, Dick?”
Maybe I’m reaching here, and I don’t like to reach in this manner, but… come on. This was assault.
Then we cut to black and Dick wakes up elsewhere. The rest of it maintains the gross edge despite becoming more of a standard vampire romp. Dick finds himself aided by a priest and realizes he’s messed up six ways to Sunday
but very soon after falls so deeply under control that it doesn’t really matter.
And, Jesus, the vibes. I hate her I hate her I hate her ughhhh
Bruce gets lured out, he gets bitten too, it’s a whole bit of shenanigans trying to get the cure for them, whatever. Again, while the vibes are maintained and there are probably more subtle elements you could glean from these later events, they’re much more your standard supernatural affair.
I just can’t get over how in pain Dick looks. Like he has been so damn miserable and it sucks.
I just came away from this feeling really really bad for him, lol. This entire experience from start to finish was stark. And, of course, as all Dick-related losses of autonomy demand, we get back to our regularly scheduled programming with little fanfare after. They’re just fine and that’s that. No comment on Dala.
What I’m interested in is how this might’ve impacted Dick’s later experience with being romantically and sexually manipulated by Raven later in NTT, because reading this drew a lot of parallels to that in my humble opinion. The inexplicable and often uncomfortable romantic urges he felt, the hallucination (or, in Raven’s case, dream) sequences with implicit or explicit sexual involvement, what have you. I dunno.
Anyways: ughfghghghghgghgh. The depravity that vampires are typically meant to represent in media was very well captured here. I hate it. Great job unironically.
I like “pentapodactyl” tremendously!!! but hate “chiro” in this context, and I don’t know why. Obviously I have no authority to be the arbiter of this but I do feel strongly!!
There’s a gorgeous rhythm to:
Cephalopharyngeal pentapodactyl monstrosity of the alarm
@elodieunderglass I'm curious how you pronounce "Cephalopharyngeal" - my instinct is to pronounce the opening as a dactyl, like in "cephalopod", i.e. "SEF-uh-lo", but the scansion of that line feels better to me if it's an amphibrach, i.e. "suh-FAL-lo"
The Cephalobrachial Pentapodactylus! Palmate monstrosity of the alarm!
The sesquipedalian's best pernoctalian psuedo-mammalian hand without arm!
This maniform, bursiform, digital deep-dweller drifts through the darkest demersal domains,
A five-footed fingerling phantasm floating full fathoms afloor from the foam-freckled main!
It hunts with its quick hyponychial cnidocytes fully envenomed and ready to kill!
If nocuous toxicants don't cause cessation its rostriform mandibles certainly will!
By ripping and rending, it ruptures its rations with razorlike radulae housed in its jaw;
Its great glabrous grub-grippers gather the gobbets to go in its ventropharyngeal maw!
The Cephalobrachial Pentapodactylus seldom comes skyward while it's still alive,
But sometimes some singular specimen surfaces, stalking the shore like a deadly high-five,
So if you should witness, in perambulation, gressorial fingertips roaming the sands,
I beg you, consider this simple hortation: observe from a distance, and do not shake hands!
tim remembers dick because of the tragedy, yes, but also because they met first. dick was kind to him, and dick was probably kind to all little kids in that same way, but to tim it was memorable. to tim that little kindness was everything. tim loved him from then on, and for six more years until he found out dick was robin even, just because of that small kindness. dick’s efforts will never be in vain. every small kindness he shows has an impact.
do you know any fics where tim goes back to being robin after bruce is saved from the timestream? not like the current damian and tim sharing the mantle in rebirth but bruce taking tim back as his robin after that whole mess before flashpoint. i was thinking of bruce and tim's relationship today and all the times bruce reassured tim he could be robin for as long as he wanted and they make me so emotional :(
(i would prefer no dick or damian bashing because i really like them too but if that's what it takes to see bruce and tim go back to being the batman and robin duo ever then i suffer for them)
So, the actual return of it doesn't happen in the fic itself, but this AU idea where Bruce doesn't accept Damian as his Robin after having had some time back and Dick leaving Batman to Bruce after Dick & Damian had been B&R for a while was the concept behind my own fic, Unacceptable. Bruce is not at all nice to Dick and Damian in it, but it was not intended as bashing on my part (I'm the most critical of Dick in it and anyone that knows me knows I love him so much). It was intended as writing Bruce being harsh and not necessarily saying the things in the right way. Although it's also intended as being critical of Dick's actions, because it's kind of unavoidable. I just don't like how he was written in order to make that happen :c
Tim does not appear in it and as such does not actually get Robin back in it, but I do have Bruce actively support that idea in it. And my end note includes that if anyone wanted to write a sequel, my only stipulation was that Tim DOES get Robin back.
One person did do that, and thus we have Where's Robin? by NMDG.
Which may be harsher on Dick and Damian than you'd prefer, but the harshness at Dick continues to be "I'm disappointed you didn't make a better decision" which is in-line with what I wrote, it just doesn't follow up on the particular prompt where it was suggested Dick give it back to Tim himself, and instead Bruce does it, which may be closer to what this ask is looking for anyway, but it means Dick doesn't really get a positive follow-up. It takes a rather dim view of Damian's time as - and ability to be - Robin at the time, but it is considerably better than most fics I'd consider "Damian bashing" in the sense that it puts a good amount of the responsibility on the shoulders of the adults in his life not teaching him better rather than treating him as irredeemable. This does feed into the view of Dick, though.
And in any case that fic Actually Does The Thing You Asked For
Anyway, those are the only ones I actively know of. Topic So Niche I Had To Prompt It Myself. If anyone knows any others God Please Tell Me
As an aside, I do think the topic is a little hard to broach while being nice about Dick and Damian simultaneously, though, because I think that's just kind of inherently a problem with how the situation was canonically handled and you'd have to back up and rewrite more of it to get a better conclusion. Accepting B&R09 happened is honestly a toughie unless you want to take the "Dick was possessed" angle.
Anyway, the lesson is that children that have been indoctrinated in certain ways need to be actively taught better and they won't just get better via being told to shut up and threatened and given a supervised restrained outlet for violence when they haven't been taught proper restraint in a controlled environment first. And also maybe we should work on the bioessentialist superiority complex instead of just ignoring that as Quirky. And Morrison's Dick Grayson sucks ass.
