Bee has opinions

Hey! I'm a film student, art fan, and generally insufferable :D So very online - reading/engaging with art of all forms is my whole life Currently am a Cassandra Cain blog mostly 20

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10 issues into Batgirl (2024). Unfortunately already halfway through, I'm about to be a monthly reader.

I like the first arc a lot! Heavy angst Cass is very fun! Personally, I really enjoy Cass and Shiva's terrible relationship, and I think this run does best at making it feel interesting. Post-2000 a lot of the moments between them feel kinda easy, in The Outsiders they kinda just work together and I love that that isn't what Brombal gives us at all.

I think, besides parental angst, what works about the first arc being Shiva focused is that the series does a really good job at walking the line between giving Cass more and reckoning with her past. Generally love the voice Cass gets, I'm into the body language narration a lot. And interaction with Shiva is great for sign posting change. Like, for instance, whenever she shouts outs the other bats

Overall, I'm super enjoying the series. It feels like a good continuation of Cass specifically. Unique voice, angst, fun action. I'm having a good time.

But I do struggle a bit with what I've read of the second arc so far (7-10). 7 and 8 are backstory issues about Shiva, and I don't like how mythic it becomes. I think the high drama of it means that the rest of the story is going to unfold only because the main character is Cass, which is something I tend to not like in superhero stories. I don't want her to feel so important to the wider world, and that's something that this The Blood connection does. Suddenly she's not inserting herself in conflict to accomplish something, conflict is happening to her because she was born related to Shiva. (who also suddenly has boosted importance)

Issues 9 and 10 introduce me to Tenji, and I do like those ones. Her whole conflict with the Tiger is super fun. Batgirl comics are at the best when action is a set for melodramatic character conflict. This sorta thing is great:

Only 9 more issues currently D: so sad.

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I've read everything here now except the actual Batgirl, which is super exciting!

And you know, it's a bunch of single issues. I don't have a super lot to say, but my reaction to Ram V's Detective Comics had me taking a step back and doing a larger self analysis of this read through. Because his Cass stuff was super good! Impeccable art, and I love how he characterizes her.

I think the trying to be Batman thing (one whole issue) is super interesting, and tracks for me - and I love the return to quieter, angrier Cass that the Nocturne apocalypse or whatever brings out

But, that characterization that I'm loving honestly just feels like a return to Batgirl (2000) so I have to look at myself large scale and ask, am I just not wanting Cass to develop as a character?

Honestly, I'm not sure. But I think no - I want her to develop, I just want her to feel distinct. I think a problem with Batfamily writing is that "development" is really just smoothing over. For most of the life span of her comics Cass became very generic, in the same way that (as someone who hasn't read all of the Batman comics) the rest of the family can feel same-y. Unfortunately, I think the most distinct she's felt is the beginning of her run, back in 2000. So interesting writing, almost as a necessity, becomes regressive writing.

So I have high hopes for Batgirl (2024). I really hope it feels like a comic with it's own identity, and also allows more space for Cass to grow

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I'm sorry I just saw someone on Tiktok selling FCBD comics from this year for 10 dollars. I think the collectors resale market is so evil

Especially cause it was like Dungeon Crawler Carl, which

Isn't great imo

on webtoon for free actually

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I (ignored the Cass reading order and) finished Birds of Prey

some art and comedy appreciation

It stays fine to good. Maybe a bit worse than the first half. I think the tone remains a mess, but when we get to action scenes there is a much needed intensity that makes the writing convincing. Characters feel mad, people get hurt. It works. Great sense of pacing in the climactic moments.

I will say the final arc. 25-28, I just didn't like. The most confused the tone gets. I think all "The Unreality" stuff is stupid in a way that wasn't fun for me. And it all comes back to The Seam a thing I don't care about being in Gotham.

Regarding Cass. Still funnier than I'd like, but at least it's in a way that does really feel like Cass. I'm a big fan of her just being friends with Constantine sorta.

Anyways Cass is mainly here to be the best fighter and actually get things done. Understood to be the most competent and likable on the team. She infiltrates, she tracks people, solves mysteries, makes plans I do wish they gave her more interiority, she's sorta treated as if any possible arc she could have is finished and now she can be a bouncing board for other people's (like Sin's) problems. Also a lot of the time she is Cass and not Batgirl, which I don't know if I love? Like she's long past the point of Batgirl only, of course. But in the field being Cass? is so strange.

But when we do get to see her being Batgirl, or even just moments away from the team, I think it's pretty great. I love that Cass has ended up being characterized, and it is pretty consistent, as just the most caring person on Earth. Of everyone she's most worried about Barbara and Barda. We get to see her dealing with random people on the streets - which I don't think we see anyone else do in this run.

It's finally time! I have some single issues, a few more Detective Comics and assorted stuff to read. But next run is Batgirl (2024). I really hope I like it.

[jusbeinkt]

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It's been so long but I'm so back. Continuing my Cass Cain reading order - I just read the first 13 issues of Birds of Prey (2023)

It sure is a comic.

That's dismissive when it is basically the best thing I've gotten from Cass since Tynion's Detective Comics run. Kelly Thompson understands her voice and is able to write a comedic character that still does feel like Cass

And while the run so-far is unbelievably far from having actually moving moments, I do think Thompson understands the emotional core of Cass in a group setting pretty well. There are a few sweet moments with her at the center

Plus I do enjoy the art a lot. Romero's faces aren't my favorite thing ever but I do love the blocky - Lichtenstein-like work

(okay so actually neither of those art examples are from Romero, but they're cute and I like them)

But it's still just tonal problems. Birds of Prey remains very light, plot focused DC and I just find it hard to care about. None of these characters emotionally connect with me. The 5 issue Worlds Without End arc is incredibly formulaic. And I don't love the modeling show bit it's just strange.

I can't wait to get to Batgirl (2024). I miss having a comic that's actually about Cass so much

[buggiebugga]

first family 💫

[ino]

reblog this and tell me in the tags, if you could wipe your memory of ONE piece of media (book, film, video game, etc) and experience it again for the first time, what would you choose?

[lizardsister]

[katakaluptastrophy]

I went—not overseas, but by public transport—to Corpus to hear Tamsyn Muir speak.

The bad news: Alecto is not finished. It will hopefully come out "soon" and will likely be fast tracked with few ARCs when it's finished.

The news you may take differently depending on your preferences: It is not being split.

The good news: It is not all written in Ye Olde Alecto speak (it sounds like Harrow's POV will be fairly major, but there will apparently be several narrators).

A slightly random selection of things I frantically scribbled down:

The protagonists of TLT would make an "absolutely shit" D&D party ("Palamedes and Camilla would be fine")

We could have had horse plinko and begone thot, but for the anti-meme ministrations of her editor. She would love an edition that puts all of the memes back in.

On Catholic imagery and lesbianism: "you ain't seen nothing yet"

"Harrow is now a believer without a church"

She said that while John and Alecto's relationship is not meant to be a 1:1 analogue to Humbert Humbert and Lolita, there is the idea of a man fashioning (something he thinks is) a girl into a perfect partner (the question of whether that is a sexual partner apparently may be relevant to ATN)

She does not have a favourite House and would just be a regular person in the world of TLT (though she would last about 0.5 seconds)

The tension between the Houses' ostensible gender equality and the misogyny that still persists is apparently also relevant to ATN. "John has set out to make a society on values he holds dear and cherishes and in some ways he has done really well... And in some way he has fucked it up beyond comprehension" (Maybe not an exact quote. My auditory processing is questionable.)

The backstory in NTN was planned right from the beginning

Lyctors "are not truly human any more. They've crystallised themselves" and "They have lost themselves and the only thing they've been able to hold on to is what other people make of them". She said she would have liked to make the Lyctors more alien but had to balance that with them being relatable narratively.

She is dying to read TLT fanfiction once she finishes the series.

[ravenlynclemens]

a commission of godzilla on a smoke break

[spookytransgirl]

Do you...do you think Godzilla is proud of me?

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Picked up the first two issues of Die Loaded the sequel to Die. I didn't realize this was coming out already and I'm like 4 issues behind. The original Die is incredible, so far Loaded is holding up. A little too talky I think, but Stephanie Hans' art is so incredible

[astoundingbeyondbelief]

I knew Megumi Odaka had that freak in her

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Cass Cain Reading Update! Made it through this stretch:

Uh, couldn't say much about it - took me a while cause it was not exciting at all. And, to be fair to all of these comics, I was reading it for Cass and she basically cameos exclusively which you know, probably could've skipped them but that wouldn't be very completionist of me. Chip Zdarsky's Batman was at least interesting, it did grip me enough to read the next few issues. But then Batman fell from space and I was done, even though the arc didn't quite finish. One Bad Day was also pretty good. But otherwise nothing stuck with me

And then I also read all 6 issues of Spirit World

and I liked a lot of it! I think it's the first modern-DC I read that managed to blend the vibrant fun thing they've been doing with more serious storytelling. Like, for me, Cass actually felt like Cass here! And not just a foil for jokes! Which was very exciting. Remembering the time that she was Lazarus Pit'd was pretty interesting, even though I don't feel like it went anywhere. I'm also not entirely sure how DC continuity works at all because what? That happened pre-flashpoint didn't it?

Spirit World manages to be somewhat emotionally successful, I like a lot of the semi-horror art, it's generally pretty clean, but the collectives are freaky, and they put Cass in a fun outfit.

I think where Spirit World really struggles is exposition, especially the chapter start review stuff. The way they say names in bold and summarize events? This is so clunky

But overall I think the voices and tone worked for me

I'm so close to long runs now! Birds of Prey (2023) is right in from of me and Batgirl (2024) only shortly after that. It's so exciting I'll actually get Cass main character comics. So something for me to look forward to!

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More than a little not sober watching the X-Files 2x08 One Breath and getting upset. "Then you're as much to blame as the cancer man" kill yourself why would you say that to him boo

fantastic episode im going to explode even if the final twist is stupid