Jean Paul Valley: I am having an incredible mental health episode and dissociating heavily. I need someone to help me.
Batman Fans: he’s so selfish
Michael Lane: I am currently in psychosis and off my medication. Dick Grayson is enabling me instead of getting me help. I’ve started to flagellate and don’t eat anymore because I don’t believe angels eat.
Batman Fans: he’s so evil using his religion like that.
Jason Todd: I blew up a highschool.
Batman Fans: :( he is suffering from incredible ptsd and PIT-MADNESS! Think about what Bruce’s abuse did to him! It’s not his fault.
My Thoughts on the 'No-Kill Rule', in Relation to Batman and Joker
One of the things that Batman is most known for is his iconic 'No-Kill' rule, it's quite arguably one of the Caped Crusader's main defining characteristic.
There are multiple reasons that people give for why Batman has this rule, but the one I want to focus on right now is that Batman greatly values human life.
The question this poses, at least for me, is "What exactly about human life does Batman see that makes him so firmly against taking it?". I think the answer to this question is humanity's capacity to be good.
To choose good, to be loving, to create, to connect. I think Batman sees that in everyone. So, it makes sense that the adversary for Batman would be someone who chooses evil, who is sadistic, to destroys, who rips and tears apart. That's the Joker.
But even then, Batman still doesn't kill the Joker. From what I've seen, this is because Batman still believes that even someone as cruel and vile as the Joker can change for the better, and that's worth keeping him alive for. Emphasis on 'can'.
Based on what I know, with Batman, there's no specific crime, no amount of buildings destroyed, no number of lives taken, that would change his mind on the possibility that anyone can still change, because their human.
This is where I bring up 'The Killing Joke', and how I interpret the ending as Batman finally killing the Joker. In the story, Batman is already grappling with the choice of killing the Joker or letting him live.
Fast forward to the ending, Joker once again does as the Joker does, so Batman does the last thing he can do, he reaches out completely to the Joker, making the genuine offer to help him, help him be better.
And the Joker says no. That is why I think Batman killed the Joker, not because of any specific thing he did that pushed him over the edge, just the 'no'. The complete denial of goodness. The absolute rejection of everything Batman values and cherishes about human life.
And in the face of this, Batman laughs, at how he finally got the answer he was looking for, at how after all this time, all the times he spared the Joker's life, he still couldn't get through to him.
Stories where Batman kills are, to my knowledge, few and far between, but I really think there's potential for some good thought-provoking, compelling storytelling about what makes life valuable and what makes people "irredeemable", even outside of the Joker.
Anyways, I don't know how to end this in a way that isn't awkward, so yeah. I might revisit this somewhere down the light, but these are my thoughts for now.
Okay so I just wanna talk about my feelings regarding the previews for the upcoming Matt Fraction and Jorge Jimenez Batman run (coming out in like 2 days!!!!).
If anyone outside my normal audience of me myself and I stumble across this, just know I barely qualify as a real Batman fan as I've read very few of his comics and am more of a Tim Drake fan than anything. I've read a few bits and pieces here and there but by no means can be considered like,,, idk a real fan? I'm here for the ride!
SO FIRSTLY. Gotham has a new look! Jimenez has been teasing this since like February, so I've been excited. Not the best shot to tell a clear difference between this and all the other Gothams we've seen, but looks cool! Very cluttered and looks stinky lol as per Gotham's usual vibes. I like how aged everything looks, and as always the colors are just gorgeous. The tower in the back looking like Batsy himself is interesting, though I'm not sure if that's coincidence or an actual building that will be important to the plot later on.
Jim is a cutie patootie as always, but interestingly? I did not know he was no longer commissioner! Is that new? Was that in any of the previous runs? I know it happened like,, during failsafe (i think?) but I've always thought it was reinstated. People are saying commissioner's probably vandal but thats kinda insane because didn't a few people become commissioner before it was passed to Vandal? So how come Gordon's partner still accidentally calls him commissioner if management's already changed hands a couple of times? We will probably get an answer to that later but I'm too yappy lol. Jim looks like a sweet grandpa.
YEAHHHHH WAYLON!!!! I assume it is at least. The comical image of killer croc just scootin around in the alleyways and smelling a truck of fresh meat n being led to it like a tom and jerry bit is kinda funny. mans is just hungry... not like he can walk into his local bodega and ask for a sandwich tbf. god forbid a diva eat! at least its not humans.
HIIII BRUCE!!! my handsome man! Arkham Towers? Like multiple? I'm assuming this is referring to the tower that ended up replacing arkham asylum (i have not read infiinite frontiers and it is at like... the very back of my to-read list JASDHB). love the fish-eye lens going on here, and the composition of this page is to DIE for.
Loving the new suit here!!! Fuckk!!! its so good! the blue is so striking and vibrant, a total 180 from the costumes i'm used to seeing since failsafe and gotham war. would love to draw some blue bat blobs, because i think jimenez outdid himself with this design! the jagged cape, the chunky yellow utility belt, the blue undies. THE DUOTONE CAPE!!!! ITS BLUE ON THE INSIDE GUYYSSSSS.... i've been in love with the design since i saw it and i'm obsessed w the new symbol. i fuck with this SO hard.
no idea who this doctor is but shes gorgeous. love the way that jorge jimenez draws hair because it is SO working out for every design so far!! can't wait to see how he draws bruce and tim later on.
interesting to me how batman's compartmentalizing waylon/killer croc so far. i know some croc fans are sad it seems he's sliding back on his progress, but I honestly think it's not the case. the series seems to be going into the struggle of progress, especially in a city like gotham. we went from gotham having its first crimeless night in decades (that tiktok famous panel from batman the imposter) to gotham losing its foundation, gordon apparently no longer being commissioner, and arkham day fuckin obliterating the city. the entire city seems to be undergoing a backslide in this moment, and i think that's going to be matt fraction's ultimate point. that progress isnt linear. bruce seems so incredibly jaded -- like a disappointed dad lol. he seems to be in an extremely world-weary disposition and is giving up hope on people, and honestly? i'm excited.
most people would argue that that isnt bruce at all. he doesn't give up the good fight, even when he probably should -- and he always believes that people can get better. I agree!! that's a core tenet of his character!! but at the same time, i think this stepback in development is a promise that this run will have a lot of bruce-specific character development. it's a criticism ive heard and agreed with before that a lot of batman media straight up avoid giving bruce a personal character arc. its a major gripe people have with nolan's trilogy after all, and a huge reason why they praise matt reeves' movie. if that's the direction this comic plans on going, i am 100% in for it. let bruce have his mid life crisis lol.
off topic, but i assume this is waylon's room and i adore the little dinosaur drawings. man was in rehab making little dino doodles thats so fucking cute.
ok but for real who is this dr. zeller SHES GORGEOUS.
but yeah anyway. morphotoxins! i assume its like junkie juice for hybrids, but the fact that it is actually regressing waylon mentally is interesting. who gave it to him? where's it coming from? how does this impact the Tim Drake lore /j. i hope its not a permanent change, because i do have hope for croc fans who have liked his development in the previous runs. i like the way dr. zeller talks about croc here, like she genuinely cares about waylon and wants to see him be better. she's not afraid of him, and if anything she seems more upset that batman's doubting croc's progress.
given her and bruce's attitude about cops (altho cops being pigs is a standard in most batman media anyway...) i think its probably certain that vandal IS the commissioner. since gordon isnt commissioner anymore, corruption and brutality have probably been much worse and the fact that batman's still doing all he can to keep waylon alive despite being frustrated at his lack of rehabilitation is quite nice. love his little visor too btw.
NOW THIS IS WHAT JIMENEZ MEANT BY NEW GOTHAM DESIGN. i think thats really fricking cool1!!!! the massive tall buildings and modern skyscrapers mixed with the gothic architecture as per gotham's usual standards --- but the massive amounts of billboards and screens is so fascinating! everything is so colorful and almost too vivid! it's distraction central, which i think is an interesting visual choice and seems like itll be relevant to the plot. the consistent use of extremely high vertical architecture along with the highways in the back remind me of batman & robin 1997's gotham take (esp w the clown statue on the left), and i am obsesseddd.
also holy tv montage lore drop batman. so yeah for sure vandal IS the commissioner, which explains why bruce is so sick of this city lol. ninja problem? ra's al ghul? well... tim IS robin in this run so maybe its time our boy finally gets his powerscaling lickback and beats the crap outta that grandpa ala pre-52. hope this recount will blow up so people can stop pretending like a couple of bad runs have ruined tims character completely.
also. LEXCORP TACTICAL CORSET LMAOOOOOO. i think theyre bringing back a campy vibe and i am fucking with it SOOOOO HARD. i love the energy this one spread has alone, and it is giving so many promises i hope fraction and jimenez can deliver HARD on. the vibrant plain comicality of the world and designs compared with the internal doubts and struggles bruce is facing so far is 100% my jam and i WILL be obsessed with this series.
To wrap things up, I am SO excited for this upcoming series! I have a few nitpicks here and there (Tim losing his middle part lol and bruce's cowl looks a little silly imo. also jim still being a beat cop at his age instead of retiring or doing something else seems strange, especially because i don't think he'd just take vandal being commissioner sitting down.) but overall i am SO incredibly HYPED.
looking at matt fraction's previous works, he wrote the jimmy olsen series and sex criminals which are known for being hilarious and almost campy in a way. that, blended with jimenez' striking visuals and beautiful retro-esque character/location designs lends itself to a potentially LEGENDARY collaboration. i am so so so so happy to be back into my dc kick and can only look forward to how this run will go. i hope tim gets his flowers as my favorite robin, and i look forward to how this series will progress bruce's character.
if anybody made it to the end, feel free to let me know what you think or to yap in my inbox!! i'm not that good of a batman fan, so if any other bigger comic knowers have anything to correct me on please let me know!! i would love to discuss things i did or didnt get right, and what anybody else thinks so far. PEACE!!
tldr what i vote is mostly just vibes based BUT from like, a scientific perspective ig, i personally think that it doesn’t count as in the fandom unless you’ve interacted w the source material, bc even though there *are* lots of people who make content for a fandom without actually knowing what they’re talking about, these people also frequently just say things that are wrong while saying they are correct and sometimes even fanon.
if you haven’t read/watched/listened to the source, i think it should count as fanon, which i personally count as an entirely different fandom as the canon fandom (for a very condensed example: the batfamily! there is the webtoon now, but comic characterizations and even events tend to be very different from the popular fandom tropes). i dont have anything against fanon tho i just wish we all distinguished between it and canon more
Yeah, a long time ago, there was someone in the askbox talking about there's a lot of people who make Batman fan content without knowing the source material (which is fine!), but they insist that everything they talk about is canon and like. double down when canon fans gently point out that its not lol - Mod W
One of my biggest pet peeves in the killing Jokee discussion is the whole: "Well, he's not going to stop, and killing him is the only way to stop him!" Like... Just send him to an actual prison instead of Arkham?? We have murderers irl people, and they don't always stop because they're killed. They often stop because... They're in secure prisons.
Now, is escape possible in basically any prison if a person is dedicated enough? Yeah, I actually just watched a documentary about that it was really good, lmao (History's Best Escapes with Morgan Freeman). But at least a federal prison is TRYING and will slow him down, Arkham's security is glitter glue and hope, it ain't holding anyone in.
I’m still so fucking salty over that “brothers” line. But first, some context on how I expected it would happen.
Many didn’t expect too much, which is understandable. I wasn’t one of them, but it made little sense to ignore all that buildup. If you ignore it, then what does it become? What context can you give if you through all of it out of the window? It wasn’t one sided, you could tell, and anyone who doesn’t see that is watching a different show. Whether you ship it or not, that’s just fact. And to anyone who has the audacity to say that Oswald is still “confused” and “not gay” needs their heads checking. Whether Oswald is actually gay, or at least attracted to men doesn’t matter. He still loves Ed, and saying otherwise is a waste of oxygen.
Anyway, so logic tells me that it will go there, because why shouldn’t it? What possible reason is there to not finally let it happen? I understand why people got tired of all the shit before, but I will willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. A really slow burn. A part of me felt foolish, but I also felt very proud of being one of the few, because I was so sure it would happen. There’s a difference between shipping characters that good together, and then you have things like Nygmobblepot.
I’m a realist. I don’t reach out and pull out anything and everything to “prove” something. And some people will really reach, but all I see is a logical explanation. Not every single thing about them can be used to push the canon, but what I saw was enough to have be believe, because if it falls flat and loses its meaning, then it’s just bad story telling.
I’ve aware that Gotham suffered from having writers that didn’t always agree with each other. It’s why an episode can be one thing, and the next thing you know, the complete opposite is happening. This is partly why Nygmobblepot suffered.
But here’s the big news that just angers me. Why and how are the producers having a say in what happens in the script? The writers have their job, and the producers have theirs. Tze came out to us and explained that the “brothers” line was originally something else. It wasn’t concrete evidence, but it’s something. I expected more though, because I didn’t want an interpretation. What he got instead was a statement, and not a good one. They couldn’t leave it alone, replace the words with something else, heck, even remove them! No, they had to use “brothers”, which is the worst possible word they could have chosen.
When you want to play it safe, you use “friend”, or something with equal or better effect. “Partner” would have worked, even “family” in fact. “Brother” isn’t a safe word, because it goes beyond “friend”, in that you’re telling that person what you are to each other. We aren’t just “friends”, we’re “brothers”, and we’ll be nothing more. “Friends” allows room for something to grow. Yes, you can go from “brothers” to lovers, but “brothers” in itself seems like it’s playing to stay. This is what we are, deal with it.
That’s what the producers were going for.
What I find truly amazing is that they thought this was a good idea. It’s a fucking horrible idea, because to me, it’s not only treating the characters like shit, but it’s also a kick in the teeth to fans. It’s highly underestimating the fans’ intelligence, in that they think we’re stupid and will believe their bullshit. All it has done has made the whole thing look like a joke. It’s an embarrassment. It makes the show look bad, the writers, and the producers themselves (not that I care about the producers who did this, they can eat shit!)
The way the show made these 2 look was intentional. No wording, lingering looks, camera angle, lighting effect, environmental staging, story, etc, was an accident. They all told their story, and we (well, most of us) could see that. To have Oswald say “brothers” doesn’t make any sense. Not once have they referred to them as brothers.
I mention this very often but Judgment on Gotham is a very frustrating arc to read when you know Dick Grayson can in fact stop Michael with One Word. I am not joking, he literally has done it before.
Yes. Dick is letting Michael BLOW UP GOTHAM and burn down ORPHANAGES without stepping in when it is That Easy for him to incapacitate Michael.
Now you might ask .. why doesn’t he help… well..
Because he wants to give Michael a chance to prove the both of them are capable of becoming a good person.
Are you serious. Dick. You can’t let yer boyfriend nuke a city over this.
What even is the non gay explanation of this. Genuinely.
