Initially this post was just for me to note down the comic names, but then it turned into a complete, ordered reading list for Carla Moretti/Cinder. which no one really needs because she only shows up for this one big storyline written by Eric Wallace, but whatever.
Every issue on this list is from Titans (2008). It's an ensemble cast, so she has little moments to shine in nearly every issue, but I bolded the ones that go through her history, or have the most interesting characterization moments.
This does also mean that sometimes she's only meaningfully there for a page or two in even the bolded issues, but they're important pages!
Titans: Villains for Hire Special - The Best Laid Plans
#24 - Rude Awakening
#25 - Darkness Falls
#26 - Suffer the Children
#27 - Lost and Found
#28 - Family Reunions, Part One: Past Sins
#29 - Family Reunions, Part Two: Clear and Present Danger
#30 - Family Reunions, Part Three: The Future's so Bright Dark...
#31 - Family Reunions, Part Four: The Fate We Make
#32 - Family Reunions, Part Five: Inheritance
#33 - Broken Promises, Part One: An Eye for an Eye
I started thinking about Carla Moretti's vengeance arc and now I'm having thoughts about her and Jill meeting and I thought I'd pitch it to you as the No.1 Jill Expert to see if you had any thoughts
Before I say anything else: thank you so much for calling me No.1 Jill Expert that's such an honour omg. Also what a banger of an ask
Okay so I have to admit I haven't read her yet and I had to look her up but from what i can tell from the wiki... Based based based
As for your question I'm gonna answer this once with the lesbian brain and once with the meta brain:
1. Again I haven't read Carla yet so this is subject to change but... CrimsonCinder has a nice ring to it, don't you think?
2. Slade being an abusive parent himself, the concept of Carla, who kills child abusers, being recruited by him to kill abusers is fascinating to me. I need to read her before my opinion on the topic is better defined but. Slade is a manipulative kind of villain, so the idea of Carla working for him is very interesting to me because you have Carla, who serves a villainous abuser to get the opportunity to hurt abusers in ways she couldn't before, and Jill, who took Lee Travis' guns to give herself the power to hurt villains in ways she couldn't before, and in doing so accidentally fell under the control of a spirit of vengeance who doesn't share her values and righteousness. For me, what I would want for Jill going forward (and the reason I'm so happy Johns didn't or couldn't write her more afaik) should be a story of freedom and emancipation -it shouldn't be about her "learning" that vengeance is evil and certainly not having some white guy teach her that (like it seems Johns was going for with her), it should be about Jill's journey in regaining control of herself and where that leaves her values at. The interesting thing in Jill's story is that she starts off having a perception of justice as vengeful that is her own, and then after she loses control over her choices and life, she says "justice is vengeance" in a way that feels like... I don't want to say "it's easy to say justice is vengeance when it's the only thing it can be to you rn" because easy is not the word at all but like- justice is vengeance because it has to be, she kinda doesn't have the choice to believe that for herself anymore: her views of justice used to be the fruit of her opinions and guided her actions, but now that process is inverted: her actions retroactively feed her beliefs because she needs to stay coherent with herself. That's something that's quite common with irl people even when they're not the avatar of the spirit of vengeance: when you do something that's not in accordance with your values/beliefs/thoughts, your brain tends to solve the dissonance by retroactively shifting your values to the side until the action fits a bit better within your concept of your Self¹. So it's interesting how the spirit's control steals agency and autonomy not just when it comes to her actions but even with her thoughts. Which begs the control, to a Jill who has freed herself from that control -and perhaps even more interestingly, to a Jill who is in the process of freeing herself from that control, what does justice mean to her? How does it tie with control at this point? That's one of my favourite things to consider with Jill (though I"m aware I say that about every theme with Jill lol) and I think meeting someone like Carla would be very interesting for her in that regard, and perhaps especially if the parallel that I'm forseeing turns out correct. Would love to hear your thoughts on the topic!! In the meantime I need to add Carla to the top of my reading list
1. That's how cults get you, by the way: they get you to compromise on actions, and then once you did something that's a little to the side of what you would usually do, you come to terms with it by making the idea of engaging with a cult fit just a little bit better within your worldview: and then little by little they do that again and again until you're fully indoctrinated. Processes that are, of course, also well known to people working in politics, communication and advertising.
there's a panel somewhere in that villains for hire arc where carla says "we reap what we sow." which is, honestly, fascinating. i feel like her background doesn't really seem like it'd lead her to believing in karma or people getting what they deserve at all.
hi magi!! ty for the ask. i have already answered 8 elsewhere, but the tl;dr is that i don't think rh25 is gonna be that terrible.
12. the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them
cinder/carla moretti is more unpopular in the 'no one knows about her' way than she is in the 'not well liked' way. she's a metahuman who can turn into pink lava/throw fireballs(? something along those lines) & only shows up in the deathstroke titans team arc. the arc itself is mediocre and i don't think she's written all that well but there are a lot of fascinating moments in there that lay the groundwork to make her a really compelling character, i think.
quick little warning, her entire backstory is a trigger warning (child death, csa, suicide) so i'm shoving it under the cut.
when slade runs into carla she's posing as a prostitute to murder child predators, and she agrees to work with him because he promises her access to more difficult targets (e.g. politicians, the very rich). this is after being sexually abused as a child, and i think there's a lot to explore there, potentially, with her choosing to continuously retraumatize herself for the sake of this vengeance.
the guy responsible for much of her trauma, brendt sorenson/nursery cryme, is an arkham inmate. he can control people with his voice and is heavily implied to use this to sexually assault children. while deathstroke's titans team is in arkham she seeks him out intending to kill him, and this accidentally leads to him breaking out.
we later learn that her twin brothers got blown up accidentally by a landmine while playing in the field by her house. slade's goal in this arc is to build a resurrection machine, which carla refuses to use to bring her brothers back + actively advocates for destroying. (she views death as a peace she can never achieve & doesn't want her brothers to experience living in a world where predators exist.) this ends with her destroying the machine + dying in the process.
pseudo-immortality + suicidal ideation is something i love slapping on jason & they're explicit aspects of carla's character. in general she has enough parallels to jason (esp. if you subscribe to the csa headcanon) that i think having them interact could lead to a really interesting relationship & that's something i really want to explore.
ran out of steam. perhaps i'll revisit specifically what makes me like her character, but for now these are the broad strokes of her character.
18. it's absolutely criminal that the fandom has been sleeping on...
posted about this a little bit earlier today but i am thinking forever & always about b&r issue #20 -> rhato #19. bruce bringing jason to the place jason died, jason explicitly saying he wants to move on and leave these memories behind, jason going to s'aru to wipe his memories On Purpose. the canon of the amnesia arc sucks so bad but this is literally so incredibly ripe and perfect for angst. especially since this is set after a reconciliation for them.
in general the things jason chooses to forget by handing these memories off to s'aru is really interesting!! like his cherished memory of bruce taking care of him while he was sick.
also, i am fascinated by the kind of person that amnesiac!jason could be. tynion iv does this in what is possibly the least interesting way. there's so much to explore how jason would act stripped of his memory + you could insert so many callbacks here to how he acted while catatonic in batman annual 25 (the instinctive compassion <3)
there's a lot of compelling aspects to explore here!! we should be exploring this!!
au where syd is a mermaid who’s completely tired of these gross fishermen hitting on her and trying to catch her and most of her friends already moved out of that place but syd is so charmed by this one girl who’s always at the beach playing volleyball with her friends and hOW IS HER SKIN SO NICE N WHITE WHEN SHE’S OUT ALL THE TIME her eyes are prettier than the bluest water syd has seen in her life but why won’t she enter the water she’s always too far away for syd to catch her voice :(
and there’s this one dude who’s always swimming nearby and sometimes ask her how’s her day and smile with all of his nice white teeth and u Gh he keeps doing it even if syd just glares at him and swim away eXCEPT one day she doesn’t. she saw the dude talking to the pretty girl and playing together at the beach and “For humans they’re kinda cute. I mean she’s better but he’s not bad. Are they together? Why? I mean it makes sense they’re both the same species but uh >:(“
so next time the happy cute dude approaches her she bites her tongue and say hi back, tells him her day is fine, the water is cool and the sun is out. it’s only polite to ask him the same and apparently her sudden change of heart makes him smile even harder how is that even possible, she has met sharks with less teeth than him.
he shows up another two times before she can’t take it and she asks if he knows the girl at the beach, “Do you know her name?” and he grins and nods, tells her it’s his best friend, her name is carla. “Do you wanna meet her?”
and syd looks down at her body, her shiny pretty tail reflecting the light of the sun on the water and then at cubbie’s legs. hairy and fragile looking. humans were weird, but they probably thought the same about her. “No, it’s okay. I just wanted to know her name.” she gives him a stiff smile and tells him it’s time to leave.
kinda want lucy to be a selkie who shed her skin and adopted her human form after she got heartbroken by sydney and is now living near the beach as well but sometimes she looks at her sealskin and has urges to go back to the ocean (and syd)
her biggest fear is to have a human stealing and destroying her skin trapping her forever as human but fast forward i think even after she falls for cubbie and tells him the truth i can only see cubbie’s reaction as a “A SELKIE? WHOA :D” and gosh she was ready to bail and run back to the water but hE’S JUST SO CUBBIE she stops being scared
