Oh my god can you please share your reading recs for Rose? 🙇🙇🙇 Ideally if it's possible i'd love to see your thoughts on:
-your personal favourite arcs/stories, what you consider essential readings
-if there's a mini/short arc you think characterizes her great and is a good standalone (i.e. for fic writers who want to do her right but don't have time to read a whole rec list)
-some rose meta if you got it? Your own or someone else or you can just yap about her rn i'm curious and invested!
Also I'm curious if there's any fan artist on tumblr who does a great Rose you wanna give a shout-out to?
Sorry for the tall order, feel free to ignore me/just answer whichever you want!
Rose!!! She is my favorite of favorites I would love to answer this
If you're looking for a comic that does her justice to give you an idea of everything she has going on, you want Knight Terrors Ravager. It's just two issues, it's focused on her dynamic with her father and a projection of her childhood self, it's beautifully done and for a current event tie-in comic it has a lot of surprising deep cut references to her canon.
That said. Content warning for *very heavily implied* CSA and on-page abuse in her comics, including Knight Terrors, which means I'm going to be treating both as canon when I talk about her and is why the rest of this is under a read more
Rose suffers from a lot of her core appearances being in Geoff John's Teen Titans run, which is...not good comics but it is the point where she went from "background daughter of Slade who is also Lian Harper's nanny" to having her own storylines. @/roseworth has a more complete breakdown of this era
Ravager origin (Teen Titans 7-12): Rose is manipulated by Slade into taking up the Ravager mantle, drugged by him, they fight the Titans, and she ultimately stabs her own eye out trying to win his approval, there's another short arc where she and her father are working together but they're not the main focus.
After the One Year Later Timeskip, Rose ends up as a core member of the team. She forges a deep friendship with Eddie Bloomberg (Kid Devil), a rivalry with Cassie Sandsmark that gets very catty because it's Johns writing, and wrestles with both the team's distrust of her and her distrust of herself. I hate her writing in most of this. It's all very hypersexual trauma victim by way of a writer who's not remotely equipped to tell that story.
Noteworthy Rose arcs
Note that all these arcs are after Johns left the book and mostly written by McKeever, with Winnick and Wolfman involved in the Deathtrap crossover
The Teen Titans Deathtrap Crossover: Rose and Joey crossover arc that starts in issue 69 of Teen Titans and continues into Titans and Vigilante. Joey is going through an evil phase here.
Ravager Fresh Hell (72-82, with a brief pause for a blackest night tie-in that's also worth reading): this is essentially a Rose solo series focusing on who she is when she's alone, what she fights for, and her inner demons
Rose & Mia friendship arc (99-100): they have a lot of great interactions in these issues, they also interact at Lian's funeral in Rise of Arsenal but I only recommend that issue if you're desperate for Rosemia content
Nightwing 112-117 (Renegade arc, Devin Grayson): this is the 'Rose leaves her father with Dick's help' arc - it's essentially the connective tissue between Villain Era Rose and the Rose we get after OYL
Post reboot
Deathstroke 2016: I recommend at least trying the first arc which has Rose and Slade interacting. This book is messy but it does fascinating things with Rose, her trauma, and her parallels with Tara and Joey. CW for very heavy CSA themes.
I've enjoyed a lot of her post-2016 appearances as well including Brave and the Bold/Wildstorm, Robin/Shadow War, and Man Who Stopped Laughing.
Honorable mention to DCeased, Future State, and the Primer comic as they're Elseworlds but interesting nonetheless.
For backstory completionist purposes
Deathstroke vol 1 issues 0, annual 4, 15, 42-55: scattered early Rose appearances throughout her father's first solo, hard to get through but this is the most Lillian and Rose mother-daughter content we get and I love Lillian Worth.
Titans 26-39: pre-Ravager Rose living with Roy Harper, babysitting Lian, billed as 'a master of the martial arts'
There's a lot of art and meta in my 'rose rav' tag.
My thoughts:
Rose is interesting because the narrative spends a lot of time telling people she's unstable and aligned with her father and a killer -- and for that matter, that she's sexy/horny -- but if you look at what's actually on the page the character's "villain arc" is mostly contained in early issues of Teen Titans 2003, the Renegade arc of Nightwing, two issues of Cass Batgirl (and some not great nu52 arcs). What's actually on page is Rose as a member of the Titans (or currently Stormwatch); a fairly reliable ally to various Bat characters (Jason, Damian, Dick, Cass - I got another ask about her dynamic with the Bats and I'm going to put further thoughts and reading lists for those relationships there because this got long); and a person with an exceedingly complex relationship with her family including her half-brothers (Joey/Jericho and Respawn), dead mother, and shitty dad who she deeply wants to believe in but who keeps letting her down in genuinely horrifying ways.
Rose and sexuality: Rose spends a lot of time flirting and throwing out innuendo, but (a) the people she flirts with don't usually take her up on it and (b) in Deathstroke Rebirth it's repeatedly stated that Rose *isn't actually interested in changing that* (she calls it owning her sexuality and Slade mocks her for it); in Gotham War Red Hood when she tells Jason she'll "lick his wounds" she isn't upset when he says no but instead says she expected he wouldn't. I read her as using hypersexuality as a defense mechanism to prevent people from looking deeper.
There's a really good web weave I reblogged recently that pulls together the panels where Slade is talking about her as his daughter compared to the panels about Tara Markov (whom he canonically groomed in canon when she was 15) and Cass (who he canonically drugged and abused) and the frankly disturbing amount of parallels. If you add Tanya Spears (Power Girl II) and Amy Allen (Bombshell) to the list you get at least 5 on-page situations involving Slade Wilson and teenage girls in canon (I believe there's a 6th with a character named Pop Rocket but I haven't read that run). DC struggles with acknowledging this because they go through periods where they want Slade to be a Noble Mercenary Dad but being an abuser has been part of his character since the beginning, and that's core to understanding his dynamic with Rose, Rose's visible trauma responses, and why it genuinely upsets me how quick various characters in-universe are to dismiss her as "like her father" or "a bad girl who can't be trusted." She's one of the Bad Victims of DC, caught in the constant cycle of looping back to her father (all the way from Teen Titans to Dark Crisis) and then being held responsible/distrusted for it. She's a good girl now, as she says in her OYL first appearance as a Titan, but no one -- not the heroes, not her, not DC itself -- seems to be fully able to take her at her word.
Hi! I am coming at you about the "hozier album //Jason Todd" repost you made, in which you stated that you would take no criticism and, should someone come at you, you would rant line by line about it
I don't particularly disagree with you, but as a hozier and jason todd fan I need to hear more about this!!!!
Ohhh ho ho ho ok I have been SAVING this ask as a little treat because I was so excited when it came in but I've realised if I keep saving it I won't answer it! So! Here we go.
I'm gonna use the first songs from his newest and oldest albums for this (originals not special editions)- only doing a few lines from each or this post will go on forever- but if you send me a specific track, I will do an analysis of linking it back to Jason! There are very very few songs that I cannot do this with.
First up- Take Me To Church! Arguably Hozier's most famous song.
It starts off with these lines:
I think of this one mainly in regards to Robin Jason. Jason was originally a very bubbly, happy character- before he was originally killed off. In future Robin-Jason comics, whilst still maintaining that very Robin sense of humour, he's more volatile and seems to make light of situations he shouldn't- lining up with this first verse. The following "Knows everybody's disapproval" aligns with every comic of Jason since being written with the knowledge that he was disliked as Robin, with several going so far as to have the public in-universe dislike him, too; and with the follow-up of the regret felt when Jason had actually been killed. A lot of voters had expressed being shocked because they didn't believe he would actually be killed off based on the results of the infamous poll, and many in the present who feel Jason was treated unfairly: hence, "They should've worshipped (him) sooner".
I especially enjoy these lines in reference to Jason:
"No masters or kings when the ritual begins" When Jason comes back to life, there is nobody there for him- no welcoming arms of his father, and no condemning hands of his enemies. He is entirely alone; not directly aided in his resurrection by anyone, left to crawl out of his grave on his own.
"There is no sweeter innocence than our gentle sin" Jason was entirely oblivious to the fact that becoming Robin was viewed as a "sin" not just by the viewers, who disliked him for replacing Dick Grayson (as he was, originally, written as a Dick clone, pretty much) but also by Dick, who resented Bruce for passing on the mantle without checking with Dick first, and thus resenting Jason in turn for unwittingly stealing it from him: but Jason was oblivious, and sweet, and claimed it gave him magic. He wanted to help people and do good; and these actions led to his death. Another play on it is that the innocent and childish need to meet his mother *also* led to his death.
"In the madness and soil of that sad earthly scene" I enjoy paralleling between his death and resurrection here. Once again pulling back to the warehouse for the madness part- I personally imagine choppy cuts between the Joker swinging a crowbar to Jason's fingers digging out of the grave. On a different scenario, the line "Only then, I am human" I enjoy the idea of having Jason fighting to swim out of the Pits, lashing out immediately at whomever was closest, to push the bitter irony that without the murderous Mountain Dew he would've still been catatonic and living on the streets. Then it would be juxtaposed with perhaps the dozen-heads-duffel-bag for the following, "only then I am clean", to reference how he feels he is "cleaning up" the streets and making Gotham safer.
Next up is De Selby Part 1- We're starting in the coffin with these opening lines, babey!
This song makes me distraught over how Jason it is to me. I especially in this regard feel the verse, "That God at the start couldn't bear" is very fitting, as Jason was dead for months before coming back to life, as if God was reluctant to allow him to return to the suffering He knew Jason would thus be subject to.
Jason was catatonic for two years before being dunked in the Pit- but I think this line, too, speaks to the innate horror of having died a 15-year-old, and gained your consciousness at 18. He went through the brunt of puberty completely unaware; I have to believe he didn't recognise his reflection as his own, at first- I even imagine he may have seen Willis, instead, and if that isn't a true horror in itself? You no longer recognise yourself as you, but the face in the mirror is still familiar as the one of your abuser. Yikes. Still, for these lyrics specifically, I think the first applies better: Not recognising himself post-Lazarus, feeling disconnected from his body.
For this song I also want to note these lines:
These lines specifically give me CHILLS for Jason. Going from Robin, who is the light to Batman's darkness, to the Red Hood- shadows and resentment and pain. And the way he "transformed" -a la murder Mountain Dew- on top of the fact that as someone brought back from the dead, he is technically an unwilling subject of necromancy- very much hammers the "Is claochlú an ealaín/Is ealaín dubh í" home. Yeah.
Thank you so much for this ask! I love being able to talk about songs I associate with Jason- ESPECIALLY Hozier ones.
And Jason is telling Steph her taste in women is as bad as her taste in men
Is that in reference to the ball in the head, is there a cheerleading rivalry between Jason and Cass, a one-sided animosity on Jason's side, Jason is randomly terrified of Cass, or a secret fourth thing my brain isn't big enough to conceptualize?
(love the AU so much btw)
Babe they're siblings Cass and Jason are still siblings in this au
Is it evil and terrible if I ask you to imagine a hel² vs helstarr scenario?
Waynetress having to choose in a deadly scenario perhaps... The universe is coming apart at the seams. You can't imagine your life without one of them, and some days you forget that the other isn't sewn inside your marrow. You have spent so long hunting ghosts. Who do you save?
is polyamory an answer 😔
i understand what you're trying to put forth here and it's an interesting hypothetical but also like, the premise doesn't really fit any of them imo
all of them have been suppressed by the narrative at some point
none of them have stopped because of the limitations of their situation and managed to beat the odds in their stories
they're all heroes in their own right and none of them need saving
they're all also the type to focus on saving the world, doing the greater good, or doing minimal damage
waynetress specifically doesn't have a lot of loved ones and she seldom got a say in getting to keep them, you know? if at all
but they've all also like lost so much and they all also have been erased by the narratives too and just done so dirty
like... i'm gonna be a pussy but i just think they deserve each other in any combination. polycule, romantic helsquared and platonic helstarr, romantic helstarr and platinic helsquared, or just all good teammates vibing their own way, they'll find each other and they'll survive and they'll be okay. they're self sufficient but also loyal and also heroes. i just think they all deserve one W
the "correct answer" would be karen i guess because source material wise, waynetress knows karen and they're best friends and they know each other ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ but again like. helsquared is so special to my dumb gay brain
Hiii I have a question! Making abstraction of the writing (if that's possible, ik sometimes that's difficult), who's your favourite Dazzler artist? Or like, if you don't remember the name, do you have a comic you remember as really beautiful? What's the most dazzling dazzler you've seen?
BILL SIENKIEWICZ'S DAZZLER COVERS HANDS DOWN!!! like LOOK at these beauties
like i truly feel that this sienkiewicz captures everything that makes dazzler dazzler: her lights, her divaness, her whimsy, her power, and her not being afraid to be her weird silly incredible self in the most chaotic of situations!!!
in terms of comics though, my personal favourite is carlos gómez's work in the x-terminators :) that's my favourite character design for alison blaire, this page below is literally the thing that got me into superhero comics at all!!!
i saw this in 2022 december when i looked up dazzler, i looked up the comic, and then bam, i got into marvel comics because of alison, and then i got into other superheroes, and then i eventually got into dc comics in 2024... literally this one page changed the trajectory of my life
Hi there! Sorry to bother you, you can ignore this if you want, I was just wondering, are there:
-must read Helena Bertellini essential arcs you think are absolutely necessary to understanding her character?
-stand-alone Helena minis (12 issues or less) you really really like?
I'd like to get into her and you seem like you have good taste- I don't want my first impressions of her to get tainted by stumbling on a bad comic on accident! Also it would be super helpful so I can include her in fanfics ^^
OMG HEY!!! absolutely no worries at all, i'm super happy to help out! i had also started with smaller comics when i first started getting into dc, and i really hope that you'll enjoy helena bertinelli's comics!
must reads: her main three origin stories, hands down. they're all very good and loved by her fans, and they provide a pretty good understanding of her, her backstory, her personality, her complicated relationships with her family and her faith, and her motivation!
huntress (1989) — especially the first few issues (#1-6 if i'm not wrong, it has 19 issues in total), which serve as her origin story specifically. this is her debut story and i think this is what REALLY establishes the core of huntress that still remains true to this day.
huntress: year one — my personal favourite!!! the art style is phenomenal, the religious themes are so raw and written with intention, and i just like how hurt, how angry, how lonely, how determined she is. this story might be gritty, but i think it's pretty grounded and well balanced.
huntress: cry for blood — it takes place after no man's land but you can start reading this without having read nml, i did and i loved this so, so, so much. it really does a great job of exploring her grief.
hyo and hcyb both have less than 12 issues.
my personal favourites: (in no specific order)
showcase 93 #9-10
birds of prey: manhunt #1-4
batman #609
huntress & spoiler: blunt trauma
lazarus planet: dark fate
detective comics (2016—) #1034-1061 (a bit more than 12, but some issues in between can be skipped)
batman: secret files: huntress
these are mainly the reading guides i follow:
main reading list | beginner's guide (this user also has a list of only the comic issues in the no man's land arc which have helena's appearances) | completionist
precaution:
content warnings apply to her comics — they van often deal with very dark and triggering content, as she deals with her personal demons but also societal issues and street crimes.
this is a common source of confusion, but crossbow at the crossroads is actually a helena wayne story, not a helena bertinelli story. i think it's pretty amazing and fun, but if read as a hb story it would be received poorly.
one thing i love about helena especially: she cares deeply, especially about children, and she can't always express it in words, but she proves it with her actions and sincerity. she's not just a vigilante, but she's also a schoolteacher who believes in and fights for a better future for her kiddos. AND! she is canonically a catmom, i can die in peace with that fact honestly
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE ASK I LOVE TALKING ABOUT MY WIFE #MYWIFE
