#respect robin

[fluffykitty149]

HOLY SHIT THIS IS NOT A DRILL PEOPLE

ARE THEY TRYING TO REDO THE EVIL ARC OR SOME SHIT!?!?

AFTER ALL OF THE ANGER WE HAD OVER THE TEEN TITANS RUN THEY PULL THIS BS!?!?

GAUTER THY LOINS CUZ WE MIGHT NEED TO REMARCH INTO BATTLE 🗡️🗡️🗡️🗡️

[yicruz48]

Sign the Petition

Respect Robin- DO NOT DONATE

Respect Robin Petition 

*Please DO NOT donate to petition. Couldn’t find a popular petition website to put it on that didn’t have the donating option.

What is this petition about? 

If you want the full description I recommend you click on the link and read through the petition (I spent a LONG time writing it so I would appreciate a quick read).  

But in summary, there is two parts to this petition:

First is to vocalize our frustration with Damian’s regression as well as the ignorance of his previous development. It also addresses the fact that most fans don’t feel right that Damian, one of the most visibly diverse Robins, is going down this path. 

 Second is to call out DC comics and their editors for creating a comic (Teen Titans) that feeds into many negative racial stereotypes about Arabians, Latinx, Black people and Northeast Asians (particularly Japanese people). 

Do you think this petition will even work? 

I do not know. If I am being honest, I created this petition because I didn’t want to regret not doing anything about this (besides the fact I am feeling very desperate). 

I can only say that the success of this petition is dependent on how much people share it and spread the word about it. 

How can I help?

Re-blog, Re-blog, Re-blog. If you reblog or liking this make sure your ALSO signing it. Remember signatures are important (Probably more important)  as well as spreading the word.  

Spread the word. If you have any group chats with anyone in the comic fandom on Tumblr share it with them, urge them to sign it. The same with any other comic fandom-related group chat on any other platform (Such as Twitter, Facebook, Discord etc.)

Click on the petition and write your reasoning's as to why you agree with the petition especially if you identify racially to any of the members of Teen Titans. Express your frustration as to how it represents you wrongly. Also express your frustrations as to why you think making Damian a villain/ antihero doesn’t sit right with you.  

If you have any suggestions as to how I should spread the word please comment below.  

[henna-wia]

[yicruz48]

“I don’t know what brought you to this.”

Did Bruce really just say, “I don’t know what brought you to this?” 

Like did they really write Bruce so dense he can’t even use his detective skills to guess why Damian went down this route? 

Did he forget that one of the most important people to Damian got shot and lost their memories? 

Did he forget that he didn’t comfort Damian after he saw Alfred die?

I don’t blame the Teen Titans for not knowing, but Bruce?! Bruce knows more about Damian’s personal life. 

[yicruz48]

Teen Titans Review: Annual #2 Part 2

August/26/2020

Part 1

This again pushes the narrative of Damian as the angry aggressor with no self-control nor a ability to be conscious of how his own actions hurt other people.

I am not denying that Damian hasn’t been extreme before or has a temper but if written correctly he would have enough awareness to feel guilt for what he did to Emiko and not act so aggressively towards Bruce.  

This is another section of the issue that I feel conflicted about how to feel about this for several reasons: 

-> The things Damian says in these panels aren’t all false : 

I wouldn’t be sincere in this review if I didn’t acknowledge the truth to Damian’s comparison. In the last two years real time the Wayne Manor has become a sort of coffin and tomb. A manor that only carries the echoes of those who used to live there. 

After a while, I could imagine it would be distressing to visit the Manor because it would remind them of the people who weren’t there anymore. 

-> I fear Anti’s will look at these panels and try to justify Damian as a bad person:

I asked my older brother (Who doesn’t know much about comics besides the bit I tell him) to read the interactions in this issue and give me his opinion on them. 

“To me it feels like the writer is trying to show Damian is conflicted and not in the right headspace therefore showing him erupting into a fight with Bruce violently but...I can definitely see how someone who doesn’t like Damian could turn this narrative against him.”  

And I agree with him. As much as dislike these direction in writing for Damian, I do see what Thompson was trying to do here (and since the beginning of the run). It hasn’t been executed well, but he has been trying to get the reader to sympathize with Damian (more than Glass that is). 

And I believe it is trying to show that Damian is at his wits end, not thinking right-well-I mean-Damian hasn’t been thinking right in TT since 2018, but I guess he’s really not in the right headspace. 

But I have the same fear that my brother mentioned, if you look at these same panels through the same lens of someone who doesn’t particularly like Damian you look at this and think is horrible. I can already imagine what they’d say:

“Look at how badly Damian treats his father!” 

Although your supposed to look at this as Damian having a outburst after keeping in it for so long and not being emotionally-neglected by his father.  

“Alfred’s death was hard for Bruce too, Damian needs to stop acting like he is the only one who is hurt.” 

Even though Bruce is an adult and Damian is a teen(a severely-damaged one at that) and you know...BRUCE DIDN’T COMFORT DAMIAN AFTER ALFRED DIED...

And this further expressed in Detective Comics where Damian causally mentions that he is surprised that his father contacted him. 

Like...um...Damian is a 13-year-old boy...are you really telling me Bruce hasn’t contacted his own underaged son especially after Alfred died? 

“Dick just got shot and lost his memories. He didn’t die. Why is he acting like he died?” 

I talk more about Damian’s and Dick’s relationship here. 

But to put it simply, Dick is one of the only people Damian trusts to be vulnerable with. Damian is extremely independent yet depends on him the most. This is expressed many times in the beginning of rebirth (specifically in the Nightwing and Batman comics). Losing that connection is extremely damaging to Damian.

Moving on, I actually appreciated this scene with Crush. I happy that she kept the group from intervening between Bruce and Damian. 

With the track record of how “great” the Teen Titans are at handling situations them getting in the middle of the fight would’ve made this worse. 

Plus I liked that she recognized that this was something personal. So far, I’ve felt like the majority of the Teen Titans have antagonized Damian and it felt refreshing to see Crush realize that Damian’s actions are more personal than they thought.  

But at the same time, I don’t know how to take this. I feel like they also wrote this in order prop her up to be the new leader in the next issues so at the same time it feels a little insincere.  

I already said this in part 1 of the review but I am grateful for the decency DC or Thompson had to give us some personal reasonings for his actions, but again, it doesn’t work as a good trigger nor does it hold the same hype it would’ve if written earlier when it happened, not months after it happened.

One of the only things about these panels that I have to say is  that I saw some people theorizing on twitter that perhaps Damian was expecting to be punished by his father because of how his other brothers have been treated by Bruce. But I really don’t know myself how to interpret it. 

Why is Damian questioning why Bruce isn’t fighting back? 

-> Was he expecting Bruce to punish him? 

-> Was Damian expecting  his father to challenge his new beliefs?

Because Bruce doesn’t really challenge Damian’s beliefs at the end, if anything, it seems like Bruce gives up trying to reason with Damian. 

Which is sad if you look back to this panel in Batman and Robin 2011:

Jumping back on track, and then we have this panel: 

Which is yet again another panel that I feel conflicted about. 

I guess it’s nice Bruce finally told his son that he loves him, but also it’s a little to late now. Bruce should’ve expressed compassion to Damian when he had the chance, and he had a lot chances to do this: 

-> On his 13th birthday.

-> By being more involved in his life. 

-> When Dick got shot to remind Damian he had someone there for him despite Dick not being there. 

-> When Alfred died in front of him. That was most likely traumatizing for him, would’ve been nice to have someone there to comfort him. 

I feel like I keep repeating myself, but again, this four pages are difficult to interpret. 

 “Everything...lead...to...THIS” 

-> I’m taking this as Damian concluding that being Robin (and everything that encompasses including the no killing rule) lead to him losing people he loved and eventually not being Robin.

“You will never truly see me so long as I am in your shadow.”

-> Damian thinking that Bruce won’t take him seriously if he is Robin? 

-> Thinking that Bruce won’t ever truly see who he really is if he is Robin?

“Now I am finally free.”

-> Damian implicating that being Robin was a burden and/or restricted him from doing what he thinks is “right?”  

As a Damian stan the last four pages were the most painful to read. Seeing Damian leave the Robin title frustrates me soo much. 

Conclusions and Predictions:

-> This issue was not as bad as I thought (but still bad): 

For one, I am glad Bruce didn’t beat up Damian. 

I am glad they had the decency to give Damian more personal reasons to go down this path even if it was late. 

-> (I’m gonna start talking about the art more in my reviews) 

Pansica is a very talented artist BUT I personally don’t think he was the best choice to draw a comic with teens. The adults in this issue were drawn great but I feel like drawing teens is not his strong point. 

There was points in this comics were Damian looked unpleasant and I think it was because Pansica tends to be very detailed although a lot detail does a disservice to drawing teens. As a artist myself, I lay off the details when drawing children since it often ages them more if you put more detail. 

Maiolo’s colors are good. I don’t know if it was a conscious decision or not but the dullness of the color really emphasizes the darker vibe of this issue. 

-> Thompson didn’t fail me this issue, he still manage to make me hate Roundhouse more than last issue :)

He also really pushed that unnecessary Emiko X Wallace ship in the middle of this issue. I think the bothers me about this relationship is that they gotten closer because of Damian killing. I really don’t vibe with that.

-> Bruce just suddenly offering a hug after giving Damian death stares at the beginning just confuses me. 

-> Teen Titan’s didn’t ever take Deathstroke go and basically let him go unless he’ll be appearing next issue. 

-> So far Damian sucks as being a villian/anti-hero, he failed both at killing KGBeast and Deathstroke. 

-> Hate that once again, most of the blame was thrown at Damian.

->To Damian, being Robin was the best thing to happen to him.  

It allowed him to see the mistakes in his past(that he was made to do) and work towards becoming a better person...in other words, it granted him an opportunity to redeem himself. 

Not only that, but it granted him the opportunity to honor the people who helped him become a better person (Dick and Bruce).

And even Damian felt like he needed to “prove” that he could be Robin because I think even Damian felt like he didn’t deserve it or wasn’t good enough. 

What this comic has done with him is atrocious and will always be no matter the outcome. 

I have a petition related to Damian here. I would appreciate it if you shared and signed. 

[yicruz48]

Teen Titans Review: Annual #2 Part 1

August/ 25/2020

*sigh*

Lets get this review over with, shall we? 

We start this issue with Bruce catching Damian red-handed. 

Damian reacts by progressively getting more angry at Bruce as he receives flashbacks of Alfred: 

This is not the only time in the annual that Damian will have flashbacks about Alfred, we get more panels like this later. I’m guessing Thompson is trying to make it clear that Alfred’s death is a major influence in the decisions that Damian is currently making. 

I am grateful for the crumbs of decency Thompson gave us by making these reasoning more personal then, “Batman is a failure and his actions don’t work.”

But there is a few things this fails to address by making this his reasoning: 

->  This only acknowledges the reason as to why Damian started killing but fails as a explanation as to why Damian started the prison (with Emiko) and why he brainwashed criminals (with the Teen Titans). 

The prison and brainwashing started before Alfred died, so it doesn’t work add more substance to those actions. 

-> Knowing that this is most likely occurring months after Alfred died just doesn’t work really well even as a explanation for Damian killing. I’ve said this before with @wesavegotham​ , but you really can’t use something that happened months ago as a trigger for why something starts doing something. 

I mean, you could say that these feelings have been brewing within Damian for months and now we are seeing his feelings erupt but there still has to be a trigger as to why Damian started going down this path seemingly out of nowhere in TT #42. 

I feel conflicted about these panels. On one hand it places most of the blame on Damian for the prison (which he and Emiko both started) and the mindwashing (which all the Teen Titan’s had a hand in), but on the other hand Bruce does blame the rest of the Teen Titans for following along blindly. 

But the promblem with this is that the Teen Titan’s did more then just follow along blindly, they worked alongside him:

-> Emiko worked alongside Damian locking up criminals under Mercy hall and fully believed in Damian’s reasoning even defending Damian from Wallace. 

-> All the Teen Titans were apart of the brainwashing not just Damian. 

-> Damian alluded that he was going to start killing in TT #42 yet they decided to fully ignore it. They ignored something that could’ve prevented Damian from killing, so at this point they are as much at fault for killing Bother Blood as Damian.

“Following alongside blindly” means that they followed behind Damian without being aware what this could lead to. But they knew what they were doing was wrong and knew what this all was leading to but ignored it. 

That is why I feel very conflicted, at this point, they should’ve been blamed equally for what they did and what they let happen under their noses. 

Moving on, like the previous issues Damian is galivanting around trying to persuade the Teen Titan’s to his side while insulting the actions of Bruce as a hero. It paints Damian as the aggressor in this situation while Bruce and the Teen Titans are the victims in this situation. 

Damian is constantly berating them, the Teen Titans are the concerned “friends” and Bruce is the concerned “father.” 

As Bruce admits he is afraid, as I predicted last review, Deathstroke showed up going after the Teen Titan’s (specifically Damian). 

I am assuming Damian immediately knows it is Slade, knows he is being specifically targeted and runs away so he can face Slade by himself. 

I’ve talked about Damian’s and Slade’s dynamic before here, so I’m not gonna delve too much into it but Deathstroke appeared for the purpose I thought he would: 

To (try) to challenge Damian’s beliefs and to be a literal example of what he could become if he is not careful

Because clearly his purpose isn’t to kill Damian and/or the Teen Titans (because he failed terribly at that (I’ll expand on that a little later). 

The fight comes to a pause when the Teen Titans intervene to threaten both Damian and Slade of taking them to jail.

But then Slade does what he does best and taunts Damian (and the Teen Titans) by smiling and teasing him:  

All the Teen Titans (including Damian) charge toward him full force. Slade manages to take down and slip by most of the Teen Titans but forgets about Damian for a spilt second. 

Damian charges towards Slade’s blind spot and strikes him with his own blade (Yet again, not learning that you shouldn’t carry weapons when fighting Damian since he likes to use them against the same people who wielded them specifically if your name is Slade Wilson). 

As Damian is about to land a killing blow on Damian he is stopped by Emiko who uses her bow to shield herself and Slade. 

Damian ends up cutting into Emiko’s  bow and into her shoulder:

This takes me into something else that bothers me. Damian doesn’t even apologize to Emiko for what he did to her. He didn’t even react to it until Bruce told him to put down the blade.  

Damian drops the blade and walks towards Bruce. Bruce tries to reconcile this one of his one of his Bat Dad Hugs ᵀᴹ. 

 Which fails. 

Damian again gets progressively angrier after getting more flashbacks of Alfred and then punches Bruce in the face.   

This again pushes the narrative of Damian as the angry aggressor with no self-control nor a ability to be conscious of how his own actions hurt other people. 

I think this a good place to stop, its getting too long. I might post the rest later tonight or tomorrow. 

If you haven’t already please sign and share my petition related to Damian here. 

Part 2

[yicruz48]

#SaveDamianWayne

Graphic edited by @dcgzilla​

If you follow my blog, then you may have seen me use the hashtags #SaveDamianWayne, #RespectRobin and #RisforRedemption on posts that I specifically talk about my frustration with Damian’s regression in the Teen Titans. 

This hashtag was started by friend @dcgzilla​ on twitter. If you spend time on Damian Stan/ Comic twitter you may have seen this hashtag spreading around. 

We ask that when you make posts either admiring Damian’s development in Tomasi or Gleason’s work, or talking about Damian’s regression in TT that you use one and/or all the hashtags to show express your frustration and/or support for the Damian/ Batfam Stan community.

I have also made a petition related to Damian’s regression here. I currently have over 400 signatures and would love to get it to my next goal of 500.

[yicruz48]

To make things more confusing, in that scene in NW #73 (which is awful), what Jason says is "Drake, you heard batgirls call too?" and when Tim replies "Jason?" Jason tells him it's Red Hood in public, so I'm assuming he didn't call him Drake as in his name, but as in his hero code-name? Why he's in the suite tho???

Your referring to this right? 

Yeah, I am confused about that as well. 

Tim is clearly wearing the Robin suit, yet Jason calls him Drake. At first, I took it as a joke, like Jason trying to get on his nerves by calling  something he clearly doesn’t call himself anymore. 

But it may be that simply Jason hasn’t been filled in about the situation with Damian so he calling him what he currently knows him as. And obviously, in this situation, Tim doesn’t really have the time to go grab a coffee with Jason and chat about family matters while “Barbara could be endanger.” 

Also could be that Tim himself refuses to be called Robin, but I see that as unlikely. 

But honestly, to me, what is more confusing is that Damian will be most likely appearing with his Robin suit next Issue: 

It confuses me because I literally have no idea when this all taking place in Damian’s timeline. Tim is dressed as Robin, so it has to occur after Damian renounces his Robin title right? But then why would he wearing this Robin suit if he is not Robin anymore (Unless he doesn’t have enough time to get a new uniform). 

I mean this could also be happening when Damian is “missing.” 

I guess what I am trying to say is that I am as confused as you. 

If you haven’t already, please take some time to sign and share my petition related to Damian here.