#Joker and Batman being on my top hated characters list
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HE PROTECTED THIS LITTLE GIRL LIKE SHE WAS HIS DAUGHTER IM NOT OKAY
#omfg SOBBING#The fact that Joker thought the girl was Jason’s daughter FDKJDJSK MY HEART#No because him begging scarecrow and Joker to spare the girl actually broke me#Joker and Batman being on my top hated characters list#jason todd#red hood#batfamily#batman#batfam#dc#dc comics#joker
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My Jason Todd Rec List and Character Manifesto! (Edited and updated 28/01/2024)
This is a fuckin mess my ghouls, but I got categories and I got opinions and who can stop me from typing em out? Certainly not @lazaruspiss who is the reason this thing got made!
The format is gonna be
title and page numbers (No #s if I'm recommending the whole title)
picture
Summary and general notes
My estimate of how unhinged he is in this portrayal
What his morals are like; note this isn't about whether he's a protagonist or antagonist
Since cream rises to the top, let us start with:
The Creme de la Creme
The best of the best. The most fun, the most compelling, the most interesting looks into his character.
Green Arrow (2001) #69 - #72
This one really does have it all. Jason runs rings around both Batman and Green Arrow at the same time, all the while going after a goal neither of them ever truly figures out in large part because this story wasn't afraid to let Bruce be either wrong or lying about Jason's motives. It also wonderfully leverages the ways in which the Bats and the Arrows are really good foils for each other. I think I'm going to be turning over the ways these interactions went down for a long ass time. I've been really wanting to go page by page for a comparison between the way Jason treats Mia in this and the way Jason treats Tim in the Titans Tower showdown. Bottom line for this one: It's just so good!
Jason's sanity level: Six out of Ten hinges affixed. He's got a solid grip on things, is reasonably level headed, only problem is he might have completely forgotten how to interact with other human beings outside of combat. Love him for that.
Jason's moral compass bearing: Sympathetic Villain. Decidedly willing to mow down some "brain donors", and his goals are pretty morally grey, but he clearly still has a strong code of ethics.
Joker: the Man Who Stopped Laughing
With Jason's return to being an antagonist after a long stint in the Hero bin comes his return to being really fucking dangerous and whip smart! My boy quotes serious philosophy that gives him a real point to make against non lethal vigilantes and cops! I also think the part where he lets himself be arrested just... it says so much and all of it is wonderfully interesting and feels fitting for his character. He's kept deeply human, and just all of this portrayal gels together really well.
At the time of writing, this comic isn't finished yet, so I'm going off of like 12 issues in which he appears less than the Joker, but what is there is phenomenal, even with Gotham War having... Minorly Derailed Jason's role in things, and one or two inevitable scenes where ya just have to accept that he's not as trigger happy as he should be because DC is married to the Joker.
Also I like that he's friends with my favorite, Stephanie Brown :3 and he and Rose's chemistry is nice. On top of all that? It's a fun comic. Like, I generally hate the Joker, but I found myself enjoying watching the Joker do his Joker things in this one.
Jason's sanity level: Nine out of Ten hinges affixed. Level headed, calm, careful, really the only reason this isn't a 10/10 is cause he's obsessively focused, which like, honestly is pretty reasonable I think.
Jason's moral compass bearing: Clearly Justified Antihero. I almost put down Hero on this one, but ultimately he is just far enough over the line with how he treats the less threatening of the rogues like Killer Moth.
Batman (1940) #408 - #411 Jason's debut featuring Ma Gunn's School and his first ever outing as Robin fighting Two-Face
Just LOOK at this PRECIOUS BOY! I wanna pinch him on his cheeks and give him a handful of these bad boys
Jason has a ton of personality to him right out the gate. The first story has Ma Gunn as the villain and she's a lot of fun. The second story in here with Two-Face is also enlightening with regards to Jason's early personality, even if it's not quite as fun.
Jason's sanity level: Ten out of Ten hinges affixed.
Jason's moral compass bearing: Hero.
Under the Red Hood would be next if it wasn't already filed under ->
Foundational Texts
This is the shit that defines Jason as a character. Much is mutable in any given comic, but somehow, someway, all depictions of Jason are impacted and informed by these three stories. Enough has been said about all of them that I'm gonna keep it brief.
Red Hood: The Lost Days
Jason's sanity level: Eight out of Ten hinges affixed.
Jason's moral compass bearing: Antihero. He kills some incredibly nasty people, while also doing some genuinely heroic shit. The only places where his morals deteriorate are in the presence of Batman and the Joker.
Under the Red Hood
Jason's sanity level: Four out of Ten hinges affixed. Remember how his morals deteriorated in the face of Batman and the Joker? Yeah, that's mostly because he's way, way too personally invested to think straight about them. He's strategic as fuck, but this is not a stable man's strategy for dealing with his issues.
Jason's moral compass bearing: Sympathetic Villain. He is a revenant, a vengeful juggernaut, and breaks an awful lot of eggs making this brilliant disaster of an omelette.
Batman (1940) #426 - #429 A Death in the Family
Jason's sanity level: Ten out of Ten hinges affixed.
Jason's moral compass bearing: Hero.
Joker becoming an ambassador to Iran plotlines count: One too many.
Solid Storylines
These ain't the vaulted heights, but not everything has to be the Sistine Chapel. They're solid, and if you're wanting more Jason I do certainly recommend them.
Countdown Presents: The Search for Ray Palmer and Countdown to Infinite Crisis
Jason is in what I like to call his Purposeless Depression Era during this. It's after his plans in Under the Red Hood fail and he's really just got no place to go, no place to be, and in fact is keenly aware that on a cosmic level, he truly does not belong in this world anymore. He's supposed to be dead. There's something I find quite neat about this team up, with Donna Troy and Kyle Raynor and Bob, it's out of the ordinary for Jason, it's not bat related, and the ways he fits and doesn't fit with the other characters are just neat.
I especially recommend Gotham by Gaslight. The plot will be a lil hard to follow if you haven't read the others, but Jason by the end hopes to return to Victorian Era Steampunk Gotham and the moments of him hoping to literally leave his universe behind are both sweet and sorrowful.
Jason's sanity level: Ten out of Ten hinges affixed. He's just sad and lonely.
Jason's moral compass bearing: Hero. Even if only Donna is willing to tentatively try to see him that way.
Robin (1993) #177 and one page of #182 and the front half of #183
Despite how much Jason is known for it, I think this is the only time we see him trying to run organized crime outside of Under the Red Hood (and uh debatably Battle for the Cowl). Short lil string of appearances, but critical for understanding how he's seen by Tim during this era if you care about that, and it really cemented my understanding of Jason being strangely honest and forthright.
I think the major way other Bats fail to comprehend him is that they expect him to manipulate through lying, which just isn't his style. He doesn't lie about his motives; he doesn't obfuscate his tactics; he doesn't hide how he's feeling. Hell, he doesn't even try to lie his way out of prison! I could not tell you why this series of interactions gave me this impression but it is why I have such faith that when Jason says something, he probably just means it, even when characters like Dick or Tim assume otherwise.
Pity this was the lead up to Battle for the Cowl.
Jason's sanity level: Ten out of Ten hinges affixed. He's even attempting to pick himself up out of his Purposeless Depression Era slump at the start.
Jason's moral compass bearing: Antihero.
Nightwing (1996) #118 - #122 aka Brothers in Blood aka the One Where Jason Gets Tentacles
COWARDS and KNAVES will tell you "the tentacles are so icky and everyone is so OOC" or whatever but again they are KNAVES and COWARDS because bitch this shit is GREAT
Jason: Wow! My bestest big brother killed someone who deserved it, so now I (the person he's rejecting only because I kill people who deserved it) have a real chance at being his family again!! :D Hooray! :) Dickie-Bird why don't you look happy to see me? :) Dickie-Bird I went out of my way to get us matching outfits and stalked your work and killed people in your name so it's nice and easy to make room for me in your life! :) :) :)
Dick:
Jason's sanity level: Two out of Ten hinges affixed. My mans is off his rocker and I adore him like this. Frankly, the entire storyline is unhinged, and it only feels appropriate that Jason is similarly bonkers in yonkers.
Jason's moral compass bearing: Villain. You can sympathize with him, and he is still trying to carry out justice, but I have to call it for straight villain when he's threatening to bomb a building full of innocent people.
Batman and Robin (2009) #23 - #25
I don't have much to say about this one. It's good. The above page is pretty much the highlight.
Wait actually I do have something to say and it is that I would like to lick Jason's abs, pls & thx, because the other highlight is that Winick clearly believes in redeeming Jason's value as a villain through sex appeal and it is working lmao
Jason's sanity level: Ten out of Ten hinges affixed. Certifiably sane, he's passed all his psych exams!
Jason's moral compass bearing: Villain. He threatens to bomb a train station full of innocent people. While he does do that in service of freeing himself and Scarlet, thus making it not completely self centered, I still gotta put him firmly in Villain.
Nightwing (2016) 2021 Annual
In high contrast to the previous two in which Jason acts as a villain to Dick, this one has them working together and the tentative peace and cautious trust they've got going is interesting to me. This Team Z era Jason is interesting to me in general, though I don't know much about him.
Jason's sanity level: Nine out of Ten hinges affixed. He's quite chill, but there's just this little edge to him that says his relationship to violence is a little too casual a little too deep to really be fully hinged.
Jason's moral compass bearing: Edgy Hero.
Your Mileage May Vary
These stories I can't recommend without major caveats or warnings, but I still think are worth mentioning.
Gotham War (It's such a mangled mess that I'm just gonna link a reading guide.)
So, the main problem here is that Gotham War spans five different titles and had three different authors whose renditions of Jason do not feel cohesive or even coherent. The funny thing is though, each rendition has real merits, and while it doesn't go far enough in condemning Bruce's horrifying treatment of Jason for many people's tastes, I have to point out that it's one of the only comics to condemn an instance of Bruce mistreating Jason at all. The fact that the other Robins come to his defense is a HUGE thing! The bar may be in Hell, but it did clear the bar!
Due to how disjointed it is, I'm going to very loosely separate Jason out into two versions of himself. Think of these not as hard lines, but more a spectrum he slides across depending on what author has him that issue.
Jason Primus combines the ideas in Jason's Under the Red Hood speech about controlling crime rather than trying to stomp it out with his more Heroic modern interpretation. He's a chill, funny, smart guy whose protectiveness over the mooks is really charming.
Jason's sanity level: Ten out of Ten hinges affixed.
Jason's moral compass bearing: Hero.
Jason Secundus is much more violent, not used to working with other people, and paranoid and antsy in a way that causes him to take it out on people who really don't deserve it. This is a compelling take on him, though I like him closer to Jason Primus. His trauma has clearly shaped him a lot, both for better and for worse.
Jason's sanity level: Seven out of Ten hinges affixed.
Jason's moral compass bering: Anti-Hero, most of this focuses on him antagonizing two former Joker goons which kinda doesn't work well cause they're mostly scarecrow goons actually and also at one point he hurts them in a way that borderline just seems like stress relief. It's nothing worse than what we see Batman himself doing countless times, but it's still jarring because we've been made to strongly sympathize with the goon in question.
Batman: Three Jokers <- I read it while typing this up, so I got a lotta thoughts
Guh, this one is just fucking sad
So, I don't mind a story being blunt with its message as long as the message actually holds up. Unfortunately, this three parter's attempt at the cycle of violence lesson is... bad. Real bad.
Jason in it is neat! This is a good Jason portrayal somehow despite literally everything about the way this comic frames him! The narrative expects us to believe he is a danger to society on the cusp of becoming another Joker, because he *checks notes* shot the Joker dead, shot at a Joker loyal guy, and roughly interrogated an injured child abuser. At no point does he show signs of wanting to hurt innocent people. At no point does he show signs of doing any hurting without premeditation or a need to defend himself. I'm baffled by this.
My kingdom for a fucking CRUMB of nuance, I swear, smh...
I hear a lot of people hate his one sided romance towards Barbara. This is understandable as it squanders the opportunity to have a female character not be stuck as the narrative sponge for man emotions. I like it from the perspective of a Jason fan, and give condolences for the Barbara fans. It's not healthy, and good fucking job on the janitor sweeping away his letter to her so poor Babs doesn't have to deal with that shit, but I do like Jason's desperation to be loved by someone, anyone, who might show him compassion.
Jason's sanity level: Six out of Ten hinges affixed. He's sad, he's lonely, he needs some PTSD specific therapy, he's a bit creepy about his crush on Barbara, but quite frankly he has it together a lot more than the narrative would like us to believe. The way the other characters treat him like he's some kind of monster just waiting to snap and start maiming people indiscriminately makes me really uncomfortable.
Jason's moral compass bearing: Antihero. Quite frankly I'm tempted to say Hero out of spite.
Red Hood and the Outlaws (2016) #1 - #43
There are three transcendental character moments in this run that I think make it worth reading even if not all of it's your cup of tea. On the other hand though there are some big issues that could very easily be deal breakers. Oh and anything after #43 is a wasteland and #43 is included purely for the implication that being transgender made a woman immortal.
The narrative structure is really heavily dependent on rule of emotional impact/cool/allegorical usefulness. Many events will not make any fucking sense based on petty things like basic logic or the laws of physics, but they do work just fine in the area of what makes the story more fun or the emotional beats hit harder. Stronger than average suspension of disbelief is necessary for the reward of getting a lot of stuff that's, like, just really fuckin cool.
The romantic side plot with Artemis is... odd. Either the author, Scott Lobdell, intended to write Jason as a desperate loser trying to date his uninterested lesbian friend who he co-parents with, or he accidentally wrote a romance so awkward and comp-het that I cannot wrap my head around reading it as reciprocated. This works for me because I have a lot of fun reading Jason as a desperate loser who's not even actually in love with her, he just is desperate to cling to the closest thing he's ever gotten to a nuclear family and in denial about being either aro/ace or gay.
Now, lets explore a lil bit of the whole Jason is a loser angle, cause it's not the whole story, there are many points in which Jason gets to be a badass motherfucker, but he is much, much less of the hypercompetant, highly determined, murderous threat he used to be. Almost none of the newer renditions of Jason are. This Jason in particular though is very soft and cuddly, and fits the archetype of man trying to be the edgy bad boy but who secretly just wants a hug and a warm glass of milk.
If I were to describe my personal Jason in a few sentences I would say that he is someone who loves himself viciously. He feels he has been wronged and is willing to burn down the world to rectify that. He will hold your ass at gunpoint and demand the hugs and warm glasses of milk that he fucking well deserves!
This Jason is about as far away from that as you can possibly get. I still like him though, and I do not count him as being a different character, because when you start with emotional logic that goes like this:
It wasn't my fault + I deserve better = I get to burn the world down in order to get better
It becomes extremely difficult to ever stop burning the world without also deciding "It was my fault" or "I don't deserve better". Jason is meant to have changed a lot, and this is a plausible evolution of the Jason I prefer.
Finally, the handling of Bizarro, a mentally disabled character, is a sensitive enough topic that your mileage will vary, even if I can't think of a bad thing to say about it. Jason and Artemis are really pretty good about treating him with respect, giving him help where he needs it and autonomy where he's capable of taking it. They raise him, but don't control him, and he is literally three days old when they find him so this isn't infantilization. It takes the framing of Lenny from of Mice and Men and Flowers for Algernon and rejects them in a way that I am satisfied with. You'll just have to read it for yourself to see if you're satisfied as well.
Jason's sanity level: Ten out of Ten hinges affixed. I kinda wish he was more unhinged.
Jason's moral compass bearing: Hero. He even saves a puppy and gives them pats.
Knight Terrors: Robin
Have you ever been in the mood for a syrupy sweet hurt/comfort fanfiction in which Jason and Tim were magically forced to talk about how much they like each other in order to overcome their own insecurities? Do you wish that existed as a lavishly illustrated two issue comic?
If you answered yes to those two questions then congratulations! It does exist, this is it, go have fun!
If you think that sounds like ham fisted garbage turning what should be several long arcs of serious reconciliation and deeply meaningful character moments into two issue fan service schlock then condolences! I wish you all the best in denial, as all comic fans sail that river sooner or later and I shall join you upon it someday.
What category do I fall into? Well I think this is definitely ham fisted, but I won't kick a boar out of bed as long as they ain't a bore, and this little ditty is certainly entertaining.
Jason's sanity level: Ten out of Ten hinges affixed.
Jason't moral compass bearing: Hero.
Batman and Robin Eternal
This is a decent portrayal of Jason in his modern, much friendlier, and much more bat family integrated rendition. He has some fun moments in it, and I like his staby bracers.
I don't like this comic. It commits the most dire of writing sins: Being boring. I think about Jason every second of every minute of every day; if your comic that majorly features a good portrayal of him cannot hold my attention, then something has gone very wrong. Hopefully one of you will like it more than I do.
Jason's sanity level: Ten out of Ten hinges affixed.
Jason's moral compass bearing: Hero.
Suicide Squad: Get Joker! (Content warning for suicide, skip to the hot take if this'll get to ya - also spoiler warning cuz I can't discuss this properly without discussing the ending)
A three issue miniseries in which Jason is inducted into the Suicide Squad on a mission to kill the Joker. He's highly competent as a team leader, grounded, intelligent, and uses measured violence in a way that is satisfyingly tactical. The squad they threw together honestly has some pretty neat chemistry as a whole, and the characters were appropriately messy and quite likable.
This isn't higher on the list because it thinks it earned it's ambiguous ending, and frankly, it's wrong about that. Ambiguous endings live and die by the question they make the audience sit with - It has to be worth losing out on the emotional payoff of a solid ending.
The question of "If you left Jason in a room with the Joker and a gun with one bullet, would he shoot the Joker or himself?" is a really shitty question. Like, did the authors not realize that just on a logistical level, Jason could leave the room and find a second bullet after shooting the Joker? Like, seriously, even if we accept the premise that Joker's speech got to Jason, there are no reasons for him not to choose the "both" option. The only way I can imagine this working is if the Joker is actually the fucking Purple Man from Jessica Jones using mind control.
So we exchanged the validation of literally all our protagonists' struggles/sacrifices paying off for... the vague implication that Jason unforgivably betrayed his teammates, himself, and the entire world because he was so eager to die that he couldn't wait ten fucking minutes. If I loved the Joker I might feel differently about it, but as is, I felt insulted.
This would have been Solid Storylines or maybe even Creme de la Creme if not for that implication. It's not boring though! The rest of it up to the end is honestly pretty damn good, if a bit convoluted, and much of the ending's sour taste can be assuaged by getting out a sheet of paper and doodling Jason opening Joker's head with a handgun and then going out for icecream with the team.
Jason's sanity level: Ten out of Ten hinges affixed. He's a sad, sad lad tho.
Jason's Moral Compass Bearing: Anti-Hero, forced to be much more violent than he wants to be.
A Hot Take
I bet you thought the tentacles were the hot take! HAH! MuahahaahhHAHAHAH - Prepare now, puny mortals, to witness me defend Pill Helmet Jason AND his fashion choices!
No, I am not talking about Winick's redo late in the game, we've already been over that one. I mean I will defend Grant Morrison's flop era, three foot head gear wearin, goofy ass, unwashed ass, "how to build ur brand" reading maniac
It's time to talk about Batman and Robin (2009) #1 - #6
The interpretation of one scene makes or breaks this Jason:
If you believe he is being insincere and manipulating her into putting all her emotional eggs in the basket of his crusade, ignoring her wellbeing in favor of his 'brand', then this is probably the worst mischaracterization of Jason ever written.
If you believe he is being sincere, genuinely comforting her in the only way that he's got to deal with his own trauma, giving her real affection and not pushing her to take either option with the mask because he trusts her to make that decision for herself, then this gets Jason very right.
No matter what Morrison might have intended, I choose to believe it's the latter. This is terrible advice to give a trauma victim, but it makes perfect sense for Jason to believe that about his own trauma, and thus to pass that maladaptive view along. He doesn't try to assure her that the mask can come off safely or that he'll get her a doctor because he really can't promise her either of those things. It would be cruel to her to pretend that he's got a solution. Jason can't undo the damage that was done to her any more than he can force a dead Bruce to kill the Joker.
Instead he offers her purpose, and reassurance that she's gonna look badass if she never does take it off, and protects her when she's in trouble.
You can claim this is just him acting out his chosen Hero role, but like, WHY would he have chosen to method act that role 24/7 if he wasn't trying to BE a Hero who protects people like Scarlet? There's nothing in it for Jason to fake this.
I also think if he was being written out of character as a manipulator we would have seen him use a romantic or sexual angle which he absolutely doesn't do.
Dickie, you are such a funny Batman, they never shoulda brought Bruce back tbh.
Instead, he seems to be taking a more parental role, in a near perfect reflection of how Bruce took him in when he was a kid. Just he's doing it his way, meaning that whenever Scarlet goes further with the violence than Jason seems to want to, he backs her up instead of chastising her.
Speaking of violence and morals, Let the Punishment Fit the Crime is a coherent moral position to take, even if you (understandably) disagree with it, or disagree with what punishments fit which crimes. It's basically the same moral position as every other version of Jason there's ever been! Like, is he even killing more people than he used to in stories like Under the Red Hood? No, I don't think he is.
The branding thing is weird, lil annoying too after a while, but ultimately it still makes sense. And brings me around to my promised defense of his fashion choices.
First of all the symbolic importance of the fact that he wears white cannot be overstated in my mind. Will I elaborate? No, this post is way too long already lmao! Second off, it's supposed to be silly. I believe the silliness was a conscious, calculated choice, and the right one to make.
Jason doesn't believe that fear works, he's not trying for pure intimidation, and he knows that he's going to have to appeal to people in his bid to be seen as a Hero. Making himself seem big but non-threatening, a bright patch in the night, makes real sense.
Take a look at this view of Jason from Scarlet's POV when he comes to rescue her from the cops after she kills her dad:
He's got a smoking gun in his hand and he just shot two people dead, yet we're hard fuckin pressed to find him intimidating aren't we?? Cornball dialogue, and the silliest fuckin hat in the universe, because he's not meant to be from this era, he's emulating the Golden and Silver age comics and all their goofiness. He's trying to be the older, happier, sillier batman that used to exist (at least in his head), while doing what he believes is right and necessary.
The costume makes sense dammit!
Also it just doesn't look bad, I can't provide an argument for this, it's just true!!
Also also every one of these fuckers should be wearing a helmet too, this is basic brain safety, if you're gonna go around antagonizing fuckers with guns you need to make your head at least nominally bulletproof, it's that simple!!!
Now... do I recommend you read this? (This section was rewritten on January 28th, 2024)
Yes, with significant caveats. There's a reason I chunked this in with YMMV.
First is the Batman typical ableism of just really fucked depictions of mental illness. I normally wouldn't warn for this because everyone knows most of the rogues and will be aware of what they bring to the table, but Professor Pyg is obscure enough I wouldn't expect people to know, and the way he's written just... hurts. Like there's just something about him that is painful to read as someone that's got several schizophrenic friends who are near and dear to my heart. I would hesitate to recommend it to any of them the same way I'd hesitate to recommend Silence of the Lambs to most other trans people.
Secondly this comic is Extremely Gay (a definite positive!) however it is Extremely Gay in a way that kinda requires some onboarding and analysis to properly parse and that is actually why this post was edited:
The first time I read this comic, my impression was that it was vitriolically homophobic. Considering that at the time I had heard many things about Grant Morrison, and none of them good, I went with my gut. I put here that while I would defend Jason's characterization, I couldn't in good faith recommend something so bigoted, detailed what felt bigoted, and went on with my day.
Then a while later I saw a post that I suspect was talking about this one saying something along the lines of "How the hell could you call Grant Morrison, who gave us so many of our most iconic gay characters, homophobic? The racism and such I can understand but homophobic? No."
To which my initial response was a resounding: Wha??? Like, genuinely how was I supposed to read this and not get homophobia out of it?? But I went and looked Morrison up and yeah sure enough the guy's queer so I dug deeper and mulled it over until I figured out what the fuck I was missing. So, this section is a correction and an apology about that earlier homophobia claim. Sorry about that.
The styling of this queerness are highly akin to that of the John Waters movie Pink Flamingos which I'll let Matt Baume explain better than I ever could. This guy right here is pretty much the perfect example, Hell, he's even literally named The Flamingo.
Essentially it's queerness is all aggressive, unapologetic, and designed to be provocatively shocking, which can be jarring if you're not ready to flow with it. Also he likely had to arrange a lot of things to get around censorship, same as Judd Winick did. For instance the fact that Dick spoke the same circus lingo as the police precinct destroying troupe of Very Queer Freakshow Workers was meant to imply that Dick is Very Queer too. Pretty sure he would've said that in a far less convoluted way if he could've.
So, with the bulk of my initial reservations about this comic disproven... I have no choice but to straight up recommend it to anyone who thinks they can jive with this vibe of storytelling!
Jason's sanity level: One out of Ten hinges affixed. Obsessive, not taking care of himself, possessed of some really maladaptive trauma coping frameworks, completely unhinged. My condolences to his mental health, but I do love to see it.
Jason's moral compass bearing: Antihero. It's weird because this is undeniably a much darker comic, and Jason certainly feels darker, but in terms of what he actually does, and what the other characters do, his violence is honestly very tame.
So, cards on the table, here is the core of who Jason is to me:
He's got clear moral motives and a drive to help as well as harm, though violence and harm are the main ways in which he tries to improve the world.
When confronted he does not back down; he does not let himself be overshadowed or silenced. He is confident in his decisions and every bit of push back is already accounted for in his head.
Everything he does is premeditated. He is not impulsive. His plans may sometimes be unhinged but they are methodically planned.
He is painfully sincere, the way fire is painfully hot.
He desperately desires love and connection, but it will take many years of constant rejection and fighting before he is willing to accept any kind of compromise to his ethics for the sake of civility.
Under all the hurt and combativeness, he's a pretty goofy guy! He's got a sense of fun and likes to be flamboyant and silly when he can!
He's a villain, a hero, a protagonist, an antagonist, and everything between the extremes. He exists as a powerful counter-thesis to Batman, and as such DC can't ever fully answer the question of what to do with him. He exists in this waffling limbo state as his morals are debated, stretched, refuted, turned on their head. I think that makes him a wonderfully fascinating character to love.
I hope you enjoyed this and, like, go have fun reading comics!
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Saying that I hate Nolan's Batman in a room full of man just to feel something
But here's a random list of my rating of different Batman that nobody asked because I love giving my opinion
The Dark Knight Trilogy: Solid Batman, hate the Bruce Wayne. Brucie, the public persona, is supposed to be a bimbo that cares for the city, not a rude arrogant prick that sinks the Wayne name. It completely butchered his relationship with Harvey too for... *checks notes* Rachel? Nahhh 2/10, a male fantasy movie but it gets one point for showing his training years and another for some cool one-liners
The Batman (2022) – I love the movie and that's top Batman to me, especially the last scene. Batman is a symbol of hope, compassion. I had the same problem as the Nolan's one for the larger portion of the movie: instead of using the Wayne Inc. to do good, he doesn't care about his parent's heirloom and drowns into being Batman. HOWEVER, it's pretty clear how raw and wounded he still is, and after the whole Riddler deal, I can see him turning this around and doing good as Bruce Wayne too. My fav live action movie but it gets a 8.5/10 on characterization
The Long Halloween, Comic – classic Batman, I like his personality and how he lets Batman and Bruce work together to do better to the city. A inspiration for the 2022 movie too. 9/10
The Long Halloween, Tomorrowverse – butchered the storyline and I shit you not Bruce says "I never thought I would need to do detective work to be Batman". Made him all muscle and no brain. Cool art but it doesn't even get a point for it, couldn't bring myself to watch more than 20 minutes of the part two. I kinda liked how he acts with Selina though. Yet, keeps it at -10/0
The Arkham Games – I watched the Arkham Knight gameplay like it was a movie and then watched scenes from other games on yt. That's the ideal way Batman operates to me. Thing dreams are made of. Also balanced on his public facade. 9/10
Batman The Animated Series, Timmverse – can't ask for better. Always offering rehabilitation to villains? Showing empathy for freeze and ivy and Harley!? and his friendship with Harvey? 10/10
Justice League: Unlimited – The timmverse gets him right and I love to notice how he progressed as a character. Love how they write Bruce's friendship with Clark and true partnership with other Leaguers. Also love his relationship with Diana, wonderbat forever. 10/10
Batman, Tv animation (2004) – The story is tailored to be palatable to kids so they changed some elements. It's fun to watch tho, 7/10
Batman Vs. Superman – guilt-ridden, PTSD older Batman? Pretty solid on the premise and I could see any Batman acting that way with enough groundwork. I just don't like the whole marking criminal and sending them to prison to die. Bruce wouldn't, doesn't matter how grief stricken he is. 8.8/10
Gotham (Tv Series) – Eh. Young chaotic Bruce. The focus of the series is on the villains and I didn't even pay too much attention to him tbh. I love a disaster teenager Bruce tho, 7.6/10
Young Justice – Gets points for bonding with Dick earlier in the series and for later showing him operating with a larger Batfam. Also accurate on the way Batman operates. He would leave the League because he's not about being part of a society or the status that come with it. The League had a purpose, which was facilitating saving people. Than he couldn't save people with it? He left. 9/10
Superhero Girls – exploring him being Kardashian-level celebrity?? Hilarious. But I don't like the other implications the show makes about him as Batman. 3/10
The Killing Joke, animated movie – something about how he acts throws me off. Older Batman but done badly. I think they don't work enough to drive him to murder. Should have left him kill Joker when Jason died. 2/10
Ninja Batman – The writers had LSD to write it. Insane. Hilarious. Didn't like that he was "oooh I don't have tech what will I do? :(" Batman is a survivalist so be for real. 4/10
Year Zero (comic) – hate that buzz cut. He wouldn't. Otherwise solid. Also another inspo to 2022 movie. 6/10
Year One (comic) – classic backstory, can't ask for anything else on personality matter. The fact he hallucinated a bat while he was concussed and thus made himself Batman because he thought it was rad? Peak characterization. 10/10
Harleen (comic) – He's not the focus of the story but I do love when they show how much sheer power the Wayne name carries. He has a steady hand over Gotham, a background influence constant and unwavering. Also that dialogue on the end where he's blaming himself for everything that happened even though it's not his fault? Yeah, it tracks. 9/10
Turning Points (comic) – the way he acts... He's such a theater kid. Also accurate on how Robin happened and I love he doesn't try to fight Gordon but humbly accepts Jim is going to hunt him if something happens to Robin. 9/10
There's a black and white one shot comic that Dan Mora made that I can't rember the name but?? Bruce adopting Jason, Dick and Tim in one go?? Can't go wrong for me. I am also not immune to how Mr. Mora draws Bruce. 100/10
The goal of this year is to watch more timmverse and read more comics with the batkids
#batman#batfam#dcau#dcu#dc universe#dceu#me!batman#me!batfam#i will updated when after consuming more media
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Batman/Catwoman (Tom King & Clay Mann)
Issues # 1-12
Read January 2024
Story: 5/10
Respectfully I love Tom King. Of my top 10 favorite comics of all time he has multiple on the list but this is truly not one of them. I love Tom for his unique take on story telling, playing with the readers and trying new things but honestly this book is a fucking nightmare to read. The three different storylines being told 2 1/2 pages at a time with little to no differences between the past and present timeline literally sharing multiple characters and plot points between them makes it a nightmare to try and read and care about. The joker is flat out annoying in this book, he just comes in every issue and yaps about nothing and is used to throw a wrench into the relationship I’m trying to care about after the first 50 issues of his story kind of failed the relationship. This is the epic conclusion to his mixed Batman run and he chooses this story telling device and plot to tell it. Baffling. To his credit I think by themselves a lot of these story elements are awesome. I love the phantasm storyline in this book and the future catwoman/batwoman story is also fascinating. Both of these deserved their own mini series and could have just been this story but instead they are combined and mushed together in the most awkward and unorthodox way. This was a massive disappointment, and I hope it’s just a small hiccup in an otherwise stellar career.
Art: 8/10
Let’s start this the right way; Clay Mann is my favorite comic book artist of all time. No debate. However, The art like everything in this book is just… a confusing choice of squished together elements. When Clay is on the book, the art is flawless. Stunning character design, lighting, colors, and page layout are incomparable to the rest of the industry. His art makes me flip pages in awe. But just like the story randomly we just switch to another piece that confused everything and makes it worse. Respectfully I don’t know him and I don’t know his work too well but Liam Sharps art in this book is not cutting it. They switch to him halfway through for several issues and the art declines so sharply in my opinion especially when book ended by Clay’s art. It might just not be my style and many people may like it but I truly thought it was awful and didn’t fit the book at all. I can’t believe how much I hated the scratchy lines and twisted looking features in a book that had been so clean and tight the whole time.
Special Notes:
- I’ll always support a phantasm storyline and I really appreciate their inclusion into the story
- I’m baffled by the choices in this book and I can’t say it enough
- I wonder if there is a cut of this book that is just told in timeline order and how much better it actually might be
- Helena is actually an awesome character and I would legitimately read that book
Overall Rating: 5.5/10
I’m so, so disappointed in this. I remember in the first couple issues overlooking the weird story telling device and just being in awe at how cool it was. But it just kept going and by the end I felt defeated. I truly didn’t enjoy this read. The story doesn’t justify the awkward telling, and even the art gets hijacked and can’t carry this to a stronger score. I’m immediately going to read another Tom King book to reassure myself that this is just a symptom of a problem plagued Batman story that’s finally concluding in this book.
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Your Favorite Movie Is Probably Overrated, and That’s Okay (Repost from Quora)
What do Star Wars, Pulp Fiction, and The Dark Knight have in common? They are all overrated.
Now before you crucify me, let’s back up a little, and I’ll explain.
“Overrated” is used as an insult these days. Maybe it’s been used as an insult since forever, I don’t know. But I think being used as an insult is an incorrect function for this word. Is it a criticism? Sure, could be. But I think even criticism sounds a little too negative. It is not necessarily a bad thing to be overrated.
Take the three examples I just gave: Star Wars, Pulp Fiction, and The Dark Knight. If one or more of those isn’t familiar enough to you, fill in one of your own examples. Pretty much any movie or franchise whose characters appear on children’s lunchboxes and/or frequently make people’s “Top Ten Best Movies of All Time” lists will qualify. The Godfather, Taxi Driver, anything Marvel or DC, it’s all overrated.
Now, these are without question some of the most popular movies of all time, and for good reason! Like so many people, I’ve loved Star Wars since I was old enough to form coherent thoughts. I also love the famous apartment scene from Pulp Fiction, and I think Heath Ledger is the best live-action Joker we’ve had so far. These movies deserve to be applauded. I don’t hate any of them.
However, I submit to you, when a movie is as popular as these three movies are, it’s impossible for them to not be overrated. Inevitably, there will be millions of passionate fans singing their praises day and night. And honestly? I’m kinda tired of it.
What more is there to say about The Dark Knight? What completely original opinion about anything related to that movie can you tell me?
I’m not even gonna wait for a reply, because the answer is nothing.
That’s what this podcast is all about: discussing movies that don’t get discussed, at least not as often as they should. Wait, I hear you say. Didn’t you just talk about Spider-Man last time? Yes, I did. But it was to make a point about a larger idea. I’ll probably mention Spider-Man or Batman or Star Wars on occasion…if it helps me illustrate an opinion I don’t think can be explained any other way.
To reiterate, I don’t hate Star Wars, Pulp Fiction, or The Dark Knight. But I do believe, because they are so ridiculously popular, it would be foolish to think they aren’t overrated. And that’s okay! Some of my favorite movies are extremely obvious, mainstream choices, and I would say they’re overrated, too. Remember, we’ve been misusing that word. Just because a movie is overrated, doesn’t mean it’s bad, it just means all that needs to be said about it, has been said. See you next time.
#movie#movies#film#film discussion#just admit it#evco productions#evco#the dark knight#pulp fiction#star wars
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Do you think Jason Todd fandom is kinda toxic? Because it seems like NO MATTER what DC do, there'll always be complains. Forget the bad adaptation like Titans. Even Judd Winick cannot escape the criticism with how he potrayed Robin!Jason. They just never satisfied.
SORRY, IT TOOK ME SO LONG TO RESPOND TO THIS. I just moved from Washington D.C. to Seattle, which, for my non-American friends, that's 4442km away. And I DROVE THERE ALL BY MYSELF. And now I'm trying to find new work in a new city and trying to stay mentally healthy and positive. Life is exciting but hard and scary.
*sighs*
As someone who was a fandom elder with V*ltr*n. I've seen some of the worst when it comes to fandom behavior. I'm talking people baking food with shaving razors and trying to give them to the showrunners. I'm talking leaking major plot details and refusing to take it down unless they make their ship canon (I am looking at you, Kl*nce stans) For the most part, DC Comics has had a decades-long reputation of treating their fans like trash and not caring what they think so from what I've seen, we all just grumble and complain in our corners of the internet about how we don't like how X comic portrays Jason Todd.
The challenge with Jason Todd is that he's your clinical anti-hero, the batfamily's Draco in Leather Pants, he's a jerkass woobie, and on top of all of that, he's a Tumblr sexyman. It's a perfect storm for a very fun but frustrating character to be a fan of. It doesn't help that every writer decides to re-invent the wheel every time Jason comes up so his canon lore is confusing at best and inconsistent as a standard.
I guess starting with a general brief on who Jason is and what is uniform about him with every instance he's appeared in comics/media.
Grew up in a poor family in Gotham with a dad who was a petty-mid-level criminal, and a mother who dies of a drug overdose.
Survives on the street on his own by committing petty crimes and potentially even engaging in sexual acts to keep himself alive.
Is cornered by Batman and taken in after Dick Grayson quits/is fired
Becomes the second Robin, but is known for being the harsher, more brutal Robin.
Is killed by Joker after being tortured, but somehow comes back to life and regains senses through the Lazarus Pit
Resolves himself to be better than Batman by basically being Batman but kills people.
Where there has been a lot of conflict in the fandom is the fact that Jason Todd is not a character that is written consistently. DC Comics loves to go with the narrative that Jason was "bad from the start" and was the "bad robin" when, yes, he has trouble controlling his anger, but he also still is just as invested in seeing the best of Gotham City and trying to be a positive change for the world as any other DC Comics hero.
Where I get frustrated with the fandom is its ability to knit-pick every detail of a comic they don't like while completely disregarding everything that makes the comics great and worth it to read. My example being Urban Legends. To which most people had pretty mixed reactions to. I was critical of the comic at first but as it went along I ended up really liking it. I have a feeling DC Comics went to Chip Zdarsky and told him he had 6 issues to bring Jason back into the Bat Family, and honestly he didn't do a bad job. Did it feel rushed? Absolutely. I wish there was more development of Jason and Bruce's characters and their dynamic as a whole. However, where I see a lot of people being angry and upset with Urban Legends is that they feel Zdarsky needlessly wrote Jason as an incompetent fool who needs Bruce to save him.
Whether or not that was the intention of Zdarsky is up to debate. However, and this may be controversial, but I don't think he wrote Jason Todd out of character at all. For as fearsome, intimidating, and awesome as Red Hood is. Jason is a character who is absolutely driven by his emotions. Why do you think he donned the role of Red Hood? As a response to his anger towards The Joker for killing him, and towards Bruce for not taking action against The Joker and for seemingly replacing him so quickly after he died. Jason didn't care about being the murderous Robin Hood or for being the bloody hammer of justice against N*zi's and P*d*ph*les. He only cared originally about making The Joker and Bruce pay. It wasn't until he trained under the best assassins in the world and realized most of them were horrific criminals who trafficked children and were p*dos that Talia began to realize that the teachers that she sent Jason to train under started dying horrific and painful deaths.
The entire story of the Cheer story in Batman Urban Legends was started because it finally forced some consequences upon Jason. Tyler, aka Blue Hood's father was a drug dealer who gave his supply to his wife and kids. And when Tyler's father admitted he gave the drugs to Tyler, it immediately made him fall within the self-imposed philosophical kill-list of Jason Todd. And Jason, well, he proceeds to kill Tyler's father. When this happens, Jason is in shock. Tyler's dad fit the bill to easily and justifiably be killed by Jason. We've never seen Jason having to deal with the consequences of being a murderous vigilante on a micro-level. When Jason realizes what he's done in that he's murdered Tyler's dad, he's shocked. He tells Babs the truth. He does a rational thing because he's in shock. He doesn't know what to do, he never has had to face the consequences of his actions as Red Hood and now the gravity of befriending a child as a vigilante hero who kills people just set in when he killed the father of the same child he was just introduced to.
(Oh here's a little aside because it had to be said, Jason would not have been a good father or a good mentor to Tyler and absolutely should not have been his new Robin. Jason is a man who is in his early 20's (not saying men in their early 20's can't be good fathers at all) who is a brutal serial killer using the guise of a vigilante anti-hero to let him escape most of the law. the complications of having the man who murdered your father adopt you and make you his sidekick are way too numerous for me to explain in a long-winded already heavy Tumblr essay post. There's a reason why we don't advocate for a story where Joe Chill adopted Bruce Wayne or one where Tony Zucco took in Dick Grayson.)
The next biggest argument is that they feel that Jason is giving up his guns as a means to just be invited back into the Bat-Family. To which I will tell anyone who has that argument to go actually read Urban Legends. Already have and still have that argument? Please re-read it. Don't want to? That's okay, I will paste the images from the comic where Jason specifically says that he doesn't want to give up his weapons for Bruce and his real reasoning down below since the comic isn't exactly readily accessible.
Jason gave up the guns because he felt the gravity of what he had done and knows how it'll effect Tyler. Thankfully his mom is alive and in recovery. But Tyler doesn't have a father anymore. And Jason killed Tyler's father. It may have been in accordance to Jason's philosophy, but it was a case where it blurred the lines. Jason Todd isn't a black and white character, just very dark gray. He doesn't kill aimlessly like the Joker. If you are on Jason's list you probably have done something pretty horrific, and also just in general, being in his way or being a threat to him. Mind you, in early days of Red Hood and the Outlaws (Image below) Jason almost killed 10 innocent civilians in a town in Colorado all because they saw him kill a monster. That being said, Jason isn't aimless in his kills.
(Also can we just take a moment to appreciate Kenneth Rocafort's art? DC Comics said we need to rehabilitate Jason Todd's image and Kenneth Rocafort said hold my beer: It's so SO GOOD)
That being said, the key emphasis in the story of Cheer asides from trying to introduce Jason Todd back into the Bat Family and give an actual purpose for him being there, other than him just kind of being there ala Bowser every time he shows up for Go Kart racing, Tennis, Golf, Soccer, and the Olympic games when Mario invites him, is that Jason and Bruce ultimately both want the same thing. Jason wants to be welcomed back into the family and to be loved and appreciated. Bruce want's Jason back as his son and wants to love and protect Jason. Both of these visions are shown in the last chapter of Cheer while under the effect of the Cheer Gas. It's ultimately this love and appreciation they both have for each other that helps them overcome their challenge and win.
Jason Todd is a character who, just like Bruce, has been through so much pain and so much hate in his life. The two are meant to parallel each other. While Bruce chose to see the best in everyone, giving every rogue in his gallery the option to be helped and give them a second chance, hence why he never kills, Jason has a similar view on wanting to protect the public, but he understands that some crimes are so heinous they cannot be forgiven, or that some habitual criminals are due to stay habitual criminals, and need to be put down. But at the end of the day, the two of them both try to protect people in their own ways.
I am aware that through the writings of various DC Comics authors such as Scott Lobdell and Judd Winick, the two have had a very tumultuous relationship. And rightfully so, I am by no means saying that Scott Lobdell writing an arc where Bruce literally beats Jason to within an inch of his life in Red Hood and the Outlaws, nor Judd Winick's interpretation of Under the Red Hood where Bruce throws the Batarang at Jason's neck, slicing his throat and leaving him ambiguously for dead at the end of the comic is appropriate considering DC Comics seems to be trying everything they can to integrate Jason back into the family. That being said, a lot of these writings have shaped the narrative of Jason and Bruce's relationship and have an integral effect on the way the fandom views the two. It doesn't help that Zdarsky acknowledged Lobdell's life-beating of Jason by Bruce at the very end of Cheer by having Bruce give Jason his old outfit back as a means of mending the fence between the two of them. That does complicate a lot of things in terms of how they are viewed by the fandom and helps to cause an even greater divide between the two.
Regardless, I want to emphasize the fact that Jason Todd is a part of the family of his own accord. Yes, he's quite snarky and deadpan in almost every encounter. However, Jason is absolutely a part of the family and has been for a while of his own will. There's a great moment in Detective Comics that emphasizes this. Jason cares about his family because it is his found family. Yes, they may be warry about him and use him as a punching back and/or heckle him. At the end of the day, we're debating the family dynamics of a fictional playboy billionaire vigilante whose kleptomania took the form of adopting troubled children and turning them into vigilante heroes. Jason Todd wants a family that will love and support him. This is a key definition of his character at its most basic. This was proven during the events of Cheer and is being reenforced by DC Comics every time they get the opportunity to do so.
Now, none of this is to say that I hate Judd Winick. I do not, I don't like the fact that in all of his writings of Jason, he just writes him as a dangerous psychopath, and Winick himself admits to seeing Jason as nothing much more than a psychopath. Yet Winick is the one who the majority of the fandom clings to as the one true good writer of Jason Todd because 'Jason was competent, dangerous, smart' Listen, friends, Jason is all of that and I will never deny it. However, what I love about Jason isn't that he's dangerously smart of that writers either write him as angsty angry Tumblr sexyman bait or that they write him as an infantile man child with a gun. There's a large contention of this fandom that has an obsession with Jason Todd being this vigilante gunman who is hot and sexy and while I definitely get the appeal. It is very creepy and downright disturbing that all of you hyperfixate on his use of guns and ability to be a murderer. It is creepy and I'm not necessarily here for it.
What I love about Jason Todd is that despite all of the pain, all of the heartache, all of the betrayal, and bullying, and death, and anguish. Jason Todd is one of the most loving and supportive characters in all of DC Comics. Jason has been through so much in his life, but he still chooses to love. He still chooses to see the bright side in people. Yes, he takes a utilitarian approach and chooses to kill certain villains, but at the end of the day he wants to see a better world, and he wants to be loved. It takes so much courage and so much heart to learn to love again after one has been abused or traumatized. I would not blame Jason at all if he said fuck it and just went full solo and vigilante evil. He has every right to, but he still chooses to be with the Bat Family of his own accord. That's something that I see a lot of in myself. I have been through a lot of trauma and yet I try to be a better person myself in any way that I can. It is extremely admirable of Jason to allow love back into his heart when he really doesn't need to. He kills and he protects because he has this love of society. It may have been shaped by anger and hatred, but Jason has found his place amongst people who love him and value him. I think Ducra, from Red Hood and the Outlaws put it best in the image given below.
To end this tangent, I love Jason Todd and all of his sexy dangerousness, but it's far more than that. As much as Jason may be dangerous and snarky, he loves his family without a shadow of a doubt. I look up to Jason Todd because despite all of his pain and all of his trauma, he still choses to love. Jason Todd is a character who is someone I love because despite all of his flaws and having a very toxic fandom, he still serves as a character filled with so much heart and so much passion. I wish more writers would understand that. But for now I will live with what I have. Even though the fandom may be vocal about it's hatred for his characterization, I choose to love Jason regardless because he is a character who chooses love and acceptance regardless of his pain. Jason Todd is by no means a good person in any sense of the word. He has easily killed upwards of 100 people by now. He is a character who is flawed and complex but ultimately is one who powers forwards and finds love and heart in a place from so much pain and anguish. That is what I love about Jason Todd. After all, to quote a famous undead robot superhero, "What is grief, if not love persevering?" Jason Todd chooses to love despite all of the trauma and pain and grief. Yes, he is hardened in his exterior, but inside there is a man with a lot of love to give and someone who deserves the world in my eyes.
#Long post GOD#Jason Todd#Red Hood#Bat Family#Batman#red hood and the outlaws#RHATO#RH:O#Batman Urban Legends#Red Hood Lost Days#TW Voltron#TW Death#tw murder#TW Klance#Gotta love how i am pouring my heart out onto jason AND calling out the Voltron fandom#Regardless love Jason Todd people
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Flash Villains: Who’s The Most Evil?
Like all heroes, the Flash’s villains vary widely in terms of threat level, motivation, and level of malice. Unlike most heroes, Flash is relatively unique insofar as most of his villains aren’t especially malicious. However, that doesn’t mean that all of them are sympathetic.
The most malicious Flash villains, to my mind, are probably Eobard Thawne (aka Professor Zoom the Reverse-Flash), Gorilla Grodd, Cicada, and Murmur. Eobard is a predatory stalker and has caused more personal harm to Barry than anyone else, Grodd is a sadist who wants world domination, Cicada led a cult that murdered hundreds, and Murmur is a creepy serial killer. None of them have ever displayed any signs of remorse or real humanity (and yes, I recognize the inherent meaninglessness of saying a gorilla has no humanity; I couldn’t think of another term.)
Blacksmith, Abra Kadabra, and Girder the rusty rapist are also pretty high on the list. Kadabra is frighteningly unhinged and has very little regard for human life. Blacksmith organized a plot to take over the entire city and arranged for such things as framing Hartley for his parents’ murder and convincing Jay and Joan that Joan was dying of cancer. She also pointlessly killed Rainbow Raider, who posed zero threat to her. And Girder is...well...a rapist. Besides being angry and creepy around women, he has no other noticeable personality traits, so he’s pretty easy to hate. I guess Plunder would also fall around here, though he had so little page time that I have a hard time getting a good read on his personality.
Beyond this point, things start getting complicated. While Grodd, Eobard, and Kadabra are almost always portrayed as malicious and dangerous, and Blacksmith, Girder, Murmur, Cicada, and Plunder were really only ever written by one person (at least in major roles), how malicious the other villains are varies widely between writers.
That being said, Hunter Zolomon (Zoom) and Thaddeus Thawne (Inertia) would probably fall just below Plunder on the list. Zoom is hard to rank, because while his actions are often heinous, he seems to be legitimately mentally ill; to the point where I think he’s one of the very few supervillains who could successfully use the insanity defense in real life. He honestly believes that what he’s doing is helping Wally....but his actions are still incredibly disturbing. It’s also worth noting that he’s much less evil under Geoff Johns than he was when he finally made his reappearance during the relatively recent War of the Flash arc. His level of actual malice was so much higher there, in fact, that at points he seemed like a different character entirely. Inertia, while a serious threat, was portrayed somewhat sympathetically in his appearances in the Impulse comic, but was subsequently portrayed as an Eobard-level psychopath in the Flash: The Most Terribly Written Man Alive and nearly all subsequent stories (his most recent major appearance, written by Joshua Williamson, is an exception). Because of this inconsistency, I can’t move him any higher or lower on the list.
Of the Rogues proper, the most malicious ones are, in no particular order, the Top, Captain Boomerang, Sr., Mirror Master II, and the Golden Glider. The Top is unique insofar as he was basically always portrayed as one of the most dangerous Rogues. In his first appearance, he tried to blow up half the world (though he seemed more than a little uncharacteristically unhinged in that story, so it’s possible that he wasn’t all there during that escapade), he tried to blow up the city when he died, he possessed the body of Barry’s father, he tried to take over the country by becoming president, he tried to kill the mayor to take over the city (though he was definitely mentally ill during this story), and he generally caused havoc during the Rogue War. He’s by far the most conventionally ambitious of the group.
Evan McCulloch, the second Mirror Master, is not especially malicious when written by his creator, Grant Morrison (he refuses to kill women and children, readily works with the Justice League when Batman promises to donate money to his old orphanage, and seems to bear no dislike for Wally or any other hero). However, when other people write him, he’s usually one of the most malicious Rogues. During Mark Waid’s run, he was depicted as an abusive stalker; during Geoff Johns’ run, he racked up an enormous body count and was responsible for the death of Piper’s parents. Why this is, I have no idea, but it’s still enough to put him fairly high on the list.
Captain Boomerang, Sr.’s level of malice jumped noticeably after Crisis on Infinite Earths. Pre-Crisis, he actually came across as one of the least malicious of the bunch, but when John Ostrander started using him on Suicide Squad, he became a disgusting, racist, sexist, foulmouthed, selfish, cowardly, abrasive, treacherous, boorish disaster of a human being...and he’s been that way ever since.
Golden Glider is bizarre, as she’s one of the very few villains whose level of malice actually seemed to decrease over time without them actually outright reforming. In her Bronze Age appearances, she was absolutely terrifying; targeting Barry’s wife and parents and pursuing revenge with a level of single-minded determination that would make Batman impressed. (Barry even canonically compared her to Batman during this period!) While she was more sympathetic than, say, Eobard, by virtue of the fact that she genuinely loved and grieved for Roscoe, she was still incredibly malicious. After Barry’s death, the writers seemed unsure of what to do with her. I enjoyed her semi-reformed period under Messner-Loebs, but after that things just fell apart until her eventualy pointless death. Geoff Johns portrayed her as more of a victim than anything, and since Flashpoint, she’s actually seemed to be one of the least malicious Rogues. It’s very odd.
Weather Wizard would probably be next. He’s had a few acts of humanity and a few more acts of unusual malice, but on the whole, he’s generally somewhere in the middle of the Rogues in terms of level of malice. He also doesn’t seem to vary too much between writers.
Axel Walker, the second Trickster, was very malicious during the early period of Geoff Johns’ run (tying bombs to homeless people-yikes!), but gradually became more sympathetic over time as he started to realize he was in over his head. Post-Flashpoint, he’s been one of the least malicious of the bunch, probably since he’s just a kid. It’s still strange to compare his appearances under Johns to his post-Flashpoint appearances, though, since they’re noticeably different.
The first Mirror Master, Sam Scudder, probably falls near or below Axel. Since most of his major appearances were pre-Crisis, he’s really never succeeded in doing anything particularly heinous, and when compared to, say, Roscoe or Bronze Age Golden Glider, he’s usually not planning anything nearly as damaging.
Captain Cold is one of the least malicious Rogues; he’s the one to enforce their codes and generally seems to avoid causing harm to people if he can help it. He can definitely be hypocritical, and he’s shockingly brutal at times, but on the whole he’s one of the most restrained and moral members of the group. Heat Wave is probably one the same level as Cold. For a long time, he was one of, if not the, least malicious Rogues, but since the pyromania retcon, he’s gradually become more and more unhinged and violent. Furthermore, even though Captain Cold and Heat Wave are traditionally among the least malicious of the Flash’s villains, for some reason they both seem to have become much worse since Flashpoint happened, with Captain Cold becoming much more of a brutal ganglord than he was pre-Flashpoint and Heat Wave’s remorse over his pyromania seeming to all but disappear at times.
Fallout probably falls about here. He’s more of a passive danger than an active one, and he doesn’t seem to mean anyone harm.
The first Trickster, James Jesse, is usually comparatively harmless, even reforming and managing to do an impressive amount of good during the 1990s. He even saved the world from Neron! That being said, when he finally reappeared after a decade-long disappearance, he suddenly became much more like his TV self than the traditional comic book version of James Jesse, to the the point where it almost felt like he’d been replaced by the Joker. I wasn’t really a fan of the arc where he came back. While I was glad to see him brought back from limbo, I didn’t really want to see him brought back as a psychopath who brainwashes the entire city.
Peek-a-Boo only turned to crime to try to save her father and legitimately didn’t seem to mean any harm to anyone.
Finally, the Pied Piper has been the most reformed, and therefore least malicious, of the group since the late 1980s. Since his reformation, he’s done almost as much to help the Twin Cities as the Flashes. However, it’s interesting that his reformation was immediately preceded by the period at which he was the most malicious: the never-ending Trial of Barry Allen arc. During that arc, he actually attempted to hypnotize the mayor into committing suicide! However, since then, the Piper has been pretty solidly on the side of the angels (his stupid appearances in the Flash: The Most Badly Written Man Alive notwithstanding).
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Rank all of the disguises Quackerjack wore from worst to best. All of them. >:)
... Hoo-boy, this is going to be a matter of my personal opinions, and because I'm quite literal, you specifically said "disguises" but I think I'll toss in alternate costume changes commentaries as well. I had to combine stuff since Tumblr has a a 10 image limit still after all these years. 👀
So, anyway, worst to best? This is going to be a long post, lol
#10
Yet another Joker reference saturating the already broken comic version of QuackerJack
Oh my God, I swear, I know too much about Joker lore than I want to. It's not that I hate the character, but Joker is freaking everywhere now, and this one in particular is just disgusting because this is referencing the variation of Joker that cut his own face off and stapled the rotting meat flesh back on his head.
I mean, it's bad enough to try to shoehorn "The Killing Joke" elements into a Disney spin off franchise, which, while a phenomenal story that is a must read for Batman fans on account of how influential it is in the modern mythos... It's also freaking disturbing content-wise and it's weird that it's being referenced in a franchise that was originally aimed at kids. This also applies to referring to "Death of the Family", which, again, has Joker mutilating his own face just because he can. That knowledge alone is freaky when we realize this is the last image of original continuity QuackerJack, and we can't see his face, and he also has a Duck face mask hung up on the wall. Also, there's a wanted poster of QuackerJack pinned up that replicates a famous wanted poster for Joker. The whole panel and outfit is just Joker fanboy-ing and infecting QuackerJack with this. I can't like this, it's just all sorts of gross and disturbing when I know exactly what materials it's referring to. 😒
#9
Anything QuackerJack is forced to wear against his choice or will
Not pictured: That time Paddywhack stripped him down to his boxers and socks.
Jumpsuits and business attire is clearly not something QuackerJack would chose to wear on his own. He's not happy in them.
#8
Darkwing Dubloon Universe QuackerJack
This is a pirate costume? Oh, Jacky, you can do better, dude.
#7
This giant teddy bear with murder in its eyes
This counts as a costume because he did wear it. Prove me wrong, lol.
#6
Anything QuackerJack wears as either an additional ensemble for adapting his outfit to the situation/gag, or just as a one off joke that wasn't meant to be incognito
It's clear that Jacky likes to dress up. This guy was probably a theater kid in his youth or something, either that or costume designer for drama class.
#5
Nega-QuackerJack gets a separate entry for both costume changes because he's one of several different versions of QuackerJack that exists
If he had more screentime, I could put him higher on the list, but Nega-QuackerJack is a cinnamon bun, shaped like a friend, gosh I cannot express how much I adore this version of QuackerJack and it's an absolute crime that his screentime doesn't even exceed 9 minutes. This is what I imagine QuackerJack was probably like personality-wise before he snapped. A good soft boy, and I love that his Darkwing Duck hat sits on top of his cap, as does the face mask. He's got a costume on a costume, and his tinkering outfit includes two magnifying glasses adapted into eyeglasses, I bet he made that rig himself.
#4
The ever trusty Trenchcoat and Fedora
He's used this multiple times, and it somehow manages to flawless in concealing his identity until he throws it off himself. The only thing I could add to it as a suggestion is that maybe he should tuck the dingle-dangles of the cap into the back, so that it doesn't immediately give away his appearance to us at a first glance. Other than that, nearly flawless.
#3
Dr. Heebie
The introduction atmosphere alone gets bonus points, look at that lighting for that framing bit, that's amazing. I love the attempt to hide one of his most identifying features, his toothy grin, by wearing a mask. At this point, I think everyone just mentally accepted his cap as a feature on his head because regardless of how visible it is, no one in-universe seems to catch on that he's wearing it in all his costumes.
#2
Dr. Loon
Words cannot accurately describe how much I love the effort in this. Instead of hiding his main body costume under the new outfit, he's gone and taken it out of the equation entirely, leaving the cap and shoes instead. He's got pants, he's got his cap braided like hair to tame its dingle-dangles behind him, he's got glasses on, he's got a fake beard strapped to his face with obvious straps and it hanging so loosely, he's got another hat on... The glasses, beard and hat all draw attention away from the fool's cap. He's put a lot of effort into this, and this is one of my favorites of his overall costumes he's used.
#1
An Actual Jester
This disguise is perfect. He didn't have to change anything about his existing fashion, he was 100% prepared for this exact situation. Brilliant. 😁
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Hello! I was just wondering if you had knew the proper order to read Dick as Bats but with Damian as his robin? Thanks!
Sure! I couldn’t tell if you were asking for all the comics that have Dick as Batman or comics specifically where Dick and Damian are both present, so I just did a list for both. The ones in bold have both Dick and Damian present. This list is in my best attempt at an in-universe chronological order...it was hard but I tried (cries). Here we go:
BATMAN DICK GRAYSON COMIC LIST
Nightwing (1996) #138: Dick and Damian first meet. This is part two of seven in “The Resurrection of Ra’s al Ghul” arc. You can read the whole thing for context, but this one is the only one with significant interaction between Dick and Damian.
Nightwing (1996) #152-153: Dick tries to reconcile with the fact that Bruce is gone, and that he will have to continue his legacy. These comics have Dick going head to head with Ra’s al Ghul, and also show him moving back to Gotham.
Battle for the Cowl #1-3: Gotham City is in trouble, and Dick is forced to take on the mantle of Batman.
Batman (1940) #687-688: A lot of this is about Dick learning to be Batman, but you also see a lot of him talking about how he is planning to approach Damian. You also see some of the beginning of Dick training Damian as well. Technically an epilogue to Battle for the Cowl.
Batman (1940) #689-692: Dick continues to adjust to his role as Batman. Two-Face manages to sneak into the Batcave, and tests Dick’s conviction.
Batman and Robin (2009) #1-3: Dick and Damian’s first time working together as Batman and Robin.
Batman (1940) #693-696: While Batman takes to the streets, Damian is mostly delegated to training, in order to improve his detective work. Unfortunately, Damian doesn’t take the work seriously, leaving Dick vulnerable to Black Mask’s and Penguin’s plots…
Batman (1940) #697-699: Batman finishes dealing with Black Mask, and goes on to face the Riddler.
Batman: Streets of Gotham #1-16: A collection of stories showing how Robin and Batman are adjusting to their new roles; the duo doesn’t have a lot of trust yet. Interestingly, these comics show more of how Hush was handled. They are also where Damian’s friend Colin is introduced for the first time.
Batman and Robin (2009) #4-6: Batman and Robin versus a (somewhat out of character) Red Hood.
Batman and Robin (2009) #7-9: Dick tries to resurrect Batman. Warning: this arc is extremely out of character for Dick and I hate everything about it. But this isn’t a comic rec list so I’ll include it, ugh. Here’s where you’d read this monstrosity. If you want to skip it, here’s all you’d need to know: 1) Damian went to his mother to heal his spine after Red Hood shot him, and 2) Dick and Damian now have reason to believe Bruce is alive. Bam, now you don’t even have to read it.
Batman and Robin (2009) #10-12: Damian and Dick uncover clues that reveal that Bruce is alive. Meanwhile, Talia attempts to kill Dick...using her own son to do it.
Batman (1940) #700: A special event that has sections where Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, and a future Damian Wayne are Batman. A weird comic overall, but the parts with Damian and Dick are really pretty good.
Batman (1940) #703: Dick and Damian have developed a solid partnership, though Damian is continuing to learn more about being Robin and about his father. The comic acts as a prelude to Bruce Wayne: The Road Home.
Bruce Wayne: The Road Home: Bruce evaluates how things have been going in his absence, and gives his thoughts on the new dynamic duo.
Batman and Robin (2009) #13-16: Dick and Damian struggle to deal with Professor Pyg, Joker, and Dr. Hurt. Bruce returns!
Batman (1940) #704-712: Batman leaves Gotham to Dick while he puts Batman Incorporated into place. Damian, Tim, Azrael, and Selina all make appearances in this stretch of comics.
Batman and Robin (2009) #17-22: Dick and Damian work together as Batman and Robin to stop Una Nemo, and then White Knight in the following arc.
Batman and Robin (2009) #23-25: Dick and Damian team up with Jason to save his former sidekick, Scarlet. (Jason’s still acting a bit more extreme than you’d typically expect.)
Batman: Black Mirror: This is a collection of Detective Comics #871-881. I’d say these are my favorite Dick!Batman stories ever. All the cases are very good (really chilling), and the characterizations are top notch stuff. Lots of Gordon, Barbara, and some Tim also.
Batman (1940) #713: Damian tells the story of Batman and Robin. Very heartwarming.
Batman: Gates of Gotham #1-5: A good story, it’s interesting to see how Dick interacts with his siblings (ie Cass, Tim, and Damian) as Batman.
There’s definitely a bit of hopping back and forth required if you’re going to read it this way lmao. Also, here are some more comics with Dick as Batman that I was too lazy to try to put into the timeline here:
Superman/Batman #76: Superman’s reaction to Dick taking up the Batman mantle following Bruce’s death. Happens towards the beginning of Dick’s time as Batman.
Blackest Night: Batman #1-3: Dick, Tim, and Damian deal with an army of Black Lanterns, composed of once-dead friends and enemies. Bruce’s body is stolen, and Dick and Tim have to face their parents’ reanimated corpses.
Red Robin (2009): Mostly focused on Tim Drake. Dick and Damian appear in minor cameos throughout as well though. It’s interesting to look at Dick and Damian as they are in issue #1, with Damian being really rude and not listening to Dick at all, and then jumping to issue #12 and seeing just how much Damian now follows Dick’s lead and has changed while Tim was away. Idk, it’s just kind of cool. Issues #13-14 also have Tim working with the new dynamic duo as well.
Batgirl (2009): This one is mostly focused on Stephanie Brown taking up the Batgirl mantle in the wake of Bruce’s death. Dick and Damian first meet Stephanie in issue #5...and they get off to a very rough start with her lmao. The team features heavily in #6-7 also.
Titans (2008): This series starts off with Dick as Nightwing, but then he leaves the team to become Batman at the end of #10. He appears as Batman in: #15 with Garth, #21 with Starfire (really thought this one was interesting), #23 with Wally and Donna, and #28-30 with Slade.
Justice League of America (2006) #41-60: Dick’s time on the Justice League with Donna. Likely takes place towards the middle and end of Dick’s time as Batman.
Hope this is helpful to you!
#dick grayson#DC comics#comic recs#nightwing#damian wayne#robin#batman#batman and robin#Dick!Batman#dick grayson as batman#justice league#teen titans
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(Accidental 150 Follower Special) IOTA’s Top 10 Best (and By That, I Mean Personal Favorite) Episodes of Miraculous Ladybug
Alright, I already covered what I considered to be the worst Miraculous Ladybug episodes in two parts, and now it’s time to talk about the what I consider to be the best Miraculous Ladybug episodes before I talk about... him...
I’m only putting one rule in place for this list. I'm going to try and list episodes with good qualities other than “cool-looking Akuma and awesome fight scenes”, and focus on other details like character moments and story.
Other than that, let’s get started.
These are the Top 10 Best Episodes of Miraculous Ladybug (in my personal opinion because your opinion is also valid)
#10: Mr. Pigeon
While Marinette works on sketching a design for a hat for a fashion contest where the winning design will be worn by Adrien (a rare example where the “Marinette does a thing to impress Adrien” plot actually works), a birdwatcher who loves feeding pigeons in the park is told off by the only police officer in Paris, causing him to get akumatized into the titular Mr. Pigeon, who has control over all of the pigeons in the city.
And by God, does this episode have fun with the concept.
In addition to constantly mimicking pigeon cries, Mr. Pigeon's movements are just so entertaining to watch, only aided by the creative ways he controls the flocks of pigeons.
I'm not kidding when at one point, Mr. Pigeon traps Ladybug and Cat Noir in a cage, and threatens to have his pigeons crap on them unless they hand over their Miraculous. Yeah.
This is one of the episodes that really set the standards for how outlandish the Akumas in Miraculous Ladybug could get. It kind of reminds me of an episode of the original Ultraman, where the SSSP has to find a way to move an incredibly heavy monster using increasingly abnormal strategies, like inflating it with air so it'll float like a balloon. It's clear it isn't taking itself too seriously, so the audience shouldn't either.
Admittedly, Cat Noir's feather allergy feels shoehorned in, and is only included to increase conflict, and you would think it would come up when Mayura, a bird-themed supervillain appears in the third season. But then again, that's just a minor nitpick.
It's just a really fun episode, and I wish we could see Ladybug and Cat Noir fight Mr. Pigeon again that isn't used for a cheap gag.
#9: The Puppeteer
After being told by her mom that she can't have a Ladybug doll made by Marinette, young Manon is Akumatized into the Puppeteer. But obviously, you can't have our heroes beating up a five-year-old, so instead, the Puppeteer has the power to exact control over past Akuma victims as long as she has the doll made by Marinette. So Ladybug and Cat Noir have to face off against Lady Wifi, the Evillustrator, and Rogercop, before the Puppeteer gets her hands on the dolls Marinette made of the two heroes and take control of them as well.
It's still kind of funny to think about the fact that of all the Akumas to become a huge threat to Ladybug and Cat Noir, it's a little girl throwing a temper tantrum. And like with “Mr. Pigeon”, the episode has a lot of fun with the concept, best reflected in the voice acting. You can tell that Carrie Keranen is having so much fun this episode with the stuff she says as Lady Wifi.
The fact that someone who was actually a major threat to the heroes with how she was able to easily outsmart them and also came really close to getting their Miraculous is now acting like a little kid using phrases like “super duper sorry” is even more hilarious.
I'm still a little confused as why of all the past villains, it's Evillustrator and Rogercop that get to come back, and I wish they had gotten more to say, but it's still a treat to see Ladybug and Cat Noir fighting four villains at once, especially since this was before “Heroes Day”.
#8: Sapotis
Hawkmoth akumatizes Alya's little sisters into Sapotis (supposedly based off a folktale, but I can't find anything about it online), who have the power to multiply and easily overwhelm Ladybug and Cat Noir, forcing Ladybug to recruit Alya to become a third hero, Rena Rouge.
I've been a little negative about Alya in the past, but this episode gives her some major character growth. One of the biggest problems I had with her character in Season 1 is how often she tried to figure out Ladybug's identity... despite claiming to be a huge superhero fan, who should know why superheroes keep their identities a secret. Thankfully, this episode mostly puts an end to this idea.
The episode opens with Marinette giving Alya some reasons why Ladybug would keep her identity a secret, and it actually plays into the episode.
Putting aside the stupid Rent-A-Miraculous system introduced in this episode, the idea of keeping secrets and how necessary they can be sometimes is reflected after the battle where Alya is hesitant at first to give up her Miraculous, but eventually concedes and keeps her identity a secret from Marinette (who ironically knows, but that's not important).
Even without that, this episode still has a lot of action with the three heroes fighting their way through an army of Sapotis, with plenty of banter during said action. Hell, at one point, Cat Noir says “gotta catch 'em all”. I don't have a joke here, that's just brilliant.
Out of all the introductory hero episodes, this one easily sticks out among most of them.
(Don’t worry, I’m going to talk about Rena Rouge’s character design in a later post.)
#7: Guitar Villain
I said before in an earlier post that Jagged Stone is one of my favorite characters in Miraculous Ladybug, so it's obvious that the episode where he gets akumatized would be on this list.
After a disagreement with his manager about trying to mimic the popular singer XY (who ironically lacks a Y chromosome), Jagged is akumatized into Guitar Villain, a rock star with a pet dragon who forces everyone to listen to his Awesome Solo (yes, he names his attacks too) to dance uncontrollably.
Honestly, there's not much I can really say about this episode. It's Ladybug and Cat Noir fighting a rock star who flies around on a goddamn dragon. That's one of the coolest things I've ever seen! Even the way they defeat him (which I won’t give away) is a fun jab at rock stars.
Admittedly, the episode does border on grouchy old man territory sometimes by complaining about how bad today's music is with the way they portray XY as a whiny and egotistical coward, but after watching “Silencer”, you'll be glad everyone hates him.
Overall, it's a rockingly awesome episode.
#6: The Dark Owl
Mr. Damocles, the principal of Marinette and Adrien's school, is akumatized into the Dark Owl, a corrupted version of his favorite comic book superhero (who would later turn out to be real in the New York special, but I don't want to acknowledge that), who uses his high-tech gadgets to trap Ladybug and Cat Noir, putting them in one of their toughest binds yet.
I'm a huge fan of the Adam West Batman show, so you could probably guess why it's on this list. This episode really feels like an episode of that show with how goofy and over the top everything is. Obviously, this episode has a few Batman references thrown in (even an Incredibles reference at one point), and they're all hilarious.
I just love how complex Dark Owl's traps for Ladybug and Cat Noir are, and the fact that he actually manages to outsmart them at one point. Like seriously, have you ever heard of a death trap that involves drowning someone in whipped cream? That’s totally something you’d see the Joker setting up.
I don't really want to give away the ending (which is why this part is so short), because I think it's a really clever resolution that you should check out for yourself.
#5: Gorizilla
Hawkmoth akumatizes Adrien's bodyguard into Gorizilla, whose sole purpose is to protect Adrien. His motivation? To see if Adrien is actually Cat Noir or not. So Adrien has to avoid this gigantic gorilla's wrath with Marinette, all while trying to catch a movie his late mother was in.
See this? This is Adrienette done right. This is the kind of interaction I like when it comes to romance. Marinette and Adrien spend a few scenes with each other avoiding Adrien's crazy fanbase, and Marinette doesn't stammer half of her words. Even when she interacts with Adrien as Ladybug, she still remains confident, and Adrien trusts her judgment when it looks like he might fall. I don't just want Marinette and Adrien to cuddle with each other or declare their love for each other when they get their memories wiped. I want them to interact like human beings before they actually start a relationship, and this episode is a good example of it.
Adrien also gets some good focus with the way he views his relationship with his parents, as does Gabriel with his relationship with his son. Granted, he's taking a pretty huge gamble trying to kill Adrien to see if he's Cat Noir or not as opposed to just... taking off his ring while he sleeps. Can we at least admit he's trying?
I feel they could have done more with the King Kong homage (guess who I'm talking about?), but I can understand there wasn't enough time to focus on that. It's still an important episode to watch for plot and character growth that will barely be acknowledged in later episodes.
#4: Sandboy
tHe SaNdBoY hAs ChEcKeD iN. nOw NiGhTmArEs CaN bEgIn.
Now that we got that obvious joke out of the way, let's talk about one of the most creative episodes of the show.
Tikki and Plagg, Marinette and Adrien's Kwamis (the magical beings that power their Miraculous) take part in a ritual with the other Kwamis inside Master Fu's Miracle Box to contact Nooroo, Hawkmoth's Kwami, on his birthday and get an idea of where he is. Unfortunately, Hawkmoth chooses to akumatize someone during the ritual, leaving Marinette and Adrien helpless to fight back against Sandboy, an Akuma with the power to make their worst fears come true.
I said before in my worst list when talking about “Ladybug” that there was too much going on for one episode, what with Marinette's expulsion, the attempted Scarletmoth attack, and the fake Ladybug plotlines generally being rushed through. This episode is basically the opposite of that (ironically, they're both the penultimate episodes of their respective seasons).
The Kwami ritual and the Akuma attack are perfectly staged together so one affects the other. Not only do the Kwamis have to risk aborting their ritual to reach Nooroo in order to fight the Akuma, but Marinette and Adrien have to deal without fighting off Sandboy's nightmares on their own. Both plots balance each other out into a well-crafted story.
This is also one of the only episodes in the show where the Akuma of the week isn't the man focus. Here, we don't even see what happens to get the kid akumatized into Sandboy, and instead, Gabriel senses someone with negative emotions and akumatizes the kid offscreen. This works, because it doesn't distract from the main plot too much.
Even Marinette and Adrien's worst fears beautifully contrast each other, with both managing to be unsettling in different ways, even if they both have different tones. While Adrien's worst fear is being imprisoned in his own room (the fear only made worse with Plagg's absence), Marinette's worst fear is... the real star of the episode. Ladies and Gentlemen, I think you all know who I'm talking about.
You can tell the animators had a field day with animating Nightmare Adrien. Just look at the way he moves around and the faces he makes. It manages to be terrifying and hilarious at the same time. Bryce Papenbrook's performance only makes it better, cementing this as the highlight of the episode.
This episode also does a good job at foreshadowing the main plot for Season 3 with Hawkmoth finding out about the other Kwamis and by extension, more Miraculous.
It's got plot, comedy, good action, and Nightmare Adrien, so how can you turn this episode down?
And no, I'm not talking about Nightmare Ladybug, mainly because I'm tired of all the evil doppelgangers from the worst list.
#3: Startrain
Yes, believe it or not, I managed to find a Season 3 episode that wasn't complete garbage, and spoiler alert, this isn't the only one.
Marinette and Adrien's class goes on a field trip to London by taking the train, until the driver is akumatized into Startrain, who wants to escape to the one place that hasn't been corrupted by capitalism... SPACE! So Ladybug and Cat Noir have to defeat Startrain while also finding a way to bring everyone on the train back home.
I like how this episode plays with the usual Akuma of the week formula. Unlike every other Akuma they've fought, Cat Noir points out that if they beat Startrain, everyone will die, so they have to be more strategic in their approach. They don't even fight Startrain for most of the episode, as they have to make their way to the front of the train to confront the Akuma. The action in this episode is very creative and really takes advantage of zero gravity, only aided by the design of the futuristic train the episode takes place in.
The new hero introduced, Pegasus (AKA Max, another student in Marinette and Adrien's class), is also really cool, being very intelligent and helping out the heroes progress through the train even before he gets the Horse Miraculous. It makes sense that his intelligence would be used rather than just his powers in this situation.
There are even some good character moments too. For once, Master Fu does something smart and loans the Horse Miraculous (which has the power of teleportation) to Marinette so she can still go on the class trip, trusting her and actually letting her have a life. It was also nice to see Alya stick up for Marinette by keeping Lila from interrupting her nap with Adrien.
This episode is basically like a refreshing glass of water to enjoy during the garbage fire that was Season 3.
(I’m going to talk about Pegasus’ character design later on too, don’t worry)
#2: Silencer
Lukanette shippers, ASSEMBLE!
Music producer Bob Roth and his son XY hold a contest for young artists to show off their skills, and Kitty Section, a band composed of several recurring characters, decides to enter, with Marinette helping to design their costumes. But as soon as they submit their video, they find out that XY copied their style, naturally pissing the band off.
Marinette and the lead guitarist of Kitty Section, Luka, confront Bob Roth and XY, who threaten to ruin their careers by claiming that they ripped off XY. Seeing Marinette getting threatened is more than enough for Hawkmoth to akumatize Luka into Silencer, who naturally has the power to silence and mimic the voices of others.
I talked about Luka and his relationship with Marinette in an earlier post (specifically the one where Astruc claimed that the fandom growing to like Luka counted as character development), and I said that this was one of the few good episodes this season because of their interactions. This episode basically made me realize how much Luka cares for Marinette, and the episode gives plenty of time to show the two spending time together and growing closer. It's basically everything “Oni-Chan” should have been about, giving some depth to Luka and not portraying him as a crazy person like they did with Kagami in that episode.
Silencer is also one of the more creatively designed villains this season, and has a really creative approach to achieving his goals. While the ability to steal and imitate someone's voice seems mundane compared to control over the weather, or making nightmares come to life, it's used very effectively. Silencer basically tricks the police into arresting Bob Roth while imitating the mayor's voice, and he threatens to make his life a living hell by using the connections to the voices he's stolen. Even with the hand puppet gesture, it's still unsettling to have Silencer speak in all these voices, and it would make for a really interesting horror movie.
Even Ladybug and Cat Noir's interactions are back to their Season 1 levels of enjoyment. Even though Silencer took her voice, Ladybug just makes so many expressions that do a great job at describing her feelings, which naturally plays off Cat Noir's motormouth tendencies. Whenever Cat Noir jokes about Ladybug's condition, he is rightfully called out on it and is reprimanded in some way, my favorite being when Ladybug uses her yo-yo to hit Cat Noir on the head to shut him up. Even putting aside that, they still work well together this episode and really feel like equals. I also love their silent fist bump when Bob Roth is exposed.
Again, the episode still takes the time to go on about how unoriginal today's musicians are, and how they lack artistic creativity and all that crap. Look, given how ham-fisted the writing in this show can get, are you surprised the commentary isn't subtle?
Even putting aside how much this episode made me appreciate Lukanette, it still has a lot of great moments that aren't even related to the ship itself, which is a real testament to how this show can perfectly balance romance and story when it's done right. Now if only the show could try this much with Adrienette, then people wouldn't hate the main pairing of the show this much.
#1: The Collector
Taking place immediately after the Season 1 finale, Marinette meets Master Fu and discusses the book she found depicting past Miraculous users. Marinette theorizes that since the book was in the Agreste mansion, Gabriel could be Hawkmoth. And to the surprise of absolutely no one, she's right, and in order to draw off suspicion, Gabriel akumatizes himself into the Collector.
This episode has several good writing decisions for both sides, and the choices the characters make feel natural. Gabriel akumatizing himself is such a smart move, and so is what Marinette and Master Fu do with the book at the end. This episode does a great job setting up future plot threads and establishes Master Fu's character and the mystery associated with him.
The Collector is a visually stunning villain, and his powers are really creative, leading to a great fight with Ladybug and Cat Noir, who use a great strategy to outsmart him. I also love how over the top he is in order to make the heroes believe that he's working for Hawkmoth, all with a devious smile on his face.
This was also the episode that really got me into Miraculous Ladybug as a whole. I checked out the first season on a whim after it was mentioned in a Pan Pizza video, but it was during the hiatus between seasons, and I hadn't really started using Tumblr yet, so it mostly stayed off my radar. When Season 2 started however, I really got invested in the story, and the way this episode turned out was a big reason why. I wondered what it would be like when Adrien finds out his own father is Hawkmoth, and how the story would play out after the reveal.
Despite what it led up to, I still consider “The Collector” to be my favorite episode of Miraculous Ladybug.
Well, now that I talked about that, not it's time to talk about what I consider to be the worst episode of Miraculous Ladybug, “Felix”. God help me...
#immaturity of thomas astruc#miraculous ladybug#miraculous ladybug sugar#marinette dupain cheng#ladybug#adrien agreste#cat noir#chat noir#alya cesaire#rena rouge#max kante#pegasus#gabriel agreste#hawk moth#hawkmoth#xavier ramier#manon chamack#jagged stone#xy#bob roth#principal damocles#mr damocles#nightmare adrien#luka couffaine#master fu#thomas astruc
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Fic Writer Questions!
tagged by @palamedessextus 😊 thanks friend!
1) How many works do you have on AO3?
64! only five more to the magic number ayyyyy and then i’m legally obligated to never post another one.
2) What’s your total AO3 word count?
289,575 apparently??? which seems way way way higher than i ever would have guessed, wow. who knew!
3) How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?
31 on ao3, although that’s lumping, eg, all marvel subfandoms together. but i have a ridiculous amount of wips in all kinds of other fandoms that i haven’t/won’t post, soooo.... more than that! and i don’t want to list them all bc that’d be a long boring read!
4) What are your top 5 fics by kudos?
it serenely disdains to destroy us, a magnus archives fic that, i somewhat vainly note, has been orbiting in the top few top kudosed fics in the tag since i posted it womp womp.
concerning flight, because we all thirsty for thor/loki+gender and i for one support us.
untitled porny snippet (yes that’s actually what it’s called), because same as above. (i see u, kudos-to-comment ratio and i aint mad but.... i see u. all you dirty birds out there shamefully yet silently jerking it. kudos to YOU.)
an experiment in posthumous subsistence, a batman/joker zombie au i wrote fucking TEN YEARS AGO ALMOST. why???? why is this fic so popular?? i’m barely a good writer now and i sure as shit wasn’t one a decade ago! the terrible title alone should disqualify it from being read, but i guess the people want what they want. and what they want is batman and joker handcuffed together, trying to escape the zombie apocalypse ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
all good things, some stucky hydra trash party-adjacent smut regarding piercings. i stand by this one 100%, it deserves every kudo(s?) tbh.
5) Do you respond to comments, why or why not?
i do, depending on the comment! i don’t think comments like “loved this!” / “thanks for writing!” are written with the intent to receive a response (or at least, when i write them on other people’s fics, i certainly don’t expect one). they’re like an extra kudo(s?), and i appreciate them a lot, but they’re not really an invitation to Discuss. whereas if someone clearly has put a lot of thought into a comment, or asked a question, or made some observations that i jive with, or just seems like they want to engage, then hell yeah i jump in there. love that shit.
6) What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?
i guess arguably thine own self, which is some hydra husbands abo. laugh all you want, it’s one of my fave of all my fics lmao. probably specifically bc of the unpleasant/open ending.
7) What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?
probably moderation is a memory! since it, unlike 99% of all my other stuff, isn’t just total smut, and the whole point of writing it was to wallow as deep as possible in the sauce of giddy teenage infatuation, it got the opportunity to have an actual emotional arc (more or less). furthermore i could not possibly bring myself to break johnny lawrence’s tender little heart ever, that would hurt me far more than it would hurt him.
8) Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written?
i only realised while answering this question that apparently.... no i don’t write crossovers! which is not at all a deliberate choice, i guess a compelling enough one just hasn’t occurred to me yet!
9) Have you ever received hate on a fic?
shockingly no! by some accidental miracle i’ve managed to fly under the radar so far, despite some of the really buckwild stuff i’ve posted. however, considering some of the stuff i’m probably ABOUT to post.... that clean track record might soon come to an end lmao.
10) Do you write smut? If so what kind?
lmao. uhhhh. almost exclusively, and i guess??? all kinds? this is clearly a question composed by someone who does not write smut.
11) Have you ever had a fic stolen?
not that i know of, and i wouldn’t really care if i did.
12) Have you ever had a fic translated?
yeah i think a few....? a number of people have asked anyway and i always say yes, so probably there’s at least one floating around out there somewhere.
13) Have you ever co-written a fic before?
i have! just once, and we really made it count. it’s called a reptile dysfunction, which should tell you all you need to know.
14) What’s your all time favorite ship?
thorki, probably. i always have and always will come back to it, no matter what. it’s got such a ferociously timeless staying power and so much potential variation, i don’t think i could ever get bored of it, regardless of what level of marvel-exhaustion i might feel at a given time, or what tropes, kinks, or stage of literary pretension i’m at. truly the oh tee pee.
15) What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?
ohhhhh all 836575927 of them, but. there’s this one thorki fic i started almost ten years ago as an experiment with a new-to-me style, which turned out over the intervening years to become my main style, and looking back on that fic, which for many years was a touchstone of writing-to-aspire to for me, it’s actually Not Very Good lol. but i still love the core concept, which is a canon divergence berserker thor au, but not only is it a somewhat inaccessible (admittedly less so since the deadpool movies came out, which was a hilarious pipe dream back when i started writing it) x-force comics crossover, but i wrote myself into a bunch of corners and have yet to dig up the energy to write myself back out of them! i go and reread it every year or so and think “hmm... maybe now...” but tbh it’s just not really good enough to bother! perhaps someday i’ll repurpose the best elements of it into something new.
16) What are your writing strengths?
man, it’s so hard to say. in much the same way that you can spend hours every day staring at yourself in a mirror, yet be utterly incapable of picking yourself out of a lineup, i spend a lot of time eyeballing my writing, but stepping back it seems like a chaotic mass of nonsense with few cohesive throughlines. i’m good at writing smut, i know that much! and in that vein, i think i am good at smut bc i am very good at committing to the bit, as it were. getting into the nitty gritty of experience and sensation (physical or emotional) and rendering largely abstract internal concepts in fairly comprehensible ways. i think my prose is quite decent on a sentence level too.
17) What are your writing weaknesses?
utterly incapable of finishing anything! or plotting anything! can’t mange a cohesive emotional arc! write myself into overly structured corners or out onto a vast plain with no structure in sight! all the macro elements of storytelling totally elude me, which is very frustrating when i have all this tasty fleshed out micro-level character stuff, but no narrative skeleton upon which to drape it.
18) What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?
don’t! unless you are very sure you know what you’re doing, and the other language bits are a) very few, b) easily contextually understood, and c) actually adding something other than a weird flex that you know google translate exists.
19) What was the first fandom you wrote for?
11yo me wrote spock/kirk/janice rand and thought she invented the concept of a threesome. brand been stronk since day one 🤘. (the vulcan salute is right next to the devil horns in my emoji list, so....)
20) What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?
i love the (ongoing) better with you series very much, not least because i’m still absolutely flabbergasted that i wrote something that long. i think it’s actually pretty good all things considered and it’s very dear to me on many many levels. but the fic that i just viscerally adore, that i love the style of, and that i had such a transcendent, invigorating, organic Experience writing, is temper its strength, adding honey until quite cold, which is a terror fic with the inexplicable pairing of edward little/hartnell, featuring crossdressing and gender stuff. it just burst out of me fully formed one day and i don’t think i’ve managed to top it yet!
lowkey tagging @lingua-mortua @pitcherplant @kaasknot @froggy-babyy @deputychairman @nomercyonlytears @clockheartedcrocodile
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Hello, my dear followers! I received my @badthingshappenbingo card not too long ago, and I'd like to ask you (and anyone else who may be viewing my blog) to help me decide what to do for each prompt!
This post will be updated as I do each prompt. Yellow unicorn horn will indicate that I've received an ask for that prompt, and pink will indicate that I have completed my fic for that prompt. Please only send me asks for prompts that are completely uncovered.
On top of this, I am doing the bingo for the Teen Titans Cartoon, Batfam, and DC Comics fandoms only. Anything else will not be allowed.
Now, you may be wondering- what information should you specify in your ask?
Here's a list of things you can specify, on top of the required prompt specification. Please include at least one of the following:
1. Victim Character(s): Basically just whoever the bad thing is hurting. If I haven't already written (or done a different kind of fanwork) for them before, there's definitely a chance I don't know enough about them to do the prompt. If so, I'll let you know. But to avoid this, I recommend trying to do characters from Batman Comics or the Teen Titans cartoon, since that's more my area of knowledge. That being said, you're allowed to ask for literally any DC character as long as you're okay with it being rejected.
2. Relationship(s) of Comfort: This is the relationship of the victim character and whoever is helping/comforting them. If #1 is not mentioned, they will be chosen out of the characters inside the ship. The relationships can be platonic, romantic, familial, whatever. As a solid rule, though, I will not be writing for any inc*stual, p*dophillic or otherwise inheriently abusive ships (No hate to the shippers of course, this a personal preference), at least for this category. The prosecutor and victim having an abusive relationship of some kind is very different, of course.
3. Culprit/Prosecutor Character(s): This is basically just whoever is causing the bad thing. In some situations, such as sneezing, this may not be an option at all. But in the situations where it can be specified, the same rule as for the victim applies- I have every right to reject a request due to a lack of knowledge about the character. That being said, I am going to be much more open with this one since it's easier to write bad guys you don't know too much about than a whumpee.
4. AU: Coffee shop AU, Highschool AU, you know the stuff... just please don't get carried away with how specific your AU is, especially if more than one other thing on this list is already being specified. I still need some creative freedom!
Now that's over with, please send some asks! I'd really appreciate it so much if you could just quickly throw a prompt and character or something in there!
And if you need some suggestions, I also have some extra examples and whanot under the cut. Not necessary to read, but can be helpful.
Need Examples of characters? Here are some that I've already written plenty for and/or want to write for more:
-Damian Wayne/Robin
-Talia Al Ghul
-Bruce Wayne/Batman
-Dick Grayson/Nightwing/Robin
-Starfire/Koriand'r*
-Raven*
-Beast boy/Garfield Logan*
-Terra/Tara Markov*
-Cyborg/Victor Stone*
-Alfred Pennyworth
-Duke Thomas (Just finished reading Batman & The Signal recently, so I'm still in a mood)**
-Jason Todd/Robin/Red Hood
As for more villainous culprit type characters, here's some examples:
-Ra's Al Ghul
-Slade Wilson/Deathstroke*
-Joker**
-Trigon***
Romantic Ship Examples:
-Brutalia
-Brutalina**
-Talina**
-Robstar*
-BBTerra***
-Ra's Al Ghul/Sora**
-Raestar***
-RobX***
-Slade Wilson/Trigon (Both the Cartoon version and the Tiny Titans version)***
-DamiJon**
-Cyborg/Sarasim***
Platonic Relationship Examples:
-Dick Grayson & Barbara Gordon**
-Beast Boy & Raven*
Familial Relationship Examples:
-Talia & Damian (or pretty much any of her kids)
-Evelyn Grayce & Talia Al Ghul**
-Bruce Wayne & Dick Grayson
-Bruce Wayne & Damian Wayne
-Bruce Wayne & any of his other kids
-Damian Wayne & Dick Grayson
AU Examples:
-Roleswap AU
-No Capes AU
-Crime Drama AU
*Character/ships who I've mostly just written (or simply know more) for the cartoon versions of. Some of them have similar enough personalities to the comics that it won't be a big deal, while others (like Terra and Starfire) may be very visibly different. If you need it to be the comic version, please specify that, although for some characters, I may have to reject it because of not knowing enough about their comic versions.
**Characters/Ships which I have not actually written for (or at least posted fic) of. They are still on this list because I know plenty about the character/ship and I want to write with it and/or I have written things with them that I have abandoned/neglected to post. Plenty of these I may have also done fanart for, but not fic yet.
***Both of the Above
Obviously, though, those are nowhere near the full extent of your options. They are simply ideas to get your brain going, but if you've thought of a different character/relationship you want, feel free to ask for it! Just as I've already said before, all you need to keep in mind is that I'm allowed to say no if it's not an area I know about.
Just for a little extra reference, though, here's some full examples of how you can format your ask:
-Working through the Cold with Bruce, please?
-Can you do sneezing with brutalina?
-For the paralyzed by fear prompt- What about Raven is paralyzed by fear, and Starfire comforts her?
-Hate plague with the Teen Titans, caused by Slade, please?
-Reluctant Caretaker + Bruce Wayne & Dick Grayson?
-For BTHB, can you please do "trying not to cry" with Cyborg if you have to time?
I hope some of these examples were helpful! Now, if you've came up with something, please go over to my ask box and send it to me!
#bthb card#bth bingo#bad things happen bingo#bad things bingo#baticorn writes#baticorn talks#ask games#ask memes#asks#baticorn answers#fic#writing#dc#dc fic#requests#requests open#bingo#prompt asks#prompts#dc writing#dc fanfic#fanfic#fan fiction#batman#batman fic#teen titans#teen titans fic#teen titans animated#teen titans cartoon#teen titans 2003
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The DC Extended Universe, Ranked Best to Worst.
1. Wonder Woman
Directed by Patty Jenkins
Wonder Woman might be the only good movie that DC has made. Patty Jenkins really hits the nail on the head and perfectly captures the voice of the character. For a character so old and so iconic, there are many versions of Diana’s story, but Patty Jenkins really manages to deliver a definitive version. Gal Gadot, like Christopher Reeve or Chadwick Boseman before her, is perfectly cast in a role that is so much more than just a movie character. Diana is as strong as she is compassionate. The character flaws she needs to overcome is her own naivete, rather than the misguided angst so many of DC’s other characters grapple with. While other action sequences in the franchise have been overly cluttered, Wonder Woman’s cinematography offers some of the slickest, most iconic action scenes in the genre. It’s an altogether incredible achievement and a milestone for cinema in general.
2. Wonder Woman 1984
Directed by Patty Jenkins
The greatest fault I could find with this movie is that it didn’t lean into the 80s setting more. It does tread the line of a rather schmaltzy central plot, but solid performances from cast members like Pedro Pascal make it believable. It’s an absolute joy to see Gadot and Pine return to their roles, and an even greater joy to see ther choice of outfits for every scene. Solid. While Kristen Wiig is expectedly brilliant like with everything she does, she’s handling a character arc that seems derivative and outdated. Like it’s predecessor, WW84 showcases some pretty stellar action sequences, with Jenkins once again showing a knowing eye for big, impressive set pieces paired with frenetically paced fight sequences.
3. Aquaman
Directed by James Wan
After the convoluted mess of ensemble films like Suicide Squad and Justice League, and even some of Marvel’s recent fare, it was refreshing to see a more traditional origin story. This was ultimately what drew my interest to superheroes in general, and while this film doesn’t have the same elegance of a Superman (1978) or Batman Begins, it’s an origin story that modern audiences can sign on for easily. It’s strongest scenes are in the lore-expanding quest that Arthur and Mera go on, simultaneoulsy a National Treasure-esque adventure and a showcase for solid chemistry between Jason Momoa and Amber Heard. And while Ocean Master does seem like an exaggerated villain at times, It’s Patrick Wilson’s solid performance that manages to sell it and make him arguably the best villain DC’s had.
4. Shazam!
Directed by David F. Sandberg
Obviously, an inordinate amount of fun. Shazam doesn’t try and be something it’s not. Ultimately, more than any other superhero film, Shazam understands that this genre was always intended for children. And while at times the plot might seem thin or the conflict inconsequential, Shazam never loses sight of it’s heart. A capable cast of child actors make this believable, and subverting the genre tropes makes the film charming and witty. While it seems overly simplistic in terms of it’s storytelling, in DC’s world of confusing plots, this is a welcome change.
5. Man of Steel
Directed by Zack Snyder
Perhaps the strangest portrayal of Superman to date, Zack Snyder honed in on the mythos of the character and what makes him “super” Unfortunately, it seems to completely ignore what makes him a “man”. We’re left with a wholly alien representation of the character- a gross misunderstanding of who Superman is supposed to be. Horrible character choices for both Jor-El and Jonathan Kent leave Clark a shell of the hero he’s supposed to be. We’re left with a character more willing to grapple with moral dilemmas and his own inner angst than actually step up and do the right thing. Henry Cavill has an undeniably affective presence, and he certainly feels right for the role, but he’s never given a chance to actually play the part. Aesthetically pleasing to look at, and generally quite entertaining, it’s unfortunately the way Man of Steel fails its character that makes it so unbearable.
6. Birds of Prey (And the rest of the title)
Directed by Cathy Yan
I mean, this is basically just a Harley Quinn movie with some other random characters thrown in. Considering Margot Robbie wrote the film, I find it particularly bothersome that the most work she does for character development is for her own character. We see brief intriguing glimpses of some of the other Birds and unfortunately never get more than a taste. Some of the fight scenes are handling quite capably, trading in the more grittier feel of the standard DC fare for more amusing prop and set work. However, much like Suicide Squad before it, I feel like the movie suffers from “soundtrack vomit”- a post Guardians of the Galaxy symptom in which a movie tries to assemble catchy songs and them slot them into the edit with no real motivation.
7. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Directed by Zack Snyder
An absolute misfire from DC in a sad attempt to make themselves relevant amidst Marvel’s runaway success. A focal point in the movie is the collateral damage caused by Superman in Man of Steel. And apparently the best way for the movie to deliberate on this is by exhibiting even more collateral damage. Showcasing the conflict between these two iconic characters seems like a good idea on paper, and it’s certainly been captivating in past comics. But the movie seems to devolve it into nothing more than a bar fight between two dumb jocks. We see Batman get cyber bullied by Lex Luthor, and Superman get coerced by a stupid plot hole. Then they beat each other up like idiots. A movie that spawned a thousand jokes, it’s really only worth watching to make fun of.
8. Joker
Directed by Todd Philips
Apparently, this movie isn’t supposed to be counted as part of DC’s Film Universe. But I couldn’t resist the opportunity to remind you what a steaming pile of garbage it is. It would be inaccurate to even call this a movie. It’s really just a desperate actor trying to win an Oscar from an Academy that continues to be woefully out of touch. And an even more pathetic attempt by a incel director to stay relevant. The talented work from it’s cinematographer and composer force me to show some restraint from putting it at the bottom of this list, but rest assured- while there might be films I put below this, there are none I hate more.
9. Justice League
Directed by Zack Snyder(?)
Painful to watch, I went into this movie with the lowest of expectations, and they were somehow not met at all. It feels altogether rushed, poorly constrcuted and boring all at the same time. They forego any need for world building and instead toss us headfirst into a horribly convoluted storyline. They rush through an origin for Cyborg and introduce Aquaman like he’s the douchebag you never invited who shows up to your houseparty. Batman over-compensates for his eye-rolling seriousness in the last movie by being overly witty in this one. And they solve Superman’s death by having a hilarious grave robbing scene that I guess is supposed to be funny but is so ridiculous to watch that it felt more at place in an Adam Sandler movie. And to top it all off, the movie in general is one big eyesore. It’s honestly painful to watch the shoddy CGI that constitutes the main antagonist and the waves of enemies we watch the JL plow through. And while the opening scene I think is supposed to be a last ditch effort for them to make Superman relevant, it would be promising if I could look past his god awful CGI lip.
10. Suicide Squad
Directed by David Ayer
A hilarious comedy where the characters don’t actually have any dialogue and instead just speak in one-liners. A touching romantic drama where the Joker abuses Harley Quinn. A moving character study where Deadshot just wants to be a better father by killing Batman. A thrilling action movie where we hope the heroes can overcome Cara Delevigne’s dumb dancing and blow up the generic pillar of doom she’s summoned in the middle of Gotham. Suicide Squad is all of these things and more- so there’s my rousing endorsement.
#dc#dc movies#dc films#joker#batman#superman#wonder woman#wonder woman 1984#suicide squad#justice league#Snyder cut#man of steel#harley quinn#birds of prey#hanry cavill#gal gadot#ben affleck#batfleck#jason momoa#aquaman#shazam#zachary levi#chris pine#kristen wiig#pedro pascal#orm#ocean master#will smith#margot robbie#mary elizabeth winstead
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TOP TEN COMICS BOOK VILLAINS WE PROBABLY WON’T SEE IN THE MOVIES
Superhero media is the hottest thing going right now. It was true ten years ago when the MCU was in its adolescence, and it’s even truer now. Even with film production on lockdown, Marvel and DC are still planning on literally dozens of their characters entering their respective cinematic universes. However, for the fans of the source material, things can be contentious. For every memorable Tony Stark quip, there’s Superman destroying an entire city because he’s, frankly, kind of dumb now. A major point of contention is how the various popular villains are utilized. Making an intimidating and potent villain in a comic book is very different than in a film. In comics, you have months to establish motive, powers, and backstory before the villain even makes their first move. In films, that all has to be compressed and spilled out in the scarce few minutes when Captain America and Bucky aren’t making bambi eyes at each other. To be concise, some villains adapt perfectly, and some, no matter how good they are in the comics, just don’t. And to be clear, this list is of popular villains who have the possibility of appearing in a big-budget film, so no, you won’t be seeing Ten Eyed Man or Big Wheel in there. Their powers are, respectively, having ten eyes, and being very good in business. (That’s a lie, he’s just a huge wheel who chases Spider-Man.)
10: Mr. Mxyzptlk:
Cool, let’s get this one out of the way. Despite being one of Superman’s oldest, longest-lasting, and most popular enemies from all the way back in the Golden Age, there’s no way in hell he will be in a movie. For the uninformed. Mr. Mxyzptlk is a 5th dimensional wizard-genie who appears every ninety days to torment Superman with his reality-altering antics, and can only be sent back to his home dimension if Superman tricks him into saying his own name backwards. Yes, it would be very dazzling, as Mr. Mxyzptlk’s powers in a movie would basically look like if Christopher Nolan directed Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but he’s a little too silly to fit in with the current “everything is gloomy and also a bummer” tone of the Superman films. This silly tone has lent itself perfectly to the Supergirl series, where he’s made a handful of appearances. Besides, if we get Mxyzptlk in a Superman movie before Brainiac, I’ll lose my entire freaking mind.
9: Hobgoblin:
There have been eight Spider-Man movies so far, and of those eight, four of them have, in some capacity, featured the Green Goblin. And that makes sense, right? The Green Goblin is easily Spider-Man’s most memorable and reoccurring nemesis, with Doctor Octopus and Venom close behind, and Peter Parker’s link with Norman and Harry Osbourn makes their tragic story perfect for film adaptation. On the other hand, we have the Hobgoblin, who is essentially Green Goblin with all the gimmicks, none of the Parker-adjacent backstory, and an orange and blue color scheme, likely tying him to the Denver Broncos [citation needed]. Still, in those four cinematic attempts at tackling the Goblin, none of them have quite gotten him right, and I can’t imagine this character, who is, even in canon, an intentional Green Goblin rip-off, would fare any better.
8: Starro:
Brave and the Bold #28 from 1960 featured the first story with the Justice League, and this story put them up against a very unique new villain: Starro the Conqueror, a giant telepathic starfish who can release tiny versions of himself. If these tiny starfish latch onto your head, you’re under his control and obey his commands. The Justice League have battled him fairly regularly over the last fifty years, and he’s a distinct and powerful enemy that the fans generally appreciate, leading to him being referenced occasionally in Smallville, Arrow, and Flash. Why won’t he ever be in a movie? Because if you’re a Hollywood producer, you stopped paying attention at “giant telepathic starfish”. Sorry. Maybe Shuma-Gorath will pop up in the next Doctor Strange movie, and he’ll set off a Twilight-esque wave of starfish monster movies! Then again, almost absolutely not.
7: Puppet Master:
Speaking of mind control, what’s scarier than that? For my money, nothing. Having your body and will taken away from you by an unseen force is a terror greater than death. How could you possibly make a villain based around such a chilling concept and have him not be scary? Well, maybe if it’s an old bald man in an apron playing with dolls. The Puppet Master is an ongoing threat for the Fantastic Four who is just that: he makes models of his foes out of radioactive clay, and makes them punch themselves and dance around and kiss each other, because he’s, y’know, a weird old man. Why is he such a consistent threat who hasn’t fallen into obscurity like other dumb gimmick-based villains? His stepdaughter, Alicia Masters, is the Thing’s longtime girlfriend. As long as she keeps appearing in movies (including being played by… Kerry Washington? That can’t be right), there’s always a chance he’ll pop up, but I don’t think any movie studio is that stupid, despite the quality of every Fantastic Four movie blatantly defying that prediction.
6: Bizarro:
Superman has always suffered in the villains department. When you’re essentially a god, what can they throw at you? As it turns out, Lex Luthor, almost always. But why not another Superman? Bizarro is essentially that, an imperfect clone of Superman who speaks in opposite speak - “Bizarro am good! Me not punch you until you live!” - and features the same abilities as the Man of Steel. Sounds great, right? Putting a hero against a villain with their same powers has worked for nearly every Marvel movie (shots fired). So why won’t we see him grace our silver screens any time soon? Because they’ve never really figured him out. Is he funny? Is he lethal? Does Kryptonite work on him? If he does everything the opposite of Superman, why does he wear clothes? Isn’t being naked the opposite of being clothed? Bizarro is a major Superman side-character and has made appearances in Smallville and Supergirl, but the idea of him being the Big Bad going toe-to-toe with Henry Cavill doesn’t sound like it would generate a lot of views.
5: Impossible Man:
You remember what I said about Mr. Mxyzptlk? Remember? So take that bit, but everywhere I say Superman, have it say Fantastic Four instead… yeah, that should do it.
4: The Wrecking Crew:
Thor has a unique quirk of having a very cinematic rogues gallery. Sure, most of the movies have pitted him against Loki, but if they were to run him up against the Enchantress, or the Absorbing Man, or Ulik the Troll, or Kurse, or even the Stone Men from Saturn, that’s not a bad movie! However, in one of the attempts to give Thor more of a mortal nemesis, they put him up against the Wrecker, who has an… enchanted… indestructible… crowbar. Yeah. Incredibly, the Wrecker and his Wrecking Crew have become very present characters throughout the Marvel Universe, essentially serving as “jobbers”, being rolled out to get beaten up by the new top hero or villain, but that may not work in a movie, where villains have to be seen as having some level of potency before being struck down. That means we’d need at least a short scene where it seems like Thor might lose to a guy whose power is “crowbar”, and that’s about as likely as an Edward Norton cameo in the next Avengers. Ho boy, they did NOT part on good terms!
3: Clayface:
When the movie-going public goes to see a Batman movie, they generally want something a bit more grounded than your typical superhero fare. After all, Batman has no powers, and therefore the most supernatural thing that should happen in these movies is a gas that makes you smile, or a different gas that makes you think your dead parents are back and disappointed in you. Might wanna put a mouth covering on that mask, Bruce! The one and only they’ve made a movie where Batman fights people with real, off-the-wall super powers (Batman and Robin), it did not go great. And those guys pale in comparison to Clayface, who is, yes, made of clay. In the comics and cartoons, Clayface looks awesome, turning his limbs into weapons and being very challenging to incapacitate, but in a live-action, realistic Batman adventure, we wouldn’t want to see the Dark Knight fight a poop-colored version of the T-1000, especially if it’s got the same chemical composition of a little dreidel that I made.
2: Red Hood:
A relative newcomer to the Batman universe, Red Hood is the revived body of Jason Todd, the second Robin, who was brutally killed by the Joker in one of the most controversial storylines DC Comics ever produced. Literally, fans called a 900 number to tell the writers to kill him off. A 900 number. That’s how much they hated the little turd. Anyway, Jason Todd, whom Batman and the rest of the world believed was dead, was revived by Ra’s al Ghul and became a ruthless villain. Since then, he’s gravitated more to the side of the hero, though one a bit more willing to spill blood than his mentors. Why won’t we see him in the darker, edgier Batman films? Because… that’s Bucky. It’s the same thing that happened in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Teen sidekick killed in controversial manner, revived by super villain to be a thorn in said hero’s side, later changes his mind and becomes a good guy again, though with enough PTSD to fill a PTSD super store. The two storylines even occurred in the comics in the same year, 2005, to much fanfare and across-the-board declarations of one company ripping off the other, reminding the world of the great Aquaman-Namor debates of the 1940s. Considering that DC’s films have criminally underperformed compared to Marvel’s, the last thing they want to do is be accused of lazy plagiarism, so Jason Todd will likely remain a permanent fixture in the afterlife, hanging out with Batman’s parents and, at the rate that people are coming back from the dead, literally no one else. (Plus, if they can’t even get Robin right, how are they gonna do this?)
1: Mister Sinister:
Yes, he was teased at the end of X-Men Apocalypse, but ignoring that the film underperformed both critically and commercially, Mister Sinister is never going to be in a movie. It would make sense for him to appear, though, right? He’s one of the most present and potent X-Men villains, he’s played crucial roles in many memorable storylines, he’s got a sick cape, but… something a lot of comic book fans tend to overlook is his murky backstory, powers, and motivations. He was a biologist in Victorian London who did genetic experiments on homeless people in the hopes of finding clues about the oncoming threat of mutants. In this time, he unearthed the long-dormant En Sabah Nur, whom you plebeians may know as Apocalypse, and Apocalypse gifted him with great abilities. What abilities you ask? HA HA, good question! At various times, Sinister has displayed: telepathy, telekinesis, energy projection, shape-shifting, regeneration, and teleportation, but these powers will mysteriously disappear whenever they want him to get sliced up real good by Wolverine. Additionally, it has never been made very clear what Sinister wants. Does he seek perfect mastery of the human genome? Does he live to torment Cyclops? Is he a blind follower of Apocalypse? Is he just running through all the different kinds of goatee? Of course, in adaptation, the writers would pick and choose the aspects they’d want to use, but I doubt they’d want to untangle the Christmas lights mess that is Mister Sinister, especially when they’ve got a perfectly good villain whose power is just “magnets”.
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Gale’s Top 10: Favorite Rivals
For this list, I will be picking my favorite Rival Character’s in Media. Video games, anime, manga, comics, etc.
Now the question is, What makes a character a rival?
For this list I will be making clarifications:
1. If one of the goals of one of the characters is to surpass another character, battle multiple times, state that this person is their rival, and/or have the same objective as a character but puts them in conflict.
2. Moral alignment doesn't mean anything. They can be friendly rivals or even hero/villain rivals as long as their main objective is to best their opponent.
3. Bonus points if the rival is equal in strength and find themselves on opposite sides.
4.There are differences between Archenemies and rivals. So likely Super villains, Like The Joker (who do exist to defeat batman, are more like nemesis rather then rivals).
5. One per franchise
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10. Dark Pit/ Pittwo ( Kid Icarus Uprising)
Dark Reflections are often seen as cliché when it comes to rivals, but I have a soft spot for this dark copy.
Dark Pit is a copy made by Pandora to be Pit’s equal and defeat him for the sake of the underworld. But the process of making him resulted in his obedience being... shattered.
Dark pit doesn't side with the underworld or Skyworld. He does his own thing and wants to be his own person. Even achieving unlimited flight for a brief period, making him superior to Pit.
Equal in strength, speed, power, and abilities. Dark pit is a pinnacle of dark copies. But he is even seen being more observant and smarter then Pit. Since he is more self reliant, he is shown to see things more objectively.
His connection to Pit is revealed that if Pit falls, He will fall as well. So it makes for an interesting dynamic that Dark pit wants to prove his superiority yet still bound to Pit. Which leads to an interesting dynamic.
(also if you have not played Kid Icarus Uprising, for the love of Palutena DO IT!)
9. Metal Sonic (Sonic the hedgehog)
Oh I can see the anger from the Shadow Fans. ‘Why did I pick Metal Sonic?’ ‘Why not Shadow?’ ‘Shadow and Sonic have more of a rivalry?’
Here is my response. Metal Sonic is Sonic’s greatest rival and vice versa.
Created by egg man to be Sonic’s equal, to learn and grow with each fight. Metal sonic always pushes Sonic to his limit.
There are even cases where Metal Sonic has Surpassed Sonic going so far as to have sonic need the help of others to best him.
His goal of defeating Sonic goes beyond programing. He will even find a way to break free of Eggman’s control just to achieve his goal of besting sonic.
Whether its the Comics, the games, movies. Metal Sonic is seen as Sonic’s most dangerous rival.
And proof? He is a character in the game Sonic Rivals! So that shows he is a rival of sonic.
Not to insult shadow, but the OG shadow wasn't focused on fighting sonic, he had his own goals and sonic just happened to be involved. While later renditions have him more of a vegeta knock off to sonic. I find these interpretations lame.
I also considered Scourge, but that would give acknowledgement to ken Penders and honestly I aint gonna do that.
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8. Sasuke Uchiha (Naruto/Naruto Shippuden)
Yes, cue the cliche gasps. Despite how obvious he was that he is on the list, it makes sense why he is here. His and Naruto’s dynamic is iconic. Best friends, rivals, enemies, brothers in arms.
The two went down two different paths, striving to surpass the other to achieve their dreams.
The main reason I put him on here is simple.
I could write several essays about why Sasuke is on this list, but that would be boring. You all know why he is here.
He is an iconic rival and that is a fact
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7. Kim Ban Phuong (Sun-Ken Rock)
Now I know what you are thinking. Who the f*** is this guy? Time for gale’s obscure pick.
And that is understandable, since this is a manga that wasn't made into an anime (despite DESERVING TO BE ONE) (though to be fair, it is MEGA DARK, a lot of messed up themes in this. Really nails how corrupt people can be)
A man that became a monster for the sake of surpassing Kitano Ken (the main character of the manga)
A man that was one of the only two people to have ever beaten the main character in a fight (and the only one to do so when the main character was trying to be a boss)
Formed an assassin guild to destroy Ken’s gang.
The tragic backstory of this character is enough to give the reader the understanding on how he is Ken’s shadow. Why he is fighting against Ken so hard. All the way to the tragic end he faced. Something which I dare not spoil here.
The fight between him and Ken is nothing short of breath taking and this is written by the guy that did the Dr.Stone Manga.
Seriously, while the fan service can be grotesque at times, the plot of the story about Korean gangs, race relations and asian history are something to behold. The fact that its so underrated is a travesty. (but skip the idol arc, it does capture how messed up the entertainment industry can be.)
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6. Ryoga hibiki
The undisputed king of getting lost. The man of many misfortunes. The half piglet half man. Ryoga.
For those who have seen Ranma 1/2, What you see here is top tier best boy in the series.
If you go strictly by the anime, you would believe that he is a better match for akane (or Ranma depending on what side of the fandom you are on)
Ryoga puts Ranma as the focus of all the misfortune he has faced, he is mostly self taught and is acknowledged by Ranma as his only true rival.
When it comes down to it they are constantly on a seesaw on who is stronger. Despite all of the hardships, Ryoga does see Ranma in a friendlier light as the series goes on, even considering him a friend. They actually have helped each other on occasions, The manga showing times where Ranma tried to help Ryoga with his date with another girl. Or Ryoga putting his feelings for Akane aside to stop Brainwashed Ranma from marrying shampoo.
The back and forth between the two and the unspoken connection of having a jusenkyo curse has really made the two have a strong bond.
Ryoga deserves a spot on this list because of his strong character.
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5. Henry Cooldown (No more Heroes)
For those of you unfamiliar with the series of No More Heroes, Henry is the Scottish Half-brother of the main protagonist. Cool, confident, a kick ass accent, and a masterclass assassin. He is the final boss of the first No More Heroes.
The rivalry between the two really takes head when the main character, Travis, finds out that this cool customer that stole his kill and saved his life was his half brother and wants to settle it in a duel to the death. Henry was a rival that was always one step ahead of Travis. Travis wants to bang Silvia, (the woman that set up the assassin ranking system) She was Henry’s Ex-wife. Travis wanted to be the number one assassin, Henry was the original number one. Travis has a beam Katana, Henry has one that looks even cooler.
In terms of the cool rival/ brother rival archetype, Henry Cooldown is the best fit, and he even helps travis out again in the sequel.
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4. Paul (Pokemon Diamond and Pearl)
For those of you that have seen the anime, You understand EXACTLY why Paul is on this list.
In Ash’s journey through Sinnoh, there was a Pokemon trainer that always seemed to one up Ash, no it wasn't Gary Oak, it was Paul.
But what made Paul so different? Why not pick Gary?
Paul was Ash’s antithesis.
Ash loved his Pokemon and battled with instinct and trust.
Paul evaluated his pokemon’s potential, he released any that failed to meet his standards. He was focused on attaining power and would use any means necessary to attain it.
He saw how his older brother failed, and refused to give up like his brother did. Paul wanted to prove himself better.
Ash saw Paul as a strong trainer but HATED the way he treated his own Pokemon. Ash even ended up asking Paul’s Chimchar to join his team after Paul abandoned it, which allows for a more dynamic clash in their beliefs.
Battle after battle, Paul kept proving better then ash, until the Sinnoh League tournament. Where they faced off in the quarter finals.
(Which is personally my favorite anime Pokemon battle of all time)
Ash gets to show Paul the importance of Loving and respecting one’s Pokemon. And that is pretty beautiful.
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3.Shego
Shall we talk about my favorite character in Kim possible? About time we had a lovely Lady rival on here.
Yes, we shall.
The former Super powered Hero turned Villain, the Number two of Dr. Drakken.
Shego is a self interested individual that loves to pamper herself and to do bad.
Whenever she is involved, it is guaranteed that she and Kim are going to be fighting.
The fights are always intense and always show the capabilities of both fighters. In a way Shego is a dark reflection of Kim.
Capable, sassy, fashionable, and a total threat to anyone that gets in her way.
Not to mention, (I TOTALLY WAS CRUSHING ON HER AS A KID)
Shego’s only reason for not being the most evil villain out there is simply because she couldn't care less about actually ruling the world, Not that she wouldn't do it if she had the opportunity (a stitch in time showed she totally would) She is just more relaxed, even willing to help Kim.
There is even an episode where Shego turned good and she and Kim got along legendarily.
When it comes to rivals, Shego’s got sass, class and can whoop ass.
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2. Seto Kaiba (Yu-Gi-Oh!)
Don't act like you don't love this arrogant douche.
Seto Kaiba is one of the most iconic characters in Yu-gi-oh.
This Blue eyes dragon fetishist is the head of his own company and wants to prove that he is the greatest duelest in the world.
His obsession with besting the Pharaoh (Atem / Yami Yugi) is documented and the lengths he is willing to go.
He advanced the technology of the world so far just so he could find the long dead pharaoh who went back to his time/ spirit world and he nearly did it.
He even found a way to counter magic using technology.
Though despite his ego that could rival MOUNTAINS in size, Kaiba does care about his little brother mokuba, willingly sacrificing himself just to protect him. Even willing to put his life on the line to save him.
When it comes to showmanship, Seto Kaiba is number one, and likely the inspiration for EVERY BADASS ANIME OUTFIT TO EXIST
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1. Vegeta (Dragon ball Z and Dragon Ball Super)
When one thinks the word Rival, one man pops into my head. Bar none, the Prince of all Saiyans. Vegeta.
The prince of all Tsundere’s, the walking Napoleon complex. The genocidal warrior to defender of earth and father of two.
Vegeta’s goal was to be Number one, and Kakarot/ Goku is the one that stands in his way.
After Frieza’s defeat, Vegeta’s goal was to surpass Goku, to prove he is number one.
His actions and antics could hardly be considered good, not until the end of the Buu saga would he even be considered a good person.
But the reason why vegeta is number one is because of what happened during Super.
Vegeta has gained a LOT of character development during the sequel series. Especially in the super Manga.
Vegeta shows that he has grown to care about the planet that he has lived on, even feeling guilty of his actions back in the Namek saga, doing his best to make things right.
He still wants to beat Goku, but he has more reasons to fight then simply his pride.
Vegeta is arguably the most developed rival on this list.
There are other iconic rivals that could have hit number one, but Vegeta is the text book definition of Rival.
Thats why the Prince of all Saiyans is finally number one
#rivals#gale's top ten#gale's top 10#vegeta#sasuke#Henry cooldown#seto kaiba#hibiki ryoga#shego#rival paul#metal sonic#dark pit
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OTP tag game.
Tagged by @captainjowl. You know for sure than I'm struggling to pick only 10 & fit them in here. But hell, that’s fun, thank you <3
Rules: Choose 10 OTPs BEFORE reading the questions, and then get to answering
1) Harry James Potter & Sirius Orion Black
2) Daniel Le Domas & Grace (Ready or Not 2019)
3) Samuel & Nathan Drake (Uncharted 4)
4) Corvo Attano & The Outsider (+probably Emily Kaldwin; Dishonored series)
5) Steve Grant Rogers & Bucky Buchanan Barnes (Marvel)
6) Tony Edward Stark & Peter Benjamin Parker (Marvel)
7) Handsome Jack & Rhys (Borderlands video game series)
8) Damon Salvatore & Elena Gilbert (TVD Books & a tv show)
9) Batman & Joker (in every universe, really)
10) Adam Jensen x Francis Pritchard (Deus Ex video game series)
1. Do you remember the episode/scene/chapter that you first started shipping 6?
I believe it didn't hit me before Spider-Man: Homecoming. Civil War was about Steve & Bucky for me, but when I saw that growing up Peter with Tony, their dynamic, chemistry. Tom & Robert are really just like that.
2. Have you ever read a fanfic about 2?
Lmao. I've read like 50% of the tag on AO3, I wrote my own & started a few wips on them. They are amazing. Plus, with that shitty canon? We didn't get enough of them & they deserved better, so it's only logical to save yourself with fanfiction.
3. Has a picture of 4 ever been your screen saver/profile picture/tumblr screen saver?
I was living with The Outsider icon on my twitter & tumblr. That one is still my Google profile picture I believe. Don't remember about having an icon with the two of them. Also had The Outsider as my lockscreen on my smartphone for a while.
4. If 7 were to suddenly break up today, what would your reaction be?
Funny how it fits canon, lmao. Rhys literally tried to erase Jack's AI in TFTBL, so I guess another day on Pandora, nothing new. They torture each other, they kiss each other, they kill other people in the process. It'll be fiiine.
5. Why is 1 so important?
I love them since the first time I met them, which was much more than 10 years ago, I don't even remember when. At some point they were the reason I was waking up & forcing myself to eat just to read more fanfiction & feel something. Even if I was drowning in pain (I was extremely depressed), it was still something. I read every fic I could find at that time. The depression that Harry went through, all these feelings, his love for Sirius. I was living through it, I could relate.
I'm currently drowning in these two again, though in a much healthier & happier state. I see their flaws & I know as much as I can. I see them differently as an adult. They saved me, they keep being my number one, I still consider making a tattoo of Padfoot/Sirius or of both Harry & Sirius together. I have many headcanons, ideas, I write fics about them. They are everything, you see? They were my choice when there was nothing, no one. They are HOME.
6. Is 9 a funny ship or a serious ship?
Both. There goes the dynamic of Jack & Rhys: torture, fighting, flirting, a lot of trauma. I'd definitely say that they are wild and comical sometimes, but they are definitely serious. With the Asylum, the mental health issues. There is so much more to it, the complexity of their relationship. The struggle of loving who you probably shouldn't (but hey, when does it work like that?) Thinking about Tettlate's Batman, about Batman: Europa & how Joker was: "You must be crazy, putting me in charge of the plan, letting me decide. Okay, well..."
Nah, they are entertaining, but this is a serious ship.
7. Out of all the ships listed, which ship has the most chemistry?
Are you kidding me? They are all the definition of CHEMISTRY. I'd say 5, but then go 2, 6, 7, 8. Come on. I'm not choosing. Most of they are WILD.
9. How many times have you read/watched the 10’s fandom?
The fandom itself? Idk. I found one of my favourite artists through this fandom. If it's about the characters themselves, I played the first game with the DLC from start to beginning, looking around every corner. Spent more than 60 hours in there. Watched a second game (my laptop can't run the game) and the DLC (obviously), since Francis is in the DLC & not in the main game. I have a tag for them on tumblr, I read fanfiction, I tried to write my own. I still follow Elias & want a third game. Elias liked my tweets about Adam and Jensen being an actual couple a few times. I'd say I interacted with all of this a lot? Still do, actually.
10. Which ship has lasted the longest?
5. Best friends since childhood, fought & died for each other, still found their way back to each other. "It would break your Captain's heart, to see what they did to you." That only the MENTION of Steve can pull Bucky out of this brain washing(ed?) state, distract him in the middle of a fight. When Steve died in the comics because of Sharon & Tony sent Natasha to take Steve's shield from Bucky because even Tony knew how much Steve means to Bucky. And Bucky was like: "Oh, I see what he did. Not happening!" Fought Natasha (that is his ex in the comics) & kept going for Steve's sake.
Well, you see the point, I can go on and on.
11. How many times, if ever, has 6 broken up?
They're not actually canon so none? They had a few fights: In Civil war (the comics), in Homecoming (the movie). That only means that they’ve got history & love each other.
12. If the world was suddenly thrust into a zombie apocalypse, which ship would make it out alive, 2 or 8?
As fierce Grace is, they wouldn't stand a chance against Damon & Elena. Those two had to deal with worst thing than brainless stupid zombies. On the other hand, if there were no alive humans to drink their blood... It's either an animal diet that Damon hates so much or I don't know? Still, they're faster & more powerful. Their bodies have advantage of healing the wounds as well.
13. Did 7 ever have to hide their relationship for any reason?
From some people, yeah. Don't tell Athena, don't tell Vaughn, don't tell Fiona. Though Rhys wasn't very subtle about it & Jack just doesn't give a fuck. You will probably end up dead if you disagree or bore him, or if you're useless.
"I can take you to the top, but you gotta know where the top is" & Rhys doesn't tell anybody until Jack makes him the President for like whole 20 minutes lol.
Fiona & Sasha: "This can't be happening." Sure it can, darling.
14. Is 4 still together?
I have a headcanon about The Outsider finding Emily & Corvo after Billie frees him from the Void. He doesn't have anybody & they are his only friends aside from a potential friendship with Billie. And if we don't consider TOTO dlc, they definitely are! The Outsider visits them both when they sleep & takes them to the void sometimes. How could he not?
15. Is 10 canon?
Not really but also sort of? Let's say that they really care about each other in canon, despite Adam pushing Francis away because of his trauma & fear that Megan caused him. :/
16. If all 10 ships were put into a couple’s Hunger Games, which couple would win?
Can you imagine wizards fighting extremely powerful vampires? Superheroes with venom in their bodies that make them super strong with people that made a deal with the Devil himself (hi Le Bail)? 5000 y.o. God and his lover that share his powers and an augmented human protecting his tired IT guy? Combine mental health issues to that, Jack and Rhys with Batman and Joker. Corvo & The Outsider would probably slay them all as Corvo and Emily did in both games with entire islands, though it will still be a slaughter anyway.
17. Has anybody ever tried to sabotage 5’s ship?
All the fucking time, lmaooo. I’m not even talking about it.
18. Which ship would you defend to the death and beyond?
I feel like I already did with Steve & Bucky after many Marvel movies (we're not even mentioning Endg*me, I fucking died & was dead for full 4-5 months).
19. Do you spend hours a day going through 3’s tumblr page?
I used to do that a few years back, but not anymore. There is not much content since the trilogy is finished.
20. If an evil witch descended from the sky and told you that you had to pick one of the ten ships to break up forever or else she’d break them all forever, which ship would you sink?
1 already went through it & fandom lives, so I'd say maybe 7? Rhys will find a way to bring Jack back & they are both so wild. It’s what happened in canon anyway. Jack kidnapped Lilith & forced her to do Angel's job, so I'd like to see that witch try at first. Jack is an immortal bastard. <3
Now that I think about it, Corvo would also deal with her in seconds as she waits to curse them.
As a conclusion: no one breaks up forever, we're killing the witch.
I tag: @ianmillkovichgallagher & @aledbr
Whoever else wants to join the game, please do.
#otp#me#tumblr#harry x sirius#delena#corvosider#rhack#tony x peter#batjokes#jensard#steve x bucky#ready or not#drakecest
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