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popculturebuffet · 10 days

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Supermay!: President Luthor Review (Comission by WeirdKev27)

Hello all you happy people and welcome back to SUPERMAY, a month long celebration of all things superman.

Today we spotlight one of the greatest villians of all time. Not even going to undersell it I LOVE Lex Luthor, in large thanks to Clancy Brown's performance as the man the myth the legend in Superman the Animated Series and Justice League. Wether he's a super scientest, a super buisness man or some combo of the three, Lex is a fascinating character.

Lex is a perfect mirror to clark: Clark had two loving wonderful parents, Luthor's were abusive. Clark has incredible power, but uses it to help people, while Luthor has incredible intellgence but uses it to crush others under his heel metaphorically or quite literally depending on the day. Clark is empathetic and belivies in everyone, while Lex belivies in no one but himself. They don't just come into conflict because Luthor is a terrible person.. they come into conflict because it's hard for these two to coexist: Superman wants Luthor held acountable and as a rich white man in america, that's a tall order, and Luthor simply can't STAND that all these people love Superman and not him.

So that lead's us to today's comic, an intresting chapter in Lex's history borne ENTIRELY out of that egocentric spite: In 2000 Lex Luthor ran for president.. and he WON. Most of you are likely aware this happened as it's been adapted a few times, the movie superman/batman: public enemies adapting the end of his presdiency, Justice League Unlimited featuring him doing said campaign (if JUST to piss superman off/further his evil plans), and Smallville has that happen somewhere.

It's an iconic storyline.. that's sadly undercollected. Yeah today's review covers trade released after an even less subtle evil billionare won the presdiency.. and the probelm is Luthor's campaign was less a storyline and more a big status quo change. As such this collection covers a handful of stories, dosen't really feel like an actual storyline, and only covers up till just after Lex is elected.

There IS a decent reason as this trade was likely reconfigured from the original trade released around the time the storyline happened, and the year after this they began reprinting the era these stories come from in "Superman: The City of Tommorow"... which stopped after two volumes. DC.. isn't great at collecting it's own history, though marvel's only a smidge ahead thanks to their Epic Collection line. They have a bad tendency to stop halfway through and this was a casuality.

Still this trade does at least provide a peak into the election of lex luthor, why he ran, who his running mate was, and how Clark took his greatest enemy WINNING. So join me under the cut for all that and more!

Our first of many stories, and pieces of stories, is The Why. And it's easily my faviorite collected here as it's simple yet brilliant. It's a story with no dialouge till the final panel, with muted colors around, that follows a day in the life of Lex Luthor.. and how no matter what he does or where he goes he can't escape superman: He sees him on a news, at newstands, an employee having a superman action figure (who he naturally gestures his assitant to fire), even a tatoo on a woman he was going to flirt with and maybe unsatisfygly do sex with. I mean lex CAN be hot but let's face it: there is no way in hells someone that egocentric is not selfish in bed.

So we get to the final page.. where he sees a headline with superman and gets an idea. A wonderful awful idea

It's a true masterpiece and while some would say "would luthor REALLY be so petty as to run for president just to spite superman", I say "Early into this post crisis version of the character the man spent billions of dollars and had a woman kidnapped to find out his secret identity and later created a temporary cure to Lois Lane's mother's terminal illness just so she'd date him". Pre-Crisis he was sore superman made him bald and dedicated his life to destroying him. Lex Luthor is a petty bitch and always has been.

This brilliant story was by Greg Rucka, who if you haven't heard of him, you rmissing out. Rucka has done a ton of work at DC with the two standouts to me being his sadly short lived run on Wonder Woman, redefening the character, givnig her her own lex luthor and really just killing it. THen eh did it AGAIN for rebirth. The other is his run on Catwoman, which took Frank Miller's edgelord riffic Year One retcon of Catwoman having been a sex worker.. and recontexualizes it, making Selina's rough background part of her and making her a champion for sex workers and others who simply dont' have one, taking what was meant as stupid fanservice and giving it depth and weight. What i'ms aying is he's really awesome so it's not a shock some of the best stories here are him.

So we then go to part of a story called Adversaries, by JM Demattis, one half of the masterful team behind Justice League International. As Superman is having his morning meditation and thinking "golly gee nothing could ruin this gorgeous day"... Lex Luthor announces he's running for president.

Now you may be asking "Jake how in the flying fuck is lex luthor running for president. " And while 2000's superman is one of the gaps in my comics knowledge I know enough about the time period to know what's going on here and thus why Lex has a shot, with the various storeis themselves filling in a gap or two.

Okay so a while back, Lex Luthor was dying. This was the famous "Kryptonite gave him cancer" story, which I know thanks to the Justice League cartoon. Like the cartoon he eventually escaped it, but rather than Braniac curing it he found another way out: Cloning.

Yes folks Lex Luthor cloned himself, and then pretended to be his own illgitamte child for a while. I mostly know about THIS because I did read the death of superman, reign of the supermen and return of superman all of which happen while Lex is pretending to be his own son and also romancing supergirl who was a shapeshifted alien blob who trusted him for something at the time rather than a teenage girl, which still dosen't make it less creepy as it's still lex luthor grinding up against a member of superman's family. He's also the reason she didn't intervene in said death, telling her to back off clearly hoping superman would die. Granted he ALWAYS hopes superman will die this time he just happened to be correct.

The clone eventually degraded, Luthor blew up metropolis, and he made a deal with the demon neron for a new body. He later pinned all his crimes on a "failed clone" and thus was scott free for any overt supervillany. So as far as anyone knows Luthor's record is clean.

Helping this are two factors: one is that while Luthor was shady as fuck, like most buisnessmen in the 80's and 90's he didn't go around announcing it or hoping he can get courts to ignore his crimes and put them down to "politics". He kept his hands clean like any shady billionare so superman could stop his nonsense, but couldn't really stop HIM, with superman the animated series keeping with this line of thought.

The other is that any shady stuff left tha tcould be dug up.. was erased. See something very weird I haven't read the storyline for happened right before this: at the dawn of the millnieum, braniac attacked and converted metropolis into a literal city of tommorow, a futurestic city packed with fancy tech, robots and other stuff. Braniac was beat but Luthor barganed with him: His baby daughter for the knowledge of how to work all this. Thus Lex was able to make everything run well and had the popular vote.

Finally we have the climax of the year long Batman epic No Man's Land, a story that like president luthor has been adapted a few times because it's that good an idea. Now what it was was a bit nuts.. after a massive earthquake and a plauge, the goverment, backed by some shady folks hoping to profit off the situation, decided Gotham just.. wasn't part of america anymore.

Yeah they just.. set up guards so no one got in or out, and it was declared a no man's land, hence the title. Many evacuated but some coudln't and some like Batman, the GCPD and most of Batman's partners stayed behind to try and save the city. It introduced Cassandra Cain Batgirl, and was where Nightwing and Oracle finally hooked up.

The important part to this is towards the end, as the goverment was finally shamed into doing the right thing Luthor stepped up to help rebuild the city. Naturally this being Lex Luthor he can't do a nice thing unless it either benefits him or pisses off superman somehow, and so he tried to steal the city out from under it's citizens, foiled naturally by batman. So while Batman stopped his shit, the public at large just sees this as a huge humanitarian boost and a bane against the incumbent who you know, signed off on no mans land in the first place. Granted any presidency would struggle after electing to abandon a city and let the joker sort it out, but Luthor being the guy who went in and cleaned up the mess only makes it worse.

It's also here I want to stop and point out the obvious parallel: Lex Luthor is a buisnessman, with a reputation for putting his names on things, having heavy ties to one of america's big cities, flaunting his wealth and being pettily vengful at everyone who so much as sneezed at him wrong. As much as I don't want to talk about him, we really can't talk about this arc anymore without talking about Donald Trump.

Luthor getting elected got comparisons to Trump, to the point they threw in the story Luthor the Unauthroized Biography in here despite having happened long before this arc , simply so they could use this cover

The thing is though while the two have SOME similarities, Luthor's campaign was done long before Trumps.. and thus Luthor presents himself as an actual human being instead of some shouty sack of skin and hair plugs who dosen't understand how anything works. Luthor may be evil.. but part of what makes him an intresting villian is the presentation: Luthor wants to be seen as a good man, to be praised. His reputation and power is everything. Thus luthor packages two evil schemes as him trying to help people, packages everything he does carefully.

Trump DOES have a carefully cultivated brand.. but also has zero filter. He never has. He flat out admitted a few months ago he'll be a dictator on day one.. and day 1001 but he didn't say that part, but he sure is thinking it. Trump is a bafoon who got into office preying on people's need for some sort of economic upturn, pandering to racists and other anti-change bigots, and getting a loyal army of fellow dumbasses to back him and whatever he does, to the point his loyalists held the senate hostage and that he's been able to use them to get away with formenting an insurrection. Would lex luthor storm the captial? yes. Would he do it in a way that couldn't possibly be linked to him? Yes.

Again i'm not saying Lex is a good person: he gave his daughter to an alien robot man. Lex Luthor is a monster. I'm saying that he dosen't really resemble trump.. because he's a FUNCTIONAL monster. Part of why this arc works is that you can see WHY lex can sell america on this as he uses a mostly pristine image. Trump had a combination of luck and racisim. Luthor actually worked at it.

Anyways one of Superman's foes The Adversary, a guy I know nothing about and whose unrelated to the trickster god from marvel far as I know, kidnaps luthor, superman rescues him.. and superman is all too happy to give him a haughty "your welcome" after luthor is a dick about it saying his people could've handled the giant flying man as strong as superman.

Our next story is another Greg Rucka banger, The Most Suitable person and is another tie to Batman. Lex knows he can't keep his company and since he gave away his only children to use as a puppet king, he instead courts the best woman for the job: Talia, daughter of Batman superfoe Ra's Al Ghul. It's an intresting pull and makes sense: He could have his right hand woman mercy run it.... but he needs her at his side for his evil schemes and it'd still look like he was running it. He needs someone he can trust to run it and not take it from him, but also not make it less evil.

Talia at the time was on the outs from her dad and not really in a mood to accept given the centruies old head of a large terrioist group kinda wants her dead. Lex naturally takes her no.. by having a bunch of mercnaries pretending to be her dad's men. It IS left ambigious if it was really them.. but like Talia I fully think Lex set this up and despite his refusals he WOULD blow up a building and get 17 mercs killed just to get what he wants. She agrees to here him out if only because it's clear he won't take no for an answer... and there's no telling what he'd do for an encore.

Next is the great debate, a fun short story and another likely backup. This time it's from my boy Peter David, writer of X-Factor over at marvel, and Young Justice and Supergirl here at dc among a LOT more. It's a fun three pager where Luthor has a nightmare of a debate.. with two face.

Next is some forward movement with the concept, the american way by Jeph Loeb, who'd not only write superman for the luthor presidency as a whole, but would also write it's end with Public Enemies.

Lois and Clark get an ugly suprise that morning: Luthor's picked his running mate..and it's Clark's childhod friend Pete Ross, a former senator and clear pick to get the vote of midwesteners. And living in the mid west I can tell you this ploy probably woudl've worked.

Clark heads down there to find out what the hell and after LUthor exploits his sudden apperance for press, Clark asks pete what the fuck. Pete explains he's given up on dreaming: he wants to be a winner dammit and Luthor is going to win.

Clark confides in his parents, with Pa not knowing what the hell got into Pete.. I mean he was apparently always a moron but my god. Clark considers talking to his wife Lana, Clark's childhood sweetheart, and Ma tells him he should but that she's suffered enough and he shoudlnt' write a piece against pete.. even though pete did this dumbass thing himself and it's clark's job as a reporter, not to mention pete FLAT OUT ADMITTED he's only doing this because he wants to win.

Lois goes to work where Perry, SHOCKINGLY isn't happy. Also she ignores Jimmy, expect that to be a theme here. At any rate, Perry is pissed, but Lois is more concerned about a ticking time bomb: she agreed to kill any one story luthor asked and is afraid the bill will come due. This.. dosen't come up strangely. I THINK it plays into the arc, but I can't be sure as it's missing here.

Superman decides to deal with his own issues with this whole situation the way he does.. by battling a giant monster in the atlantic. He wins.. but finds a bigger problem, Aquaman, whose still in his angry phase but is ANGRIER than even usual: turns out it's Lexcorp that's been causing creatures like the giant monster thing to go nuts, and he's going to do something about it even as Clark TRIES To get him to calm the hell down. Thankfully this isn't bad character writing as there's a reason for Arthur being mopeier than usaul.

For now Clark swoops into an event for Lex, but before he can talk to Lana, Aquaman shows up with a giant net to kidnap lex luthor

Superman naturally goes after him only to find THE ARMIES OF ATLANTIS led by former aqualad and current tempest garth, who orders superman to stand down or he'll flood the city

Garth is the key indicator somethin'gs up: arthur does have a tendency to be a grumpus in this era, him doing this isn't SUPER out of character.. but declaring war and Garth participating in it and activating a giant wave machine? Something's fucked.

Superman may be faster than a speeding bullet.. but he isn't fast enough to stop garth.

Thankfully he gets some help from the boys YOUNG JUSTICE IS HERE! Specifically the comics version, which I love dearly and which is nothing like what got on screen. Nothing against the cartoon, Weisman did a great job, it's just based more on the teen titans with bits of greg's own ideas. Young Justice is more like the teen titans cartoon , which was intended to be a YJ adaptation but they coudln't get the rights to some of the cast.

The lineup for this crossover is the core of the team: Robin (Tim Drake), Superboy (conner king) Impulse, and Wonder Girl (Cassie Sandmark), along with their mentor and advisor and babysitter my boy red Tornado. Clark is.. less than enthused, but takes the help as they hit the streets. Naturally things don't go on too long before robin and cassie get eaten by that big thing from earlier.

This is on purpose though: Tim revs up the super cycle, had cord attached to it and superboy and later superman PULLL PULLL while he revs up, allowing them to pull the thing back into the ocean. Superman sincerly compliments them, which is nice: clark may be mildly frustrated with them.. but he's still superman. He's not a dick and as weird as the plan was, it worked. He quickly saves lois , as he do then goes to rescue Luthor.

This being Luthor though.. he spins it in his favor. He claims he had no idea the braniac tech he was using was turning sea life mad.. including the atlantians, explaning why Arthur done did a war crime, and vows to actually fix it, spinning this pr disaster into a win.

Then he gets another PR win.. the hard way. He gets shot. The culprit is Jenny Hubbard, a minor character I had to look up, a waitress he once offered a million dollars to spend a month with him... then left long before she could accept the offer, it being a cruel prank he does to fuck with people. Naturally the media spins it as her being delusional... it also uses the same shot for an entire page but i'll only show you 4 panels

Also for some reason they didn't think to not have a shot wher eluthor looks like a preist getting down instead of having just taken a bullet... he smiles in his hotel room. It's as if he planned it.

The next story is another Loeb story, and another backup, tales from the Bizzaro World. Batman shows up and he's understandably nettled: As I mentioned, and learned from this story, the braniac 13 thing wiped Luthor's records. That means there's no dirt to dig up, the planets records also wiped and Batman wants to know if Clark personally has anything.

Clark dosen't.. but is pissed Bruce would even ask, pointing out this isn't the usual try to take down luthor thing: their talking about a political canditate running for office and this isn't something they should be doing.

I see both points: Luthor should be stopped and Batman is right ot question the american people's judgement when they let no man's land happen. But Clark is right: he can't just suddenly DECIDE who can be president or can't. He's not king superman. He put away the pope hat ages ago. He can vote, he can use his power at the planet to TRY and stop this.. but they can't just start deciding who runs america. Even if the people choose wrong they should be allowed to choose. Granted i've now seen how bad the people choosing wrong can go.. but the whole point of elections is to prevent a dictator ship, just like this one and likely others after it given the way the republican party is going. If someone else is sinking canditates ;using their billions and connections and bat skills, that's not freedom and clark is aware of it.

We move on to election night as everyone prepares.. and we get a really nice moment with Clark and Jonn

A reminder the leauge isn't thrilled about this either. More on that in a minute

In the office Pete White considers two headlines: Luthor Loooses.. or Luthor wins.

We then get Triumph Over Tragedy, a heavily doctored detaling of luthor's past, leaving out that he killed his dad, that the evil clone was him, etc. It's a neat piece that goes over his history and shows just how mnuch he's buried..a nd he buries it again as he asks cat to cut out the piece. This ending is chilling.. especially now as we have full channels like fox news dedicated to telling blatant lies and propping up people like luthor.

We then get the results as Jimmy is assigned to do a story on where they were when they heard about his announcment.. only for him to be interuppted. Perry announces, comparing it to other disasters.. that luthor has won. They have to press on because shit is going to get bad.. but they ahve to. While the Luthor trump comparssions don't really work for the most part.. this part hits as it's the reality most of us faced that day: that someone truly bad won.

Next up is another greg rucka story. Batman shows up , wanting the kryptonite ring. Luthor can have it or the presdency. Luthor says nah he can have both.. and shows just how bad things are now. While he said in the cartoon "you know how much power i'd have to give up to be president" this shows how much he GAINS: every wet works orginzation in the us now responds to him and he threatens batman: come after him again and he can track him and his allies 24/7 and he will. Bruce says he'll be back.. but it's an empty threat. Luthor.. has once again won. It's a great shor tlittle story, showing WHY Batman was so afraid of this and how even Superman's equal... can't lay a finger on him. Luthor.. has won.

We get a jeph loeb short story next: have you heard the news. it's a fun short three pager as Superman goes into an absolute RAGE on saturn's moon. He's.. not happy and luthor can see that. I also would like to take a minute to praise Ed McGuinnes, who did the art on Jeph Loeb's story. He has this nice bombastic cartoony style i REALLY love and it's always a pleasure to see him when he pops up and we'll be seeing him again when we cover public enemies at some point.

Next is the confrontation with Lana. Turns out part of Superman's understandable bafflement is that he kidnapped her like I mentioned.. and she never told pete as she couldn't without compromising clark's identity and admits they have NOTHING on luthor and that maybe pete will make it better and her marriage has to be mor eimportant. In other words.. it's all justifications: while Lana COULD have told Pete what happened and it's on her to not trust her husband enough. Clark would've let her. The truth is she just didn't want to and cries as she hopes he won't be president. Unsuprisingly this marriage did not last.

We get one final piece of election night: Superman storming in.. and admitting defeat

I love this image as it just convey's both how little clark wants to do this.. and how much he has to. To show america he won't undercut the president even if that president has cameras on saturn just to see if superman has a venting session.

Next up is a snippet of an issue, where Luthor has his big innaugration parade. He even hired an old friend to help celebrate

Trust. It's interuppted by some protesters from the Suicide Slum, a poorer area of Metropolis that got left behind by the Braniac updgrades to the rest of the city. Luthor dances a little sidestep saying he's not in charge of Lexcorp, he'll look into this, bullshit bullshit.

Clark and Lois go to talk to John Henry Irons, aka Steel aka Lana's next better husband. Then we cut off but we'll be seeing my boy here soon

For now we have my other faviorite story in this collection, a very close second to our first: Help.

Help is set at christmas and follows Clark as he talks with the other members of the Justice League about the shit that just went down, clearly stressed to hell given the people he protets and tries to inspire.. just willingly choose an egomaniac with a shady history to be their new leader. We also get a murder's row of artists for each vingette, written again by Jeph Loeb.

The first is the Martian Manhunter.. and Plastic Man as he was the only member of the expanded league from Morrison's run to stick around because he's awesome. Fun fact; Ben Schwartz has apparently campaigned to play him. James Gunn.. get.. get on that buddy.

Jonn is TRYING to help Clark relax but he can't because he's a boinger. And again a sociopath is in the white house. Clark wonders if he shoudl've done more to stop this.. but Jonn helps put it into perspective: Clark is integrated into this world a bit better than Jonn is, something he envies... especiallys ince what happened made no sense. But he assures clark the second Lex does something illegal, he's there... which also feels like his way of assuring his friend he did the right thing. We also get a sweet moment as plastic man makes him smile. Clark gives the two a gift: rubber bands fo rplastic man, choco's, jonn's faviorite oreo stand in, for .. well guess. It's a fun runner as I love the idea Clark gives his friends each a cheesy gag gift.

Next up is aquaman, by rob liefeld, which is shockingly passable. Clark and Arthur both look pissed off and dead at the same time but at least their spines are in tact. Arthur is actaully on lex's side since he's the first world leader to both promise trade with atlantis and offer commuincation and while Clark admits those are probably lies, Arthur warns they better not be, implying Luthor would be kinda stupid to do anything. Arthur then gets his gift a snowglobe and cracks the closest thing he can to a smile.

Next is a talk with green lantern drawn by Mike Wirnego, who i'm less familiar with but whose art looks sensational and expressive here. Granted anything is expressive after Rob Liefield but still, it's good stuff.

The League's green lantern is Kyle Rayner, imaginative boy and 90's guy. So naturally his stance is Luthor is crooked.. but so was the last guy and so will likely be the next guy. Things really don't change. Kyle still votes though as he has to hope things will be better. It shows Kyles' character off well: he's flip and easy to crack a joke.. but he's an optimsit at heart. His stance here is honestly mine: the system is broken, our vote only pivots thing slightly in elections where a known criminal and tyranical narcsist isn't running.. but it's worth voting just to TRY and make things better. There's no reason not to vote even if sometimes it's the lesser of two evils. Kyle's gift is ring polish, which he cracks up about.

Next up is Wally West, the flash by art motherfucking adams, an artistic legend and a genius at the pen. Truly fantastic stuff as always. Wally is picking up some chcoclates linda wanted, last minute of course since when your the fastest man alive you can do that cliche without coming off like a douche. Also when you have undiagnosed ADHD. Wally's stance is voting early and often, as that's the american way and admits he'd drag luthor out if Clark asked.. but he won't ask that because that's not the american way. The American way is putting your faith in something and hoping it works out. Wally gets tube socks for some reason.

Next is Diana, Wonder Woman and it's by Ian Churchill who i'm less familiar with.. but i'ts not drawn great. Diana also has large fake nails for some reason. It's this weird tendency i've noticed: artists tend to give long painted nails to women even if it didn't fit the character back in the 80's through the 2000's. I don't mind it if It fits and I could see diana doing it for a fancy occasion or fun, but not for a sparring session.

Diana dosen't care about the electoin and while she probably did vote she's more worried Clark is slipping and has already let Luthor win mentally. He hasn't but it's good of her to worry. She does have a valid suggestion that comes off as more in character though: take some time off. Granted i'ts written as "as a woman and as your only friend whose a woman " which just tells you a 2000's man wrote this. He gives her a tiny mjonr, which I again don't get but gets him a hug. Awww.

We end on Batman whose still pissed at Clark, rubbing the whole "letting humans have free will thing' in his face and saying when the time is right we will take down luthor. In other words prime bat dick behavior, not suprising for the era wher Batman was extra dickish at times.

So Clark takes the advice of a friend who didn't want him to interfere with free choice and takes a few days off in kandor with lois, content for now to accep tthe situation

We then get World without Superman by Mark Schultz... and this story is just..

The IDEA for the story is good: Around christmas time we see Clark depressed that Luthor won. Granted it dosen't jibe well with the previous story: Luthor won, but clark at least tried to take some time away from. I can still allow it though thanks to personal experince. Like with Perry's line before CLark depressedly watching the tv as Luthor makes good, butters up to the league and geninely seems to have america's approval hits harder after the 2016 election. Anyone on the left.. was left dismayed and shocked this actually happened, that this openly racist, sexist, homphobic pile of hair and spray tan won. I can sympathize with Clark having GENUINELY belivied in the people.. and them having let him down. I can buy that Superman, one of the most hopeful and hope inspiring characters in all of fiction.. could be laid low by this.

So the followup, Lori Lee of the time traveling Linear Men who i'd only vaugely heard of before this, shows up because things are going VERY bad thanks to decisions clark makes soon, that he quits being superman and gives up.. and the world goes to hell as a result. This idea.. is brilliant. While the it's a wonderful life riff is common, I like merging it with the future segment of a christmas carol here.

The problem is that they go WAY too far in this distoypian future to the point that it defies logic and sense. A good bad future has to have some sort of logic to it. To use an X-Men example because I got x-men on the brain now and always, Days of Future Past was effective because it was so simple how things went wrong: a mutant killed an anti-mutant senator, that ramped up anti mutant tensions, and things slowly escalated to the regestration act and the sentinel program going public. It took TIME for the world to go to hell in a realistic fashion.

This story does try to do that, it's 15 years later, Lexcorp runs the world. A large part of this is due to Our Worlds at War, a massive crossover and interstellar war that happened next year. During that war a powerful being named impereix decided to unmake reality due to a percieved imperfection in the cosmos and given his drones were incredibly powerful and if defeated detonated like nuclear bombs it took ALL of earth's superheroes as a united front, along with a few villians of course, to fight it back. Luthor proved his presidential chops by directing the conflict. The idea that this war goes badly without supes is a good one.

The problem is it dosen't really make sense with the storyline next year or even objectviely: Luthor apparently spent through a bunch of heroes with costly battle strategies.. but while Clark being gone DOES impact the superhero community severely and his clear replacement, Wonder Woman, was also gone, replaced by her mom, they still have the rest of the league, and if they coudln't inspire hope, there's the justice society of america, who the whole superhero community looks up to and who have vetran clout. Sure Lex could TRY and send them on a suicide run and did send them on a risky mission in the actual war, but the fact of the matter is it'd be a bit hard to both overtalk and cover up the deaths of world war II vetrans. Heroes who as far as I can tell have a unviersally good reputation. It's also overlooking the younger generation like DIck Grayson or Wally West, both of whom have enough collections across the various dc heroes to rally them.. and rally tem against luthor if he went to far.

Even putting that aside.. the second step, putting in laws to fuck with all them, is more plausable.. but the fact their ALL gone but batman and co by this point dosen't make any sense to me. Only one league member wasn't against luthor's election on some level, Arthur, and even his terms were VERY conditional. Luthor would have to do a lot of state sec killing to get the heroes down to a point where they couldn't just overthrow him and while he has the b13 tech, the heroes have geniuses like Oracle, Steel, and Batman on their side to help reverse engineer things. I also don't think bruce would remotely wait to go commando on Luthor and is smart enough. I'm not saying batman's a god : many a weak story has made batman a gary stu by forgetting he's a flawed man.. but he CAN beat lex luthor even with the world against him and wouldn't let Luthor get this far.

With days of future past the X-Men are a bunch of average people, with only charles having any political pull at the time. Batman.. is a billionaire. Wonder Woman and Aquaman both rep whole nations. Kyle and Wally while average joes are both gods. The only reason the justice league didn't say, remove Luthor the second he got elected.. is he was rightfully elected and they respect that. Even Batman, as pissy as he's been, knows better than to do that. But if things got bad enough they would and would let america hopefully pick someone better. Even if they ended up jailed.. they'd expose luthor if it killed them. Maybe i'm just an optimist, maybe the world would beat them all down.. but i've read enough dc comics of all kinds to know these characters.. don't give up and would fight their hardest for a better world even if it killed them. So it feels reductive to say superman being gone instantly means their all fucked. It'd mean they'd be more depressed, might go to darker places without clark, and some MIGHT give up.. but I can't imagine everyone giving up because superman decided.

And yes folks.. THAT'S what they went with. Superman just GAVE UP ON earth. I could buy Clark giving up on being superman if pushed enough: the world is full of heroes and as seen with the later storyline up up and away, which I hope to cover one day and might save for the next supermay, the dcu.. didn't burn down because he was gone a year after being depowered. He can still do good as Clark Kent. I can't buy Clark being SO fed up he'd leave. Retire maybe, and even then that's hard to buy.. but it's PLAUSABLE. Superman abandning his parents, wife and friends to fend for themselves and NEVER coming back is ludcirious, especially since the imperix war ended up spreading wide enough hat there's no way he wouldn't speed back to help. Darkseid pitched in for fucks sake: you think he'd let Superman sit out a war he had to humble himself to get help for? No. Darkseid is. Darkseid would be PISSED superman gave up and demand he come help or he'll kill his ass. I get the writer probably didn't have all the pieces, but said pieces really hurt htis series longetivity

What also hurts it is the present day part: Lois, Jimy and Perry try one last hail mary to save journalism.. and fail, as Luthor saw it coming a mile away and has his personal hit squad kill them. and some tigers. I don't buy Lois being this dump or thinking cozying up to luthor would remotely work. He took satstifaction in Lois, Jimmy and Perry joining his propoganda.. but he never forgot.

We also get another insult with that.. see some heroes.. sold out to luthor.. and who they choose...

Yeah normally on this blog I try to be positive. I will point out when a work is bad or not great.. but I try to be constructive. Explain why it is or at least thrown in a joke. I try to avoid nerd raging.. but my GOD does the choice of having Plastic Man, Booster Gold and Huntress honk me off. Part of it is i'm a big fan of the latter two thanks to JLI and Birds of Prey, respectively. So I admit to a little bias. That being said, said bias is from having actually read the characters apperances and not just picked who would make a good edgy shocking luthor justice league out of a hat.

I get WHY each one was picked: Plastic Man comes off a tad shady and entirely unserious, Booster is both not all that serious and was introduced as a willing corprate shill: he had standards but DID it for the fame and to escape his criminal past and once bought an island with justice league money, while Helena often clashed with the bat fam at the time due to her more violent methods and bruce being a tad dickish.

The problem is NONE OF THIS MEANS THEY'D SIGN UP WITH LUTHOR. Plastic Man is loosey goosey.. but he's not so loosey goosey he'd agree to work for luthor to opress people. Booster sold out.. but he both grew past that and already fueded with Luthor in his solo: he knows he can't trust him and if he's going to make money, he'll do it on his own and if things are going THIS bad he'd either go back to fix them.. or just go back entirely to avoid this crap if the's that cynical. He also wouldn't blow up a building full of people under any circumstances that aren't accidental, and even the latter is a bit much for Booster. he may be a fuckup.. but he's not a "murder a bunch of people fuckup" and is a good guy, i'ts just buried under layers of self intrest.

Finally Helena.. has a super strong sense of justice: she DID start her career killing and went after the mob because they murdered her family. She'll do things Batman won't , or at least would at this point in her career.. but I can't remotely buy her selling out to luthor and not trying to put a bolt in his head, even if he is the law. She went outside of the law in the first place, why would she trust it enough to work under lex? This feels like the writer picked three characters he thought might do it and didn't bother to think thorugh how their fans would feel, which happens a LOT and always feels cheap and has only gotten worse since booster and helena got furhter fleshing out in the later 2000's that makes this somehow dumber.

Our last few stories cover his actual swearing in and right after and i'm going to rapid fire them as they aren't BAD stories, but mostly either small one offs clearly designed to set something up later.

The first is the actual innugaration which is a full story.. but I simply don't have much to say about it. It's by the same guy who did the previous dumbassery, but he does a good job here. I'ts innaguration day and Steel and his niece and future steel herself Natsha plan a protest. They even run into some othe rheroes: Pat Duggan, formerly Stripsey sidekick to the star spangled kid.

His daughter courtney, bitter about having to move when her mom married pat and being a bit of a brat at the time found the equipment and became a costumed hero just to piss him off. Pat used some powered armor he was making to become S.T.R.I.P.E. to keep an eye on her. That's where we are here, with Courtney and Pat having bonded but still not being on the same page a lot of the time. This would soon change as Courntey realized her bio dad was a piece of shit, and accepted pat as her dad, becoming Stargirl and taking up that legacy.

For now though their just at the inagguration because history and all that, but naturally superhero stuff breaks out as Steel's protest was leaked to team luthor. HIs bodyguards mercy and hope attack, but with an assitn from Courtney Steel wins the day.. and asks how they knew. He figures out itw as a setup.. just in time for someone else.

A supervillian attacks, having been created by the same circumstances that John Henry and co were protesting: luthor's devistation of the suicide slum. Naturally superman sweeps in as he planned not to attend, a silent protest but WAS nearbye just in case. He, Steel, Stargirl and Stripsey win of course, and Luthor also wins of course, getting a photo op with superman as "you wouldn't deny your president would you". A masterful dick move sir.

The next one is cleaning up a loose end, courtsey of Karl Kessel, long time superman writer and superboy co-creator and writer.. the connor kent one. Luthor was actually married once to the Contessa, an immortal buisness woman he secretley married who is the mother of his child and once took over his company. Luthor blows her up with missles as you'd expect.

The last two are setups for later... that i'm baffled are in here. The first one I get a little. Cerce, wondy's arch enemy I mentioned (one of them anyway, she has a few contenders) waltzes up planning a partnership but Luthor shoots her down and is naturally a dick abou tit. Some shady man offers her his help and.. that's about it. It's a decent story showing that Luthor's old criminal buddies aren't getting any free rides by this administration, it just baffles me it's in here. You could've used the pages to finish one of the other stories from earlier or put in a story from his adminstration. We also get one setting up his bumbling assitant Mercy is bitter about. That's.. really it. That's how it ends.

So overall this trade.. was a bit better on the second go round. The first act, while pieced together, does tell a cohesive story.. they just felt for osme reason the need to include the innguration and some other stories to pad it out at the end. It would've been better to end at luthor becoming president, maybe at the justice league story dealing with it. We really didn't NEED the terrible future story or the innaguration and tales. The rest tells a good story of how luthor GOT here, how he won, and how Clark feels about it. Throw in the unathorized biography and it would've been enough. Still if you have a few bucks the trade IS worth picking up, and did the best it could with the space it had. IT's an intresting look at an intresting storyline and has some real gems: like I said "The Why" and "Help" are really great stories and worth the price of the trade alone. Thanks for reading

Next time: We get super serial as we look into "The Clan of the Firey Cross"

#superman #clark kent #lex luthor #us elections #lois lane #steel #john henry irons #lana lang #perry white #dc comics #aquaman #martian manhunter #wally west #kyle rayner #batman #wonder woman #plastic man

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almacambiondaughterofsaleos · 3 months

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Hazbin hotel can be a sitcom animation or cartoon where we get to see lucifer and lilith family. Lucifer who have many sibling both demon and angel then multiple mother from asherah to sophia then one father, lilith we get to see her demon sibling her other husband who's angel samael. Then to charlie her ars goetia, 7 prince of hell, and others demon relative. Anytime where charlie need certain assitance she can call from one of her relative

I would so watch.

#helluva boss #vivziepop critical #helluva boss critical #vivziepop criticism #vivziepop #helluva boss criticism #anti-vivziepop #helluva boss critique #hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel critical

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mr-voorhees-husband · 2 years

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Oh, that's great to know! Sooo... Would you be willing to write some headcanons on the 2004 animated version of the Penguin? He is my favorite and there is so little content of him- Also, sorry for the bunch of Asks, I just wanted to know which versions you are comfortable writing for 😭 Thank you so much for taking the time to answer and have a lovely day! ♥️

- Pengy Anon

yes. YES.

*rabid screaming about 2004 penguin*

Pengy ur now my favorite anon. (also thank yoi for asking!! It seriously means alot, and never apologize for sending a bunch of asks, I love writing, especially for anons w/ similar tastes <3)

Warnings: fluff, soft crap, self image issues, self worth issues, etc

Reader: gender neutral, implied villain

General headcannons

His height is due to his birth defect, giving him the three fingers and elongated nose. Despite that, his parents loved him dearly, the public, not so much.

This Ozzie doesn't know how to cook... like at all. He'd find a way to burn water and then act surprised when his noddles are charcoal black.

He knows Japanese, and is able to speak it fluently with the twins. Ironically though, he'll sometimes slip up and speak Japanese to English speakers, never on purpose (unless he's trying to mess with them)

His love for birds is due to his mother owning birds when he was a child, they tended to be the only animal that didn't dislike him, so they hold a special place in his heart.

He's actually not that ill-mannered, he just acts that way to separate the penguin persona from Oswald himself.

He eats a lot, but mostly due to the heavy diet his parents put him on as a child. Being rich meant he had to be presentable, and no mask, gloves, or teeth filing could hide a belly.

This also means he has self-image hiccups at times. He's gotten better, extremely better. But there's moment where a well worded insult will make him look extra hard at his body.

Dating headcannons

He's soft, figuratively and literally. The idea that someone loves him makes him mushy and sweet. He's all smiles around you. Yet he also makes the best pillow. Plush belly, and a literally heater

Unlike most of his counterparts though, he tends not to be self conscious in the relationship. He trusts you, completely and whole heartedly. Please don't take that trust for granted though, the Kabuki twins are protective, extremely protective.

He desperately wants to get married to you. Ozzie wants to carry on the family name, which means getting a loving spouse and an having kids. The children can be adopted, of course, and if you don't want kids, the birds are plenty children like!

Speaking of birds, you're officially parent #2! They take to you like leaves on a tree, which especially means begging. You can't go a day without a bird worming their way into your face and squaking noisily until you give them scritches, a treat, or bring them out on a 'walk'.

Ozzie gets jealous sometimes, though, it took him weeks to months worth of training, treats, and endless attention, but they adored you the second you moved into the old manor.

You're never allowed to assit him on crimes though, he's a bit old-fashioned, and was raised to believe that the one from money takes care of their spouse. Criminal before or not, he's the moneymaker of the house now!

#the batman 2004 #batman 2004 #penguin #oswald copplepot #oswald cobblepot x reader #oswald cobblepot 2004 #penguin 2004

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luthwhore · 11 months

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Why do lesbians keep on getting to know Lex or stay by his side or know him? /j

There was his sister (Lena Luthor) and his personal assitant (Mercy Graves), you, and Supergirl (Kara Zor El). /j

Is it the L.L intials? Lesbians like their L's??!

he has also worked with scandal savage (canonically a lesbian!) in the past specifically as a way to deal with vandal savage when vandal was getting in his way, which he seemed to do specifically bc he knew the two of them fighting would eventually devolve into them shouting their family drama at each other while lex tried to peace out.

honestly i think it’s probably the smallville of it all, because i know before watching smallville i always enjoyed him as a villain in the DC animated content but i never really payed much attention to his comics content until then. but we see a vaguely queercoded man with major daddy issues and immediately want to study him under a microscope.

(from lex’s perspective, i think it’s mostly that somewhere around “attempted murder by ex-wife #6” you realize it’s probably smart to make sure the people in charge of keeping you alive are at no risk of sleeping with you.)

#thank you anon this made me laugh

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hyperspix · 8 months

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Hii Minty OC anon again!!!!

My Minty is the family cat. She can see ghosts cause she's a cat. So the protag (who can talk to animals) asks her to deliver messages back and forth between him and his dead hubby. And she used to comply but she's really mean so she eventually stopped being nice and just started saying stuff like "he hates you and the kids"

Anyway tell me about YOUR Minty. I know nothing of these archives you speak of so I do not care about spoilers.

OUGH. OUCH. SHEIEJE THAT'S SO COOL???? HELLO???? Bad cat >:[!! (/pos ofc)

Also just- Minty is such a good name for a cat you are so completely correct. Did she stop complying because she was tired of it or did she have a motive that's not here??? hhhhhHHhh I want to know so much ;>;

I. Would like. So genuinely love to share. But there are, people on this blog that follow us on the archives. I think the official @ for Minty's account is @minty-mori-archival-assistant (Ik it's long I made a wee goof)

The story will unfold as time goes on!! If you aren't familiar with The Magnus Archives it's best you listen to the podcast first. (We all sooooo highly reccomend it!!) ((no seriously))

The Spookier archives: (@the-spooky-archives) is our branch off from there. We're currently set in time where everyone is just getting hired and hilarity shenanigans occur. You'll find out the story as it goes with everyone!! Minty is an Archival Assitant at the Magnus Institute, London.

Feel totally free to DM me tho if you don't want to listen to Magnus and/or just want them juicy details early. I love screaming about my boys. <3<3333 (still no pressure<3<3 mwah mwah)

#AHHHHHHH SKDNRKDJJD #CATTT MINTYYYY #I LOVE THEM SKDNEKEJEJ #anyways.#A yelling mint #hhhhhhh god I want to talk about Minty Mori.#I have so many ideas. >:]

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kustas · 2 years

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“Something fast and cool is happening” - Traditional hand drawn anime limitations part 4

Part one

Part two

Part three

The biggest lie anime enthusiasts spread is that impressive animation is fast and snappy. Anime is renown overseas for it’s over the top action scenes and FX (things like fire, smoke, lightning...) which make up a majority of animation compilations. Sakuga is synonymous with mad FX zapping around the air followed by a weighty explosion, and sakuga is to most, synonymous with “the good parts of animation”.

But flashing FX and running on walls is not a hard thing to animate.

Disclaimer: FX animation is it’s own job. It’s a complex, technical subset of animation and you do need to be talented as hell for it - but FX isn’t all epic flashes at all, FX is much wider.

The truth is - the faster it moves, the easier it is to draw.

Animation requires drawing the same thing over and over to simulate movement. The illusion of movement speed works by how far your two drawings are from each other, by distance. If two consecutive frames are close to each other in your shot, the movement will appear slow. If they are far apart, it will appear fast. Distance in relation to timing, and your eye thinks it moves.

So, animation is just a succession of drawings that give illusion of movement. To animate, you have to draw a ton, to detail how your characters move, which involves drawing each step of their movement enough for your eye to catch what’s going on. If I want to make my character punch a wall, I need to at least draw him winding up for a punch, and then hitting the wall. The more drawings I add, the more I can detail stuff - adding flying dust after the punch hits, adding a frame in the middle of the punch to emphasize the impact, etc.

Drawings that are essential to understanding your movement are the keyframes. Anything added after “pads” these frames to make the movement look natural. The “smoother” the movement, the more frames you gotta add. The slower the movement, the more frames you gotta add. If you look at this cute little YYH intermission, the eyeball monsters have many frames, while our characters only have their keyframes! You understand how they move, even if it is choppy.

Drawing what goes on between keyframes is called in-betweening. It’s an art in itself! You have to time well the position of your stuff or it will look weird. While less sexy that keyframes because it is a task relgated to assitant chores, in-betweening is crucial to smooth looking animation. It comes up often when compared to AI-made interpolation - where instead of a human eye drawing, a computer creates in-betweens as a literal in-between of two images. And uh...You feel the human input. Here is a short article about this with examples.

So:

The smoother you want your animation the more drawings you need - to detail

The slower you want animation the more drawings you need - because it is more frames for a same distance

In-betweens have to be placed well.

With all this combined lets draw keyframes and compare, between point A and B, the position of the drawn character in my shot. On this jumping beastie, the tip of the tail and nose have distance like so

And on this guy turning his head, you can see how greatly reduced the distances between A and B are, comparatively.

If I want the same amount of in-betweens for both, the jumping animal will be much more forgiving to draw, because if I accidentally draw alittle to the right, there’s lots of space. If I do the same with the reduced distance of the looking guy, the wobble will be much more visible. The faster your movement, the more forgiving it is to animated.

This is where the beginning of my post applies. But flashing FX and running on walls is not a hard thing to animate. The truth is - the faster it moves, the easier it is to draw.

Additionally, FX is just one type of animation. You can have “good animation” in so many ways, less flashy and therefore less celebrated, for example:

Anatomy: how does the body move?

Weight: how well conveyed is the feeling of weight in animation?

Acting: how natural/expressive is a character’s body language?

Volumes: does a 2D drawing feel 3-dimensional?

Anatomy is the way Shere Khan’s shoulderblades move under his skin, and how his thigh muscles tense up as he lowers. (animator is Milt Kahl)

Volume is how efortlessly 3D the characters in the opening of the Cowboy Bebop movie look - this is not rotoscoped. (animator is Hiroyuki Okiura)

These are, unfortunately for online clout, neither fast, nor cool.

Imagine yourself having to make a show, you want it to look as cool as possible but have to work with a limited budget. Let’s go back to my anon’s message:

idk if you've seen it but i hated jujutsu kaisen's art style. the "sakuga" shots are all blurry action scenes that dont give the eye a chance to SEE the action, but only register that something fast and cool is happening. like an overrealiance on stretch frames (is that what it's called?).

JJK is a shonen, with epic fights. Your frame budget is likely going to go to these - that’s what the audience wants to see! A battle shonen with underwhelming fightsis bound to be a huge dissapointement. With my limited show budget, i’ll focus on making these look cool first and foremost by allocating more frames and effort to them.

I am now going to randomly google for sakuga from the show and take the first thing that comes up, because I have not seen it.

Based on this gif alone, Anon is a bit rough, this is cool animation! Lots of frames indeed, in your face, clear action that hurts the eye if you look at it for too long. But let’s analyze their words and give technical terms and solutions to it.

blurry action scenes that don’t give the eye a chance to see the action: Fight choreography. A job in itself. This is partially done at the board stage and partially with the keyframes.

an overrealiance on stretch frames: Smears, too much of them. Smears are a type of drawing usually done on in-betweens to simulate how the eye “bends” fast moving things. Using them too much makes your movements “soft” and floppy, and confusing.

but only register that something fast and cool is happening: there is no technical term for this, but I hope this post did its job at explaining - it is fast and cool because how much things move. It catches the eye but is not detailed. From what I’ve seen and described with flashy FX making the bulk of sakuga compilations, it’s because ppl find it dope.

Here’s the thing with FX though - it’s not characters. FX do not have anatomy, expressions; and with most cases of shots that need them, they do not have volume. A lightning bolt does exist in 3D but it zaps so fast by that from a frame to the other, it’s shape will have fully changed, thus eliminating the technical constraint of drawing the same volume from a different angle. Weight can be neglected for most clouds and firn - pacing is left, and that’s where you find most “sakuga” FX efforts in. A lot I see contrasts speeds - a super fast movement right next to a slow one is an immediate “WOW” effect!

Add to that the way the things in these shots generally move around everywhere very fast, which makes them super forgiving to animate...Truth is, due to the care anime puts in budgeting it’s frames, it’s hard to find bad animation. It’s just that something that’s mediocre and flashes around in epic ways will both look epic and underwhelming. Compared to a slow boring shot, it’s harder to say something looks bad when there is lots to focus on.

Good animation is rare, a bulk of what you’ll see is just okay, and that’s fine, animated shows don’t have to be technical marvels to be good! If it’s understandable what’s going on, the goal is set. You don’t need groundbreaking mastery at all. It’s a bonus, a cherry on top if a movie or show can let itself go apeshit on the animation.

What looks good is separate from what is hard to do. Erroneous public perception of epic FX is an example of this I tried to explain to my best. But public perception is going to influence what shows do! I believe the reason anon dislikes JJK is they are sensitive to aspects the animation did not highlight because it had other priorities, likely making fans hyped as hell being a major one.

This is where I’ll conclude my explanations for the day. If you liked these posts, do share and comment, as it took me several hours to cobble this up. Cheers!

#mine #animation

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humaningenuity · 11 months

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Zelda TOTK Game of the year

By Victor Bravo, Expert Gamer

The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom is finally going out on May 12, 2023, and we are excited about it. The big expectation has been increasing since the first announcement and after 4 years of waiting, Nintendo gave us one of the copies of the game to play before its official release date. We are very excited to finally have the opportunity to play it and give you all our first impressions of it.

This review will not contain major spoilers.

One of the things most criticized by fans is the fear that the game may result in an extensive DLC and not a sequel, however, we can assure you that this game is more than a direct sequel to Breathe of The Wild. The game breaks with the current quality standards of a game and gives us a nostalgia for how games were before. A game that focuses on quality and player enjoyment, not its graphics or cinematics that look like movies.

One of the most remarkable things about this game is the new mechanics that link, our hero and playable character has to offer. Starting with 4 new abilities named which are: The Ultrahand, Fuse, Ascend, and Recal; These new abilities can be obtained during the tutorial of the game.

In addition, this sequel brings us new clothes so that the hero of Hyrule can always dress in fashion, along with the new feature of being able to stylize the glider with fabric patterns (unlockable in Hateno Village).

Speaking about other features that fascinated us while we were playing was the immensity of the map, giving a new meaning to what an open world is and leaving aside the criticism of the fans. This was because not only the Hyrule map was changed almost in its entirety, making the world almost as if it were a different one, but they also added 2 new maps: The Depths and The Sky Islands.

Here's an interactive map if you wanna see the vast land of Hyrule:

In these new places we can find a sort of new stuff, like:

New friends like the golem assitants.

New animals like the glowing cave fish or the previously extincted dondons.

New enemies like the little frox or the aerocudas.

New scarier bosses like the gloom hands.

Something that was praised for its prequel was its soundtrack since it was minimalist and managed to generate a perfect environment before each situation. In this sequel, he managed to execute his soundtrack perfectly with calm themes for the sky, natural for the surface, and dark for The Depths; not to mention the music when riding a horse, in combat, or when diving.

With more than 200 hours of gameplay and just finishing the main story we can tell you that the game is more than perfect, and the wait was worth it. It is surprising how a game has managed to captivate fans of the saga, the game manages to integrate the best aspects of each previous Zelda game so perfectly that it makes it a masterpiece. being able to leave one of the best Nintendo games (BOTW) as an incomplete game compared to Tears of the Kingdom. The game is expected to become GOTY (Game of the Year) without a doubt.

#legend of zelda #totk #review #game of the year

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fumikomiyasaki · 2 years

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Can I have a master list for your ocs ;w;

I want to read them but at the moment

to lazy to dig through all of your posts

I am sorry but you likely have to cause I only have my normal masterlist and my HSA one which I admit is hard to see which is mine and which is others... I am also on vacation so I can't give you the links individually... but I can give you a small summary of everyone maybe? If not I can work something up after vacation.

Monsville: Based on monsters inc

Leroy violet: based on Randall boggs, cocky guy that is secretly a nerd

Henry lakeside: based on Mr. Waternoose, stern buisness man who tries to change to world into one without magic

Mellow Mildew: based on Jeffrey Fungus, shy guy who mainly is the errand boy of the dorm

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Forodwyn: based of Lord of the Rings

Brid Rolfe based of Frodo

Odel Aradia based of Gandalf

_________

Carol Ann: Ramshackle Assitant who helps the Mc, part time tutor

Fennec Grandwell- HSA MC based of Feena from Grandia, a blunt boy who dislikes being stuck in this dimension

Ione Roonel- RSA MC based of Machina Kunagiri Final fantasy, a war soldier who settles down now

Joel Cummings- DAC MC based of Jolyne Cujoh, former delinquent

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Polisionalle: Based on Persona series

Flynn Deradell: Based off Arsene, Dramatic actor who often is extra

Nanoya Naegi: based of Izanagi, serious swordsman who thanks to a dark past is uneasy around women

Rubina Von Loketon: based of RobinHood/Loki, woman who wants to be a Detective but is trapped by her family

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Evolnation: based on Pokemon

Peko Chunya: based of Pikachu, the energetic Idol spark who always wants your attention

Emma Yuki: based of Eevee, although also a pop if she wants to pursue her own style in punk music but is held back by management

Gregory Darknon: based of Gengar, local Dumbass who is a metal Idol but also one of the most Chaotic of students

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Relinookton-based of Animal crossing

Tyler Nerington: Based of Tom Nook, tired and overworked Fashion Designer who often is grumpy

Rachel Fuchisa: Based of Redd, sketchy designer, she is secretly a Yokai who collects souls on the side.

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Falciette- Based of Fire emblem

Gabrielle Ravenor- based of Grima, the best fighter of HSA and a warrior princess who fought 100 of her suitors at once to gain freedom

Tesadelle Ravenor- Based of Tiki, afflicted by a sleeping curse, she is a proper lady who works hard to become queen,

Andrew von Yltan- Based of Anna, Noble Merchant

----

Talerenea- based of Tales of series

Aiden Renous: Based of Repede, Being falsely accused for murder Aiden often keeps distance of people and tries to keep a low profile

Media chealean: Based of Mieu, a young Sunshine, Media is often just there to make people smile

Tenera Brawzer- Based of Tenebrea, despite being in a wheelchair, Tenera still does well as the tennis star of her school and has grandmotherly vibes

----

Syncrean: based of incredibles villains

Sindren Albright: based of Syndrome, energetic girl who wants to be a hero and parlours each day to become one

Mythra Cenov: Based of Mirage, Seductively, Mythra strives to make fashion and is one fo the best dancers in school

Feena Ebersol: based of Omnidroid, having lost her legs she now spots robot legs and is a pretty Emotionless girl.

----

Magixella: based of Winx

Dragiselle Flamesscourow: based of Dark Bloom, former princess of the flamestone Kingdom, she burned everything down in a loss of control and tries to rebuild it

Inessa Winter: Based of Icy, the advisor to Dragiselle and part of the student council, Inessa does assert herself each day

Taron Ferres: based of Tecna, the technology expert of the dorm and is hiding a connection to the story of the children of darkness

---

Etc dorms:

Ronnie Marxton: Based of Marx from Kirby, evil little guy who pretends to be nice to reach his goal

Eleafy Otoron: Based of Elfilis from Kirby, an experiment who obeys Ronnie's orders but has doubt about themselves

Tiam Falldow: based of Tia Safalin from YTTd, the local experimenter and future doctor for the school he is very shy with males and often has Insanity bursts

Kayne Saocheng: based of Kai Sato from YTTD, former assasin who transferred from Talerenea to exodus, loves to cook and loves especially eggs

Quora Fritchup, based of Qtaro Burgerberg from YtTD, the baseball star of HSA she can be often a bit too enthusiastic to drag people into sports

Kome Nabusa: based of Nagito Komaeda form Danganronpa, kome suffers from a sickness she tries to research how to cure it, hoping for a better future

Emil puppnella: based of Egeliette from pocket mirror, Angry boy who has beef with Ronnie for being to blame for his substitute arm.. he often seems down

Vanessa Pharon: based of Vampire cookie from Cookie run, tall Vampire lady who often seeks fun and parties to have some thrills.

Macie Gumeron: based of Gumi from Vocaloid, Macie is Pekos rival and as Gummy keeps her status as electro music idol

April Richter: Based of Scanty from PSG,

Not confident in her looks April relies on her gambling to fool others,

Julian Richter: Based of Kneesocks form PSG, this demon does Flirt relentlessly and shows of his dancing prowess where he can

Taylin Sage: Based of Trinity from Sexy Brutalle, despite being Blind Taylin still enjoys making sculptures and often gets commissions

Eikichi Atsuki: Based of Ekko from Lol, cocky inventor, Eikichi tries hard to make his sister forgive his problems as a kid.

Sylva Mercury: Based of Zach from DoA

____

(Their inspiration is 18+ so I am not gonna tell)

Zyan Desire: has an odd style for clothing and can look into the future which makes him odd how he is successfully as a model

Paula Parton: managing her own beauty channel Paula wants people to look better thanks to her and be confident In their sexuality

Brenda Goldwell: Gold digger

____

Lyla Atsuki: based of Wasabi from Big Hero 6, Lyla may often forget people's names but she is a brilliant alchemist, although she does have troubles with her brother

Bolt striker: based of Experiment 211 from Lilo and Stitch, very energetic boy who often can't control his electricity and causes trouble by accident

Grey Braynze: based of Ghoulia Yelps from Monster high, although he can't talk much, Grey writes tons of stories aside doing his Zombie grunts,

Eve alternate: based of Trons Identity disk, an Android who is very empathetic with others and often tries his best to find a solution that makes all happy,

Damon Erase: based of Rinzler, compared to Eve he is Android that analyses humans more and tries to keep a clam yet polite facade,

Naomi Aqueen: Based of Dogora

Kaeru Suzanomoto: Based of Keroppi

Louis Armarin Valentine Based of Tino from Court of Darkness

Yuzuha Aimon- Based of Yuzuki Kitagawa

Incremania: based of the Incredibles

Barry Parton: based of Mr Incredible, rich, high and mighty, Barry wants everyone to know he is awesome when he isn't

Francine Dalton: based of Frozone, the one to keep Barry's mind down to earth and often scolds him

Crystaleon: based of Final Fantasy

Osyron Lumina: based of Cosmos/Materia, a God of light who mainly seems demanding and hard to cooperate with

Lydia Sombra: based of Chaos/spiritus, a godess of darkness who picks any fight and seems actually pretty laid back

Fabio Vierunar: based of Fran, a shy yet sweet rabbit boy who struggles being very tall with his 275 cm and hopes to fit in after leaving his village forever

Saneria Guaenno: based of Seymour Guado, Saneria is as demi godess a bit of the rocker but to Lydia she is loyal and listens to all her commands

Lennox Riverway: based of Leviathan

Izar Nyxen: Based of Ardyn Izunia

Zariyah Hyacinth: Based of Zack Fair

---

Serena Welsh: based of Speedwagon from Jojo, often the bud of a joke at her school she still tries her best to become an heir of her parents company

Elvira Parena: based of Pucci from Jojo, devout priestess who seeks her own way and often corrects others on clothing etiquette

Kuze Toiyama: based of Black Rock shooter, an amnesiac boy who tries to relearn everything and usually is a bit clumsy at it

Yasuno innochi: based of Death master, a shinigami who tries to bother everyone he likes without restraint, he acts as protector of Kuze

Staff:

Erwin Fowler, based of Eggman, scientists who is especially proud of the Monsville students

Seraphim astrean, based of Sephiroth, stern swordsman who sees Crowley as his master and often seems pissed

Belia Camton: based of Bowser, headmistress of HSA and often impulsive yet kind to her students. She tries her best to keep order in school..

Bethany Camton: based of Bowser Junior, her little daughter who she often hides from the others to not be reminded of her father

Sol: based of Kingdom hearts heartless, Sol is the Security and shopkeep of HSA, trying to regain memories and fractures of his emotions.

Unosis Etrol: based of Ulala from Space channel 5, sailor of the school who brings students to the city and flirts with any staff member a lot,

Pherea: Based of Blaze the cat, therapy cat, and student counsellor, she watches out for all the students.

Beatrice Ombra: based of Bayonetta, school nurse who hides tons of secrets including her age

Marcell Blossom; based of Monika from Ddlc, literature and Language teacher who might be a bit unhealthy about love but he is seen as one of the most handsome teachers

Valeria Diavello: based off Vergil from DMC, Combat and magic teacher who has no mercy and seeks for more strength in her students, often too serious

Malorie Galea: Based of Mettaton from undertale, dance teacher who seeks attention a lot and shows of any time

Amalia Cavalieri: based of Sho Minamimoto from TWEWY, Math teacher who often also makes announcements with her megaphone, summons tons of beasts and takes care of them.

Shadman Hack: based of Spamton from Deltarune, Janitor of the school who often has some outbursts that concerns others, has a small shop with Rachel,

Nakamura Kaneshon: based of Zero and Kaine from drakengard/nier, swordsman who carries hurt from the past and keeps unosis in check so he won't say dumb stuff, works as Scout,

Aino Okutske: Based of Aiba from AITSF, secretary, childhood friend of Unosis and a big voice of reason for many, always kind with students.

Angelica Panacotta: based of Angelo Pannetone from Bravely second, cafeteria woman who lost her husband and now copes with his loss in taking care of herself.

Kaden Devengel: they have 3 personalities who switch each day. Based of Catherine, Katherine and Qathrine from the game

Soyana kuro: based on Black gold saw, Chaotic demon lady who is strict with her training

_____________

This is all I can provide, might add links when I am home but I can't do more cause I have too many ocs.

#twisted wonderland oc #twst oc #twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland ocs #twst #disney twst #twistedwonderland #twistedwonderlandoc #twst ocs #twisted wonderland fanschool

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demon-blood-youths · 1 year

Note

So question!

Does the DBT hang out with anyone else from the fractions or is it true from what Jinx said when you guys hang out with who she said.

"Huh? Oh yeah, that's true!" Ink nods. "Me and Jinx hang out and talk about what we're doing and what we done. Plus we do sparred together because we both fighting! Plus! I do see Jinx as a sister.

"As for the others...uh...hey guys! Is it true?!" Ink asked the guys.

----

"Uh! Yeah I hang out with Echo and we do projects regarding bombs. BUT WE ARE NOT ADORABLE! WHO THE FUCK SAYS THAT!" Navarro yelled.

Rust snickers, "Suurre, man! We all know what you and your girlfriend is all about!"

"SHE'S NOT MY GIRLFRIEND!" Navarro shouted. "Also what about you and Breezy?! HUH?! I know as hell...you're doing more than sparring and playing video games!" Navarro demands. Rust snickers, "If she's not my girlfriend! If she wants to be, I got no problem with it! But if she ain't into me and wants to be friends, I'm cool with it. You just need to admit that you got a crush on her, Navarro."

"SHADDUP RUST!" Navarro shouted.

Jaron chuckles, overhearing this before he goes next to confirm what is said. "It's true, me and Melinda are tight and we hang lot a lot. We do go to restaurants from time to time."

"Seriously! MARRY HER!" Rust and Navarro shouted. Shdwkyz shakes his head and sighs, 'You two are idiots."

"Don't give us that crap, Shdwkyz!" Navarro said.

"Yeah...I bet you're into Vivi!" Rust points out.

"We're just close friends and I trust her more when it's outside of the fraction." Shdwkyz sipping his chai tea. "Whenever it's fighting crime and when she comes to me for assitance or the other way around, I make sure to help her as much as possible. After all we have common interests."

"Sure....keep telling yourself that." Navarro crosses his arms. Jaron chuckles and looks over to Fosh, "What about you, Fosh? About Mouse?

"M-m-me? Mouse?" He stammered. "I mean...yeah....we hack a lot and we make it a contest who can break the toughest firewall the fasts without being noticed and we're helping other hackers' networks."

"That it?" Rust asked making Fosh flush his cheeks. "Y-yeah..." The hacker said. Shdwkyz, Rust, and Navarro were not convinced while Jaron still keeps on chuckling.

"But hey! At Gerald is having fun with Ping. They get along so well!" Fosh said, changing the subject.

"Don't change the subject!" Shdwkyz scowled. As for the girls.

------

'Yeah. It's true. I like hanging out with Joshua and Ashely. T-Bone is a good fighter." Maggie confirms. "Plus Hex and Ophelia are always trading healing potions and medical practices so whenever Ophelia has a new plant. She invites Hex over.' Maggie who looks over to Ophelia who nods. "Indeed. Hex and me always share information with each other when it comes to healing and plants. Hex is so surprised when I told him what I learn from Japan." Ophelia smiles.

"Timmy is so nice to me!" Taz smiles. "Me and Gerald watch anime and play video games whenever Ping and Timmy come over while Melinda makes the popcorn and Jaron makes the brownies for us!"

"Oblivion? What about you and Yuuka?" Ophelia asked Oblivion.

"Just showing her the ropes and the places that are hidden in New York City. We hang out like almost every day." Said Oblivion. "Always come to check up on her and Luna so they can settle in more easier."

As for the other fractions....

"Rex? Oh yeah! I sparred with him and my team does too with his fraction." Said Kali. "Rex and his season demon warriors know how to keep things tight at their turf in Greenwich Village."

----- As for those outside of the NYC -----

"Yes. Me and Willow hang out together since we keeps thing peaceful in Philpelidpha." Ethan answers. "We work well as a team since Willow and me look after parts in our turfs. I help her and she helps me." Said Ethan keeping it in proffessional.

Of course, his teammates didn't think so.

"Not true!" It's Zloth, a member of the Tribe Seeker Fraction. "Ethan has a crush on her! He just won't say it." He stated.

Ethan sighs. "I admire her."

"Same thing!" Zloth answered.

#ic #The DBT #Elite Demon Anthem #Tribe Seeker Fraction

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ivyxmantled · 2 years

Text

@drunkcnsunlight // leah & anyone ( blind date! )

Leah didn’t find herself... OUTSIDE... very often. She wasn’t a very outdoorsy person to say the least. She had asthma, she had pollen allergies and being here in HOT DRY LOS ANGELES just made it worse. But, she had the next week off from her job, so she couldn’t very well sleep the day away like she always did, before her night job at the emergency vet. So, she had brought her blanket, and her book she had been insisting on reading for the past month, and had every intention of sitting and relaxing for the first time in months, until she had spotted the run away dog, and being the VET STUDENT and VET ASSITANT, she certainly didn’t turn away from any sort of animal. She grabbed the dog, instantly stopping them with a rub between the ears looking up hoping to find the owner. “Is this dog yours?” She called out to the man that had been slightly down the walkway from her, and then looked back down, hoping to find a collar on the dog. Not how she had intended to spend her time away from work. “God, I hope he’s not a stray.” Leah mumbled, looking up when the man approached her.

#leah; interacts #/ she's a saw OC and laura hunters little sister!

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popculturebuffet · 6 months

Text

Richard Moll Tribute: Batman TAS Review: Two-Face Parts 1 and 2 (Comission for WeirdKev27)

In Loving Memory of Richard Moll 1943-2023 Just one year. Just one damn year after loosing Kevin Conroy another treasured member of the Batman The Animated Series Cast passes. I wasn't expecting this and i'm hoping with all I got this isn't a trend.

While Kevin requested a tribute for Moll it was an easy request: While I sadly can't do a tribute for every tragic death as my schedule is packed, it's why poor Matthew Perry didn't get one even though his death is also truly gutting, but Moll is an actor I loved and still deeply repsect and I'm proud to honor him.

Ironically I first became a fan of Moll not thorugh two face, who I liked fine but wasn't really a faviorite of mine yet, but through his other famous roll that came before this: Baliff Bull Shanon on the NBC sitcom Night Court

If you haven't seen Night Court it's free on freevee and amazon prime so please do when your done here, but for the short version it was a sitcom about Harry Stone, a young judge who was both a goofy prankster and a kind, wise man who judged fairly and always tried to help his staff, played by the sadly also late Harry Anderson.

Bull was big, strong.. but also entirely kind and goofy. He had a childlike sense of wonder to him, missed the point often, but refrenshingly for a sticom he wasn't portrayed as a complete idiot, having a lot of emotinal intelgence. He was simply oblivious. And while VERY sweet he had a habit of reminding people, paitcuarly dan the court's prosectuer and sex pest, that he had his job for damn good reason. Moll was a treasure and never lost his step in the roll though sadly he declined to return for the recent revival and now never will.

So it suprised me when I found out Moll was Harvey all this time. It wasn't that Moll lacked talent or even him doing something after night court, he'd done plenty. It was more the range, perfectly playing Harvey in all the forms the show gave him: early on as bruce's pepppy friend, as a man grappling with his split personality in these episodes, as Harvey's brutal personality.. and later as a horrifying combo of the two as two face. All distinct, all using a diffrent vocal tone, all great.

So we're honoring his finest performance. So join me to remmeber Richard Moll under the cut as Harvey Dent grapples with the other person in the mirror.. and both become something else.

One touch i've always liked about Batman TAS is that Harvey was a recurring character before this two parter. It was only two episodes, On Leather Wings and Pretty Poison, but the former was a nice cameo to show he exists and the latter really showed off Harvey and Bruce's friendship, their easy report, the hint they had a long history we were never privy to, and it made the stakes higher when Harvey got poisoned by Ivy. It's remakrable how much legwork that one episode did to setting up this one. You can watch one without the other, Batman TAS is still largely episodic and one of the best shows ever at pulling that off... but the two enrich each other. While Batman TAS wasn't the first to try and have Harvey Dent around before he got faced, Batman 1989 ATTEMPTED it but then didn't bring back Billy Dee Williams and retconned Harvey to be Tommy Lee Jones because fuck me I guess, it's the work i'd credit with popularizing it as the Long Halloween and the Dark Knight after it made sure to show us who harvey was BEFORE, which makes what he becomes that much more tragic, that Bruce didn't just loose an ally.. he lost a friend.

It also makes what we see at the top of the episode have even more weight: Harvey having a troubled dream as he's harassed by a shadowy version of himself with a growly voice flipping a coin. Harvey is only freed from his nightmare by his assitant Carlos, who informs him the raid they've been planning is on boys.

The target is one of Rupert Thorne's gambling dens.

For those who've forgotten this guy, Rupert was the series mafia presence, head of Gotham's organized crime and slimeball, played by John Vernon aka the dean from animal house aka the character that inspired the dean from futurama. Rupert is the perfect arch enemy for a pre face harvey: it's easy to arrest a guy who kidnaps the police on christmas day after rocketing out of his aslyum on a christmas tree, it's harder to arrest someone who covers his tracks.

It's also hard because Throne's men have a bunch of high end weaponry stockpiled in there including grenade launchers. Thankfully Bat beats Grenade as bruce decided to pitch in to help with his buddy's relection campaign, helping clean house to make it easier on the police. I also like the touch of Harvey being ambivilant, not against Batman's presence but not really cordinating with him like Gordon would.

Unfortunately one of the goons makes the mistake of taunting harvey... and that wakes up the other person. As it turns out Harvey has Disociative Identity Disorder, and his alter, big bad harv, is all of the anger Harvey's surppressed his whole life condensed into a person. And Big Bad Harv suckers the goon before nearly beating him to death, with Harvey waking up from the episode horrified and making a lame excuse. As if things weren't tense enough Rupert Throne's decided to do a bit of digging into Harvey's life: he's become too big a thorn in his side and the irony's a bit too much to swallow on that, so he has Candice, his right hand minon look into that.

We cut to Harvey giving a speech at a big campaign rally Bruce is throwing. It also brings me to Batman The Animated Series Version of bruce who I like a lot: instead of playing up his uselessness or just barely using the identity when necessary, this bruce is a bruce wayne I like to see: a philamprohist who still fights to help people. It makes hiding he's batman harder sure.. but it shows Bruce more as another side of who he is rather than a mask he wears because society won't let him go around beating up people in a mask all day every day.

At the party is Grace, Harvey's girlfriend who wants to bump it up to fiance. It's unknown just HOW long it's been since pretty poison but given Harvey was willing to marry Ivy after a week, it's on brand for him to jump into life alterting decisions and he makes it clear he only hasn't because he's busy trying to get reelected, not getting that the engagment would probably bump up his raitings but whatever. Grace is mostly here so Harvey has more to loose. She's the weakest part of the episode, only being there so Harvey has a love intrest to weep at what he's become when we already have bruce. Though given this was the 90's I woudln't be shocked if Fox wanted to give Harvey a case of the not gays.... which come on. Why WOULDN'T it make sense for Two-Face to be BI-Sexual. It fits too well. Like Batman giving oral.

Every party needs a pooper though and the pooper for Harvey's party is a phone call: THrones men are being let go as someone "misfiled" a warrant.

So naturally out goes the good harvey, in comes the Big Bad Harvey who straight up THROWS his assitant carlos into an ice sculpture cleaving the thing in two.

And nearly beating BRUCE up this time when Bruce tries to calm him down. It's only grace begging him to stop that brings back standard Harvey.

Bruce didn't get to be the world's greatest detective by ignoring the obvious , so he goes to talk to harvey .And I absoutely LOVE Bruce's attitude in this scene.. the man was almost punched in the face by his best friend.. and instead of raging against him or recoling in horror he runs up to help him, recognizing this wasn't just harvey flipping out, but something deeper, correctly guessing Harvey has some sort of mental illness and needs help.

And as someone with some mental illnesses and a neurotypical brain not helping either of them, I really like how the episode treats Harvey's illness. The talk about it has aged REALLY well: While it was even MORE stigmatized back then, Bruce's reaction to all of this is recommend Harvey get help and then be utterly PROUD when he finds out Harvey already is doing the work, it's just taking time and the pressure of being a public figure AND hunting a crime lord really isn't helping. Harvey is treated as he should be: as a man who needs help and is struggling with it, not as some monster but as a man who simply needs help after a childhood trauma left him with an extra guest in his head. Harvey is never accused for what Big Bad Harv does and while Big Bad Harv's actions are seen as awful, as they should, no one ever blames Harvey for them if they know. It's something I struggle with: I also have big freakouts where I can't control myeslf. Diffrent type as i'm still ME when it happens, but I can still relate to this episode and harvey's struggle of both letting his pride down to ask for help and worrying about what people would think despite getting therapy being entirely normal.

Unforutnely Candice overheard this as we cut to Harvey in sessoin with his psychatrist, Nora Crest. Nora is a wonderful therapist, helping harvey slowly and making it clear what Big Bad Harv does isn't his fault. She also draws BBH out to try and help manage him better. Unfortunately.... she fails to recognize that Big Bad Harv dosen't WANT to be managed, want to be locked away, or want Harvey to come back again and in the most horrifying display yet trashes Nora's office, breaks a window and tries to attack her before she undoes the hypnosis. Again it's done well as Nora simply misunderestimated HOW bad things were and while sh'es trying her best.. .as she puts it Harvey NEEDS to check himself into a hospital. And I love how that's not portrayed as a bad thing: A dire circumstance, but we've seen how bad harv is. She's not suggesting locking him up in arkham or anything drastic, she just wants him where he can get help and where big bad harv can't hurt people.

Ultimately what holds Harvey back... is a combination of pride and society itself. In a better world Harvey going in to get treatment after two public outbursts would be seen as a heroic act and he'd win the election. Sadly we don't live in that world and Harvey correctly fears the voters would just sterotype him as crazy and he'd loose the election. He TRIES to mitgate it by having more sessions an da reduced work schedule and it works to a point.. but it's clear it's putting a band-aid on an open wound.

This meatball mental surgery DOES enough to get Harvey through the election, and almost to propose to grace.. but sadly dosen't last as Thorne has stolen his medical files and wants a meeting. Once again it's not Harvey that's the issue.. it's that society won't accept that he NEEDS help and it's OKAY to get it. And Throne's all too happy to exploit it.

Thankfully for Harvey his best friend is batman, so Bruce is able to follow Harvey and put a tracker on the car he's taken in. Thorne makes the BOLD decision to confront the man whose DiD is shown to be triggered by extreme stress... in a remote room with only a few guards, only one of them actually armed, and mock his mental illness. We also find out WHY Harvey has DiD: as a kid he hit a bully in the face. Said bully wound up in the hospital and Harvey blaming himself vowed never to be angry again. Turns out it was apendcitis. Hence Big Bad Harv.

And unfortuantely for Harvey's future and Throne's present.... Big Bad Harv comes out. He does manage most of the thugs, with some bat help, but given whose origin this is.. you know this can't end well. And it dosen't: in a truly gutting moment Harvey rushes after Throne, the goon from earlier tries to fire.. and in stopping the guy batman accidently directs his fire at a power coupling in the factory, causing an explosion. Harvey Dent as we knew him .. is gone.

Some time later Harvey's in the hospital in bad shape, with doctors promising they'll restore him with plastic surgery. Instead... we get

I know he was heavily burned, and that his face would be hard to fix.. but how did you think "make him look like a blue goblin man with a bigger eye on half his face" was EVER going to go down well. Does oscorp own this hospital?

While I joke, because i'm a goofy bastard, I do love the nod to Batman 89, with Harvey asking for a mirror in the same way as Jack Napier and Lisa Simpson... only instead of laughing he throughs a raging fit and then gapes in horror when his new visage makes his fiance pass out.

So thus ends part one. One last thing I want to note is how LITTLE batman is in this. Ther'es an action bit with bruce at the beginning of the episode and later at the climax. That's it. It's something TAS did a lot, having a more methodical build up before the third act is all I AM THE NIGHT, but it feels diffrent here as we aren't WITH bruce for most of the episode. He's still present and important to the plot, but he's a supporting character in Harvey Dent's story. There's no breaking things down with alfred, no break from the tragedy of Harvey Dent, and it's why the episode works so well. This isn't a Batman story yet.. it's Harvey Dents.

Part 2, naturally, splits time between both men as both go on their own journey. It's 6 months later and the man who was once Harvey dent has abandoned his old names: No more Harvey Dent, upstanding DA or Big Bad Harv, Harvey Dent's anger and hatred given shape and form... the two have merged. It's something I never noticed before till tv tropes pointed it out: Fitting his dual nature Two Face is a bit of both: he's aggressive, rageful, and quick to anger, berating his twin thugs when they go off script. He'd of killed them by now but damn can they belt a cover of Don't Pull Your Love

youtube

Yet we see a tactical side that just wasn't present in Big Bad Harv.. but was in harvey, with the raid being his idea and his attacks on thorne being calculated, using every bit of info on his operations Harvey ever aquiried but going outside a law he no longer belivies in. Two-Face is a new personality.. and a fairly haunted one.

He also naturally now has his gimmick, using coin flips to decide his decisions, hence why he hasn't seen grace in a while as the coin keeps telling him no. After all he lost, after all that happened he now belivies only in chance... the only justice left. And given the system allowed thorne to thrive while Harvey sacrficed his health, his time and ultimately who he was to stop him only to get nowhere.. it's hard not to see why.

It's what, once again, makes this work: it's not just Harvey's DiD that turned him into Two-Face. IT's the main cause, sure, but the regular Harvey still had an obessive, vengeful streak about him: he may of locked his anger away.. but he still hunted thorne, obessed over the case and put beating thorne over his own well being. Being DA was important, beating thorne was important.. but it wasn't worth loosing himself. He was doing the work, had he taken his doctor's advice and checked himself in.. Harvey may of been okay. He wouldn't of had the office but he'd have his mind and the love of his life. Now only rage and a determinatoin to destroy thorne remain.

Thorne naturally isn't taking this sitting down. He has some shit to throw around in anger dammit. After months of Two Face hitting him hard then fading away into the night he puts out a bounty: a million a face. And Cadance, being sneaky and what not, sets her self on the path to the moolah by pretending to be a cop and giving grace a tracker.

Meanwhile Bruce, naturally, is also doing pretty bad. In his dreams Harvey cries out to bruce asking "Why couldn't you save me?"... and Bruce has no answer.. nor one when his own father asks "WHy couldn't you save us son?" Once again Bruce has lost someone he cares about. And while with his parents the guilt isn't warranted, it was a random gunman and he wa sa children, you can see WHY he has it here: You can just feel Bruce replaying the moment he tackled the gunman, again, and again and again, thinking of all the ways he coudl've done it BETTER, all the ways that don't end in Harvey becoming Two Face. All the ways he should be BETTER. We know it was just an accident but Bruce.. can't accept it. He has to fix this, he has to save harvey from himself.

Harvey's decided enough fucking around. He's gotten Thorne weak enough, it's time for the killing stroke. Only Harvey isn't being THAT merciful: he COULD kill Thorne, but like any good super villian Twoey has a sense of irony: Thorne ruined his life and reputation, it's only fair Two-Face do the same

So TF and his minons raid a place where THorne has his most secure files, the ones that outline everything. YOu know your standard maffia macguffin. Bruce naturally shows up ... but tragically he can't help someone who dosen't want to be helped, a harsh lesson of the episode: Harvey is buried deep within two face, impossibly tangled with big bad harv. There's the possiblity he could become harvey again, but he has to want to. But all that's left in harvey is a want for revenge.

Batman does at least spot a pattern: all the clubs and establishments are two themed, and thus finds his hideout, Club Deuce. Unfortunately he's not the only one as Two Face finally decides to see Grace, who thinks the police would be genuinley invested in the health of someone with a mental illness

And triggers the signal. Grace almost gets through to harvey who starts out wearing.. this

Grace takes it off, almost convinces him to get help.. then Thorne busts in

Thorne manages to ransom grace so he can get the files.. and then plans to just shoot everybody because Two Face was stupid to trust him. Thankfully it's time for the bat to make his big entrance, and our hero, villian protagnist and cardboard cutout clean house. Well okay Grace takes out Candance as is standard catfight protocol, but props to her for contributing.

It ends with Thorne in a chadelear and Harvey about to finish this. Bruce begs Two Face not to as there's no coming back from this.... but Two Face dosen't trust int he law anymore and Batman certainly hasn't finished off this son of a bitch, so he plans to play count the bullets.

How Batman stops him.. is creative as it is heartbreaking. When Two Face flips.. batman dumps a bunch of other silver dollars, stolen earlier in the ep, in. Two Face is paralized.. and Batman and Grace are left to mourn what they've lost. The episode ends somberly. No one won here: Thorne is still out there, Harvey is in arkham.. and all bruce can do is flip a coin himself into a wishing fountain.. and HOPE his friend can one day recover. It's all he has left, the same cruel fate his friend is now servant to.

So as you can tell Two-Face is a banger two parter and one of Batman TAS' best. Moll is spellbinding the whole damn time, playing all three versions of harvey perfectly, while Kevin Conroy gets some graet acting himself in both acts, as Bruce trying to be supportive.. and as the Bat desperately trying to save his friend. It's tight, gripping and a masterpiece. Check it out now, thanks for reading.. and rest in piece Richard. Thanks for giving us so much joy, so much sorrow.. and so much of you

#richard moll #batman #batman the animated series #bruce wayne #two face #harvey dent #animation #superheroes #dc comics #hbo max

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