#costumed crimefighter
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the way that jack is already just Like That before he became the creeper. why is the newsguy so muscular? he’s just using his normal laugh to strike fear into the hearts of men so i’m guessing he just has a weird laugh in general? why does he already have fighting knowledge?
#why does the newsguy have a six pack#i speak#jack ryder#can also appreciate how he literally doesnt care that his costume is weird. he had no choice in what he would wear#cause he didnt know thatd be his forever costume for crimefighting. but he doesnt care. no time to question the lack of clothes#its time to hit people#dc
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Batfamily Powerpoint Night! (Part 8: Duke)
<<Part 7: Damian | Part 9: Barbara >>
[Masterlist]
Duke: My turn!
Bruce: Finally I can count on something normal.
Bruce: [migraine noises]
Dick: I feel like this information and Damian is a bad combination.
Damian: Grayson, I am offended you assume I need lessons from Duke on how to lead troops
Tim: You should bring the beard back Bruce.
Steph: Yeah your amnesia era was kind of a slay
Barbara: My dad’s Batman era was not a slay
Jason: Well maybe slay in a different sense-
Duke: That’s all behind us we’re moving on!
Bruce: I don’t think-
Jason: Bruce sit down and don’t pretend like this isn’t exactly what you did to form your child gang
Bruce: I don’t-
Steph: Look into our eyes, Bruce, and tell us, your crimefighting children, that you did not start a child gang
Bruce: Hn.
Tim: That’s what I thought.
Steph, Barbara, Cass: [hysterical laughter]
[talking over each other]
Dick: That is not what I looked like!
Jason: I looked so much cooler as Robin than that!
Tim: I looked cooler because I had pants, I can’t speak for you two.
Damian: My costume has been improved vastly since that iteration.
Steph: Alright, traffic cones.
Duke: Okay really not the point
Barbara: Seems like this step should’ve come before the outfits?
Duke: It was my first time starting a gang let me live
Jason: Shouldn’t “training” have been part of-
Duke: This is not open for criticism thank you
Steph: Yeah only Bruce can critique Duke’s child-gang leader skills as a fellow child-gang leader
Bruce: [noises of general regret]
Bruce: Why does something absurd always happen with you guys when I’m gone
Tim: Maybe because nobody in this house knows how to cope with loss or something I don’t know
Dick: Also it gets so much worse Bruce
Dick: I mean that wasn’t exactly your fault
Jason: Cop Batman didn’t seem to agree
Barbara: [sighs]
[talking over each other]
Jason: Woah woah woah
Tim: Hired??? You did not hire-
Damian: I did not say that?
Jason: Also I don’t remember being asked nicely I remember saving your a-
Dick: ‘Specialist’ sounds pretty cool and professional thank you Duke :)
Steph: Is that Damian in a Court of O-
Damian: The situation was resolved I am fine now
Tim: “Beat up some bird guys”
Jason: I mean besides the imprisonment and attack on a school and Dick leaving us in the dust for a hot second there that’s basically what happened
Dick: I did not-
Bruce: Excuse me?
Duke: Don’t worry about it :)
Tim: That’s n-
Cass: [signing] The Court of Owls is still-
Damian: That is libel
Steph: What a cute picture
Jason: Weren’t there casualti-
Duke: I have no idea what you’re talking about everything was fine in the end and everything is good!
Bruce: I am... so worried about all of you
Barbara: Well anyway let’s keep that streak going, it’s my turn. >:)
<<Part 7: Damian | Part 9: Barbara >>
[Masterlist]
#batfamily powerpoint au#I AM BACK FROM THE DEAD#GUESS WHO FINISHED HER FIRST YEAR OF COLLEGE#also in march i had to fly home for a funeral so i've been busy#and like going through it#BUT IM BACKKKKK#also I barely remember the events of We Are Robin and Robin War#lets just agree to overlook the inevitable mistakes#anyway love yall and i cant wait to finish up this series#sorry for the wait#batfamily#batman#duke thomas#the signal#batfam#dc#dc comics#dick grayson#tim drake#damian wayne#bruce waybe#jason todd
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✧ Gwen Stacy GF HC’s ✧
➟ Gwen Stacy / GN!Reader 🕸️🤍
➟ SFW ( she’s 16 you sick fucks )
➟ TW : Depression mentions & Injuries/Blood ( It’s fairly fluffy <3 )
————————————————————————
— At first, Gwen didn’t think that she had a crush on you. She denied it up and down even though it was abundantly obvious y’all had chemistry.
— She was Spider-Woman! She didn’t have time for relationships and all the unnecessary parts of life.
— It was frustrated Gwen to hell and back just trying to ignore her feelings. She would avoid you at school, take extra long patrols, anything to get you off her mind.
— Until you started noticing how she had been avoiding you. I don’t think Gwen is the best at processing her emotions and when you confront her about it she sort of breaks down in a way. She apologizes for ignoring you then quickly decides to just give up the ghost and confess.
— Poor Gwen is standing there, smiling awkwardly at you and convincing herself you are absolutely going to reject her. Until you don’t and then she nearly has a heart attack on the spot.
— Gwen definitely gets better at being a girlfriend as time progresses. She always leaves little notes for you, texts you whenever she can, and bring you your favorite snacks. Gwen’s love language is definitely Acts of Service and Quality Time.
— You’re craving ice cream at 12 o’clock at night? Good because she is to and she’s already out the door to the nearest gas station.
— However, one thorn in the relationship is the fact that she’s Spider-Woman. It gets harder to make excuses for why she’s covered in bruises and limping all the time. Maybe she should tell you? But what if you leave her or worse hate her for keeping such a big secret !? Gwen is definitely overthinking everything.
— Her secret is revealed one day when you unexpectedly come over to her apartment one day just as she’s crawling into the window in costume. Y’all have a little staring contest before she has to take off the mask because why the hell would Spider-Woman be crawling in your girlfriend’s window at 10 O’clock at night?
— Gwen definitely cries. Apologizing profusely and begging you not to tell her dad about any of this. Instead, you just hug her and she realizes that you aren’t mad at her. She answers any questions you have though is somewhat hesitant since she doesn’t want you getting dragged into any of it. Her first priority is making sure you are safe and no one finds out you’re Spider-Woman’s S/O.
— She takes you to your place of choice as an apology just to be extra EXTRA sure you aren’t mad at her.
— You patch up Gwen’s wounds all the time. Few words are spoke once the med kit comes out and she is grateful to have someone who is willing to deal with her crimefighting BS. Being a superhero can be super depressing and you are always there to be a shoulder for her to lean on.
— On a slightly more happy note, Gwen would love to teach you how to play the drums! It’s pretty adorable to see her get so excited about something she’s passionate about.
— Gwen always tries to get you something for your birthday. She’ll save up months in advance so she can get the perfect gift and take mental notes of what you like. She tried to make a cake one year .. that didn’t turn out well so she just bought one instead.
— She’ll let you borrow her clothes if you want and won’t say anything if it never appears in her closet again.
— I do think her dad would be supportive of the relationship. It’s a little awkward the first time y’all have dinner together, but George Stacy is fairly chill once you get to know him. This man makes shitty dad jokes though and tells embarrassing childhood stories about Gwen to you.
— SO many pictures of you. Not even just on her phone but also hung up around her room. It’s kind of cute how flustered she gets when you point out her phone wallpaper of y’all.
— Late night talks on rooftops. Gwen finds being outside relaxing and she’ll make a whole set up so you two can stargaze.
— Called you “ Babygirl “ as a joke once now it’s a running gag.
— She finds cursed images / 3 AM humor to be the absolute peak of comedy and sends the dumbest shit to you.
— She wanted to show off her webs to you once then proceeded to accidentally get your foot stuck to a wall and THEN got herself stuck trying to help.
— Movies dates are common and she’ll purposely pick out the worst ones so she can give commentary. Twilight was an absolute rollercoaster for her.
— Builds a cute little house in Minecraft for y’all to live in please just ignore the fact it has no roof and the floors are made of dirt.
— And the best girlfriend of the year award goes to Gwen Stacy :)
#Gwen Stacy#across the spiderverse#gwen stacy x reader#I love her your honor#spiderman atsv#astv x reader#it’s 2 am when i am writing this#i haven’t written anything in a while
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2007 TMNT GROWN UPS HC
Because they have a life outside of crimefighting, you know?
sfw
----
DONNIE
He got into college, got a degree in systems engineering and works from home as a programmer for an important corporation.
Uses an IA to generate a human-Like appearance for work meetings.
He’s the one with the highest income and the most uninterested in money. Donnie supports his family a lot in that sense.
After Leo, Donnie is the one who takes good care of Master Splinter, who fortunately never falls sick, but they worry nonetheless.
Donnie spends almost all he makes on his lab, and what he’s left he invests it on their home, which means: new, much more comfortable furniture, a new security system to protect the lair, escape routes in case of needing to, he made sure each of them had a comfortable space to sleep.
RAPHAEL
When learnt how to take care of his bike when working as the night watcher, so I picture him making money as a mechanic.
When he’s not fighting crime at night, Raph tends a mechanical workshop he build in association with Casey. It’s located in an abandoned garage near the lair.
Generally, Casey makes the deals, brings the clients, and delivers the vehicles back to them once they’re done, while Raph does the mechanics and fixes everything.
The place is a nice distraction and thanks to the marvelous work they make, it’s a nice business.
MIKEY
I think he would most likely be a TikTok celebrity.
It all started with couple of videos that he published by mistake and went viral.
He constructed his personal brand around body painting, animal-care, and skateboarding.
Mikey’s a hit, seriously like he would get nice brand colabs and receive a bunch of free stuff for him to test and provide online opinions.
Master splinter wasn’t happy about it, but given that everyone thought it was a costume, he allowed it.
Donnie was commanded with the task of making an IA human-like appearance for Mikey, tho, just to be sure.
LEO
The turtle team still exists, fewer times now than before, cause life changes and they don’t have as much time on their hands now as they did when they were younger. Yet, Leo can’t help but feel lonely at times.
Training at the dojo and glimpsing back to see the Lab’s lights on and meet the silence of the house without Mikey and Raph.
Master Splinter’s no. 1 caretaker.
I think that as all his brothers progressively grew older, Leo started to note his only purpose until now had been his brothers: standing as a leader for them, protecting them, taking care of them, and being responsible for them.
What does he truly enjoy? Leo starts to wonder.
And this is Leo's best age to discover what he's into and show a wilder side of himself. He feels complete.
He loves exploring new things!
Leo became a teacher after settling down. He teaches Japanese history and martial arts online.
Donnie helped him develop an app, and everything's going alright.
#tmnt#tmnt 2007#tmnt hc#leonardo hamato#rapahel hamato#michelangelo hamato#donatello hamato#leo#raph#donnie#mikey#mutant turtles
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Heroes & Villains The DC Animated Universe - Paper Cut-Out Portraits and Profiles
Static
Virgil Hawkins was a high school student who was experiencing troubles with bullies and gangs. Against his better judgement, Virgil joined a rival gang so to protect himself. This resulted in his being present at the 'Big Bang,' a large-scale brawl between various street gangs that took part at the Dakota Dockyards. In the midst of this brawl, the ‘Quantum Vapor’ was released into the air. All those who breathed the mutagenic vapor were changed in some way, with many being bestowed metahuman powers.
Virgil gained the power of electrokinesis, the ability to generated and mentally control electromagnetic energies. He decided to use these newfound powers to become a superhero, crafting a colorful costume and dubbing himself ‘Static’ the protector of Dakota. A good deal of Static’s crimefighting centered on contending with other young men and women who were also empowered by way of the Quantum Vapor yet had chosen to use their powers for evil.
At one point, The Joker traveled to Dakota as part of an effort to recruit a gang of young, super-powered hoodlums who would do his bidding. Static ended up joining forces with Batman and Robin so to defeat the Joker. He would also have an adventure alongside the Justice League wherein Virgil got to met and fight alongside his childhood hero, Green Lantern/John Stewart.
Some time thereafter, Static came to Gotham and assisted Batman in defeating the super villain known as Timecode. This resulted in Static being temporarily sent many years into the future where he shared an adventure with the new Batman, Terry McGinnis. Yet another incident involving time travel saw an older Static aiding the Justice League in bringing down the time-altering menace of Chronos.
Static would go on to become a member of The Justice League and would come to be known as well as one of earth’s greatest superheroes.
The fantastic Phil LaMarr provided the voice for Static with the young hero first appearing in the debut episode of the animated series, Static Shock.
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Flash Character Descriptions
Jason Peter "Jay" Garrick (Flash #1): Jay Garrick was a brilliant chemistry student at Midwestern University when he gained his super speed. During a laboratory experiment with hard water (later retconned to heavy water), he worked long into the night and then decided to take a smoke break. In the process of lighting up his cigarette, he knocked over the beakers of heavy water he had been experimenting on, and was overcome by the fumes. The next morning, his professor took him to the hospital, where he woke up several weeks later. Not only had he suffered no ill effects from the inhalation of the gas, he now also had super speed!
After using his speed to win a football game and impress his crush, Joan Williams, Jay went on to graduate from college and become a scientist and professor, while fellow-graduate Joan (also a science major) went to help her father, Major Arthur Williams, develop an "atomic bombardier".
After reading about the crime that was plaguing Keystone City, Jay decided to do something about it. He donned an outlandish outfit (complete with his father's old World War I helmet), and started using his super speed to fight crime. Not too long after, Joan, who had known about Jay's speed basically from the beginning, went to him to ask him for his help in rescuing her father from some evil scientists who had kidnapped him in the hopes of getting ahold of his atomic bombardier. Jay succeeded in rescuing him, and from that point on, Jay and Joan would work together to help the Flash protect Keystone City.
Jay Garrick was a very intelligent young man, and a competent scientist, but he was also very light-hearted and was a bit of a prankster (something which came through in his fights with various criminals). He used his speed very creatively, and he was also well-versed enough in science to know how to best apply his speed to a given situation. In this sense, he was something of a mix of the two Flashes who would succeed him. Jay was very close to his girlfriend Joan, and he kept no secrets from her. The two of them worked together in tandem as a crimefighting team, and, as noted above, Joan was in on Jay's identity as the Flash from the start. (Jay disguised his maskless face by vibrating his face so fast that his features couldn't be properly recognized.) Jay was good-natured and kind, as superheroes tend to be, and it wasn't long before he started teaming up with other superheroic types to achieve even more good than he could have on his own.
Jay was one of the founding members of the Justice Society of America, and he helped them defeat such menaces as Vandal Savage and the Injustice Society of the World. More importantly, however, he and the JSA also fought against the Axis forces throughout WWII, both in the field and on the home front. Jay was, and is, very devoted to the defense of freedom.
When he wasn't fighting Nazis with the JSA, Jay was gathering his own collection of costumed criminals. The most prominent of them all was the Thinker (Clifford DeVoe), a former district attorney who turned to a life of crime after he failed too many cases, and who used his incredible mental powers to mastermind crimes and fight the Flash, but Jay also fought the Fiddler (Isaac Bowin), a man whose Stradivarius violin could weaponize sound, the Ragdoll, a thief who was also an expert contortionist, the Thorn (Rose Canton), a supervillainess with a case of Hollywood Dissociative Identity Disorder and the ability to control plants, and the Shade (Richard Swift), whose single appearance in the Golden Age gave very few hints of the immortal, shadow-controlling gentleman adventurer he would become under the pen of James Robison.
Jay also became friends with a trio of Three Stooges rip-offs named Winky, Blinky, and Noddy. While they weren't terribly bright, they were devoted and loyal friend to Jay and Joan, and they did their best to help the Flash in his efforts to stop crime.
After the end of the war, the JSA went into semi-voluntary retirement after totally-not-HUAC-we-promise tried to force them to reveal their secret identities to the government, and Jay Garrick married his long-time girlfriend, Joan. Unfortunately for him, the Thinker, the Fiddler, and the Shade had one last plot in mind...one which trapped the entirety of Keystone City, including Jay and Joan, in frozen stasis for decades. (At least, that's the Post-Crisis explanation. Pre-Crisis, Jay Garrick lived on an alternate Earth from Barry Allen, and was spurred back into action on hearing that Shade, Fiddler, and Thinker had escaped from prison and gone on a crime spree.)
Jay came out of retirement on the day he met his successor, Barry Allen. Barry, who was a huge fan of Jay Garrick and collected the comics that had been written about Jay's adventures, either accidentally vibrated his way to Earth-Two or found Keystone City and freed Jay, and it, from the stasis in which they had been locked for so long. The two Flashes then teamed up to defeat the trio of villains who were causing trouble, and from that point on, Jay Garrick and Barry Allen were close friends and allies, with Jay serving as something of a mentor to the younger Flash. He helped to reform the Justice Society of America, and he threw himself back into superheroics (something his wife, Joan, supported completely).
Jay Garrick is now one of the elder statesmen of the DC Universe. He's humble, approachable, and very wise, but he still has a twinkle in his eyes and a spring in his step. Everyone in the superhero community likes and respects Jay, and even his villains have come to have a grudging admiration for their long-time foe. Jay is also the most polite man in the DC Universe, and he is well-known amongst the younger heroes for his insistence that everyone keep their language G-rated.
Jay is very protective of younger heroes, and has served as a mentor for dozens of them, including Barry, Wally, and Bart. Jay is close friends with the Green Lantern Alan Scott, and has been for decades upon decades. While Alan is rather more ambitious and driven than Jay, the two of them nevertheless work very well together.
Jay and Joan are still married, and they are as in love as they were on the day they were married. Their marriage is rock-solid, and they almost never keep secrets from one another. In fact, I think they have the healthiest relationship in all of comics, and other superheroes in-universe often cite them as the model they hope to follow for their own marriages. Both Jay and Joan currently teach science at local universities, and neither of them seems particularly interested in retiring. Which is impressive, since they both have to be like 110 years old by this point (a perennial problem for characters who have important backstory ties to WWII).
Jay is very, very competent in the use of his powers, and he is still very fast, but his advanced age has cut his speed to some degree, and it severely affects his stamina. He can't run for nearly as long as the younger Flashes can---but he can mostly make up for these delays through his extensive experience.
Joan Williamson-Garrick: Joan Williamson, like Jay Garrick, studied chemistry at Midwestern University. She was the daughter of Major Arthur Williams, whom she would work for as a scientist after her graduation. Although Joan was initially dismissive of Jay due to his lack of football skills, she quickly warmed up to him, and was in on the secret of his super speed, and his identity as the Flash, from the beginning. She was a very intelligent, competent, and resourceful ally in his fight against crime, and the two of them were devoted partners and friends for the entirety of his Golden Age career.
The two of them were married in Las Vegas, and, after Jay's retirement, lived a peaceful life together for many years (possibly being frozen in time for awhile at some point, depending on which origin you go by). Joan worked a science professor at a local university, much like Jay, and the two of them were mostly very happy together (in spite of the tragic death of their adopted son). When Barry Allen arrived on the scene, Jay came out of retirement with Joan's complete support. She and Jay would quickly befriend Barry and Iris, and they often helped to advise the younger couple.
Joan Garrick is a sweet, loving woman, and she is something of a grandmother the superhero community (and particularly the Flash family). She is an excellent cook and is especially good at making cookies, and she is great at giving advice to anyone who will ask her. She also has a good sense of humor, much like her husband, and seemingly endless patience (vital for anyone who frequently deals with young super-speedsters).
Joan is also very clever and brave in her own right. Much like her husband, she is a science professor, and in her younger years, she faced down numerous criminals alongside Jay. She is not by any means weak or a pushover, even if she has slowed down a bit because of her age. Joan is Jay's equal in every since of the word, and the two of them have a happy and healthy marriage.
Bartholomew (formerly Barrence) Henry "Barry" Allen (Flash #2): Barry Allen was born to Dr. Henry and Nora Allen in the small Midwestern town of Fallville (he also had a secret twin named Malcolm who was taken from his parents at birth and who would grow up to found the lineage that would eventually produce Eobard Thawne, the Reverse-Flash, because comics). He grew up reading comic books about his hero, the Flash (Jay Garrick), and playacting as the Flash with his next-door neighbor and childhood sweetheart, Daphne Dean (who would grow up to become a famous movie star). After he graduated from Fallville High School, Barry went on to attend Sun City University, where he would earn a degree in forensic science.
Barry was hired as a police scientist by the Central City Police Department, and thus moved to Central City, where he met reporter Iris West (she worked for Picture News). Their first date was on the fourth of July, and Barry would eventually propose to her when both of them were riding a Ferris Wheel at a local fair.
Barry got his super speed when lighting crashed through the laboratory window at police headquarters, struck him and a nearby shelf of chemicals, and gave him a bath in some random chemical compounds. Showing some truly horrible lab safety skills, Barry brushed off both the lightning strike and the chemical bath and decided to just go home. After his attempt at hailing a taxi failed, he tried to chase after it---and discovered that he, like his idol, Jay Garrick, now possessed super speed.
After creating a costume, which he would store in a special compartment in his ring, Barry became the second Flash and started fighting crime, and it wasn't long before he started collecting a whole group of costumed criminals, from Captain Cold and Weather Wizard to Gorilla Grodd and Abra Kadabra. He also gained a sidekick in Iris' nephew Wally West when the same accident that had given him super speed repeated itself to give super speed to Wally.
Unfortunately, Barry had a bad habit of keeping secrets from people he cared about. He waited several months to tell Wally his true identity, and he didn't tell Iris that he was the Flash until a year after they married (consciously, anyway....Iris learned the truth on their wedding night when Barry talked in his sleep). He had no malicious intent in doing so, but it is something of a habit of his to keep his problems close to his chest and not talk about them to his loved ones, and sometimes this habit comes back to bite him.
Barry Allen is a very talented and effective police scientist. He's slow, careful, methodical, and patient, both as a scientist and as the Flash. His extensive knowledge of science allows him to use his speed in a variety of useful ways, and he is, of course, very fast. However, due to his scientific mindset, he struggles to use the Speed Force as freely as Jay and Wally, and he cannot access all of the abilities that they possess (such as the ability to create costumes out of the speed force or to lend and steal speed).
In his personal life, Barry is a loyal and devoted friend, but he has a small and rather eccentric social circle. Besides his vivacious wife Iris, to whom he is devoted, this social circle includes his parents, Daphne Dean, and Wally West, but it also includes the Elongated Man (Ralph Dibney) and his wife Sue Dibney, Iris' absent-minded adoptive father, Professor Ira West (a brilliant physicist), his twelve-year-old neighbor and fellow comic enthusiast Barney Sands, college student Stacy Conwell, Dexter Myles, the retired Shakespearean actor who runs the Flash Museum, Detective Frank Curtis, scientist Mack Nathan and his son Troy, Eric and Fran Russel, Iris' biological parents, who live in the 30th century (because comic books), and, perhaps most bizarrely of all, Dr. Albert Desmond, one of his supervillains who reformed and became his close friend, and Albert's wife Rita.
Barry is of course also a founding member of the Justice League of America, and he is friendly with most of his colleagues, but Hal Jordan (the Silver Age Green Lantern) is the only one of them who really seems to be his friend outside of work, and he does not get along at all with the Green Arrow (Oliver Queen).
Barry is a total dork. He has a crew cut and wears bow ties. He loves comic books (his collection is truly astounding to behold) and attends comic conventions regularly, and he is incredibly knowledgeable about the JSA. Furthermore, science, in addition to being his job, also seems to be one of his hobbies, and he really loves being able to teach science to kids ("Flash Fact!"). Barry is generally very good with children, and he was an excellent mentor and loving father figure to Wally West, who really needed a father figure growing up.
Barry is apparently a restless sleeper, as he both sleepwalks and talks in his sleep. (Weirdly, this is a trait he shares with his enemy The Top. Roscoe also talks in his sleep.) He is also afraid of roller coasters and likes to go to masquerade parties dressed as himself (that is, the Flash). He is a hard worker, but he is always, always, always late, something that occasionally draws ire from his superiors---particularly the punctuality-obsessed Darryl Frye---and sometimes draws ire from Iris as well.
Due to a long, convoluted series of events that I don't really feel like explaining right now, Barry and Iris have children in the 30th century---a pair of twins named Dawn and Don Allen. Dawn and Don are the superheroes called the Tornado Twins, and both of them end up being killed due to the machinations of the evil President Thawne (who is not the Reverse-Flash, or Barry's evil twin, but rather a descendant of them both). However, before they died, both of the twins married and produced children of their own. Dawn married a man named Jeven Ognats and had a daughter named Jenni, who would ultimately become the superhero XS and a member of the Legion of Superheroes. Don, meanwhile, married Meloni Thawne, the daughter of President Thawne (who was not evil, unlike most of the rest of her family), and had a son named Bart Allen, who would eventually be sent back to the present and become the superhero Impulse. I hate the Flash family tree so much (even though I like most of the characters involved)....
Barry Allen died saving the Multiverse during Crisis on Infinite Earths, and was dead for over 20 years of real-world time, but he was brought back to life in 2008 during the Final Crisis Event, now with stupid retcons to his history that I like to pretend never happened. (His now famous origin wherein the Reverse Flash killed his mother and framed his father for the crime wasn't introduced until 2009. For comparison, Barry Allen debuted in 1956!) I'm not upset he's alive again, since I like Barry a lot, but him being back does kind of confuse a lot of the stuff regarding the future stuff with his kids and grandkids (since initially, Iris lived out several decades in the future after Barry died, raised her kids, saw her grandchildren be born, and then went back to the present with Bart to save him from his accelerated aging). And that was confusing enough as it was!
Iris West-Allen: Iris West was born in the 30th century to Eric and Fran Russel. Unfortunately, the Earth of the 30th century was on the brink of a nuclear war, so Eric and Fran, desperate to save their baby, sent her back in time to the 20th century, whereupon she was adopted by Professor Ira West and his wife, Nadine West.
Iris has three siblings: an older brother named Rudy (Wally's father), an older sister named Charlotte (who mothered Iris' niece Inez), and a younger brother named Daniel (who fathered Wallace West). Unfortunately, both of Iris' brothers would prove to be less than upstanding men, and so Iris had to provide a lot of support and love to her nephews, who weren't getting it from other sources.
Iris earned a degree in journalism from Columbia University, and, after touring the world with the money her father had earned from his many patents, she settled down in Central City and became a reporter for Picture News. Iris is a determined, clever journalist and is one of the most respected reported in Central City.
Her journalism job also introduced her to Barry Allen (they met at a crime scene), with whom she hit it off. The two quickly began dating and soon fell in love with one another (even if Iris was often frustrated by Barry's constant tardiness). When the Flash arrived on the scene, Iris dutifully reported on his activities, not knowing that her slow and lazy fiancé was also the Fastest Man Alive. W
When Rudy sent a ten-year-old Wally to live with Iris for the summer, Iris introduced him to Barry, who in turn "introduced" Wally to the Flash. Wally would become Kid Flash on that same vacation, but, sworn to secrecy by Barry, he didn't tell Iris.
Iris learned that Barry was the Flash on their wedding night (since Barry talked in his sleep), and she took the news surprisingly well, all things considered. Once she was in the know, she became a very capable confidant, and aided Barry in his career as the Flash.
Iris is fiery, passionate, and full of energy. She is driven and determined to achieve her goals, and she's almost totally fearless, but she can also be very loving, supportive, and caring to the people she's close with. Iris is very good with children, and she is a wonderful and supportive aunt to Wally, Wallace, and Inez (who's only had one appearance but is included for completion's sake). Iris is also much more of an extrovert than Barry is, and she spends a considerable amount of time dragging him out of his own head.
In addition to being an excellent journalist, Iris is also a talented cook and personally sponsors a number of charities throughout Central City (which benefit greatly from her Flash-y husband's fundraising abilities).
In spite of not having any superpowers, Iris is nevertheless surprisingly competent and daring in a fight, and has helped her husband take down criminals more than once in the past.
Unfortunately for Iris, she also has an obsessive stalker in the form of Eobard Thawne (Professor Zoom the Reverse-Flash), who attempted to force her into marriage with him multiple times, and ultimately killed her by vibrating his hand into her brain after she rejected his latest proposal of marriage. Her life was ultimately saved thanks to her 30th-century adoptive parents, who managed to transfer her soul into a cloned body right before she died, but it would be years before she and Barry were reunited...only for Barry to die again not long afterwards.
Iris spent a few decades in the future, raising her children, Don and Dawn Allen, but ultimately returned to the present with her grandson Bart Allen to save him from the hyper-accelerated aging his super-speed had induced. In the present, she reunited with Wally, met his wife Linda, and eventually reunited with a resurrected Barry.
Aaaaand then Flashpoint happened and erased their marriage, and they basically had to go through their entire relationship again in the New 52 and Rebirth era. Boo! Boo I say! (Note that Daniel and Wallace West did not exist before Flashpoint. However, it's not too hard to fit them into the pre-Flashpoint timeline if you squint, and that's basically what I do in my headcanon.)
Wallace Rudolph "Wally" West (Flash #3): Wally West was born to Rudolph and Mary West in the very small town of Blue Valley, Nebraska. Unfortunately, neither of his parents were loving or supportive of him, and his father was outright physically abusive to young Wally (although he was unfortunately just clever enough to not leave any obvious bruises). Wally was therefore a rather lonely child, with his Aunt Iris and his Grandpa Ira serving as his main sources of love and support. He also befriended a young girl named Frances Kane, who also lived in Blue Valley and whose mother was about as much fun to be around as Wally's father.
When the Flash (Barry Allen) came onto the scene, Wally became the Flash's biggest fan. He was the president (and only member) of the Blue Valley Flash Fan Club, and, as such, he was ecstatic when, during his tenth summer, his parents sent him to live with his Aunt Iris for awhile in Central City. He loved his Aunt Iris, and he loved the idea of getting to meet the Flash almost as much.
Iris promptly introduced her nephew to her boyfriend Barry Allen. Wally was not impressed by the dorky police scientist at first...but then Barry Allen told him he knew the Flash, and that he could introduce Wally to him, which he promptly did.
Wally inundated the Flash with questions, but before the Flash could answer any of them, lightning crashed through the window, striking both Wally and a shelf full of chemicals that Barry Allen kept in his apartment and spilling some of the chemicals onto Wally. (It was the Silver Age. Don't ask.) Wally immediately gained the same super-speed as the Flash, and the Flash promptly offered to make Wally his sidekick, Kid Flash. Wally eagerly agreed.
Wally worked alongside the Flash on big cases, but he also worked on his own as Kid Flash in Blue Valley quite often, keeping in touch with his mentor via mail. Barry, now confident that he had chosen the right sidekick, revealed his secret identity to Wally, and from that moment on, Barry became the father figure Wally had always wanted but never really had. Wally loved and idolized Barry, and the two of them became very close--especially after Barry married Iris and became Wally's uncle (and his parents went through a messy divorce).
As Kid Flash, Wally would eventually join up with Aqualad, Robin (Dick Grayson), Wonder Girl (Donna Troy), and Speedy (Roy Harper) to form the Teen Titans, a group of young heroes whose roster would expand considerably over time and eventually come to include Frances Kane, who started demonstrating innate magnetic-controlling abilities in her teens. As part of the Teen Titans, Wally would gain many close friends and a considerable amount of superhero experience. He and Dick Grayson became especially close to one another, and Dick would ultimately be the best man at Wally's wedding.
When Wally turned 18, he enrolled in college, and planned to eventually retire from the superhero life altogether (due in part to the fact that his powers had started to go into flux and were threatening his health). However, events soon conspired to prevent him from graduating college or starting a "normal" life. When his Uncle Barry died saving the universe (and Wally's speed problems were conveniently cured), Wally felt that he had to step up to become the Flash in order to honor his uncle's legacy.
Unfortunately, Barry's death had left some huge shoes to fill, and with Iris off in the far future, Wally had no one to support him as he tried to live up to Barry's legacy. Suffering from depression and impostor syndrome, Wally psychosomatically limited his own speed to the speed of sound to ensure that he would never surpass Barry, dropped out of college, and, after breaking up with Frances Kane (who he had been dating), started a series of disastrous romantic relationships. Wally felt that he was unworthy to be the Flash, and in his desperation to prove himself, he came across as cocky and brash, even arrogant---and his low self-image was not helped by the fact that almost everyone around him kept reminding him of how he was disgracing his uncle's legacy. Nor was it helped by the fact that, when he won the lottery (just go with it), his mother moved in to mooch off of him, recklessly burn through all of his money, and criticize all of his choices. (Also, it turned out that his father was secretly part of an intergalactic cult, and that he had only had Wally because the cult had told him he was going to have a super-powerful son. Don't you just love comics?)
Things got even worse when an alien invasion (a different one from the one started by the cult Wally's dad was a part of) stole all of Wally's remaining finances and he briefly became homeless...but luckily, he ran into the Pied Piper, who helped him out and began what would become a very deep and long-lasting friendship. Wally's relationships with old and experienced jack-of-all-trades Mason Tollbridge, the human black hole named Chunk (whom Wally had saved from a life of crime), scientists Tina and Jerry McGee, Joan Garrick, the Elongated Man, and even Captain Cold, Heat Wave, and the Golden Glider eventually helped pull him out of the hole he had fallen into after his uncle's death, and he gradually became a more competent hero and a happier, more well-adjusted man.
Of course, no one was more important in facilitating Wally's growth from a cocky skirt-chaser with impostor syndrome to a truly confident, loyal husband was Linda Park. When Wally met her, she was a TV reporter in Keystone City, and the two of them butted heads at first, but, over time, they came to enjoy one another's company, started dating, fell in love, saved each other from countless disasters, and then got married. Linda helped Wally to grow up and overcome his insecurities, and Wally helped Linda to relax and have fun. The two of them work together very well and are utterly devoted to one another.
The two of them also have three children: twins Irey and Jai (who are somewhere between 8 and 10 years old due to some initial advanced speedster aging), and the newly-arrived infant Wade West. Wally is a devoted father and delights in being an embarrassingly goofy dad. He's also very close to his younger cousin Wallace West.
Wally is passionate, brave, loyal, and devoted to his friends and loved ones. He is generally friendly and good-natured, and is just as devoted to helping people as the other Flashes are. He's the best user of the Speed Force and is the Fastest Man Alive. He has an intuitive understanding of his speed and uses it to greater effect than basically any other speedster. However, he cannot vibrate through walls like Barry and Jay can (because the excess energy that he produces when he does so causes them to explode!)
Wally has a snarky, dry sense of humor and is very witty (being particularly prone to making sarcastic comments about supervillains). He's very impatient and can be prone to reckless actions, particularly when he gets angry. Wally also has a notable temper, though it seems to have gotten better as he's gotten older.
Although the comics have never outright said it, Wally seems to have ADHD, and is in fact a surprisingly accurate portrayal of the condition (in much the same way as his cousin Bart). That being said, I'm not sure Wally himself realizes he has ADHD, as he seems to blame most of the behavioral manifestations of ADHD on his super speed (and it's also a fair bet that his parents never had him tested for it as a child.)
In spite of his super speed, Wally is not a sports fan, and he especially hates watching baseball on TV. Conversely, he loves to eat. While he doesn't really need to eat to maintain his super speed in the way that he once did, he still has a super-speedy metabolism, and he uses it to eat lots and lots of hot dogs (apparently, they're weenie-licious), hamburgers, and sugared cereals.
Wally has had a number of jobs, including working as a car mechanic for the CCPD, but he is currently employed by Terrifitech as an engineer/mechanic, working for fellow superhero Mr. Terrific.
Linda Park-West: Linda Park is the daughter of John and Lisa Park. She is of Korean descent, and both she and Wally are very fond of Korean barbeque. Linda began her career as a TV reporter before switching to the press, and she has also published a few novels. She has also expressed an interest in pediatric medicine and has taken a few college courses for it.
At the start of her career, Linda was a serious, no-nonsense reporter. She was very good at her job, but she had few friends outside of her work, and she could be a bit uptight. When she first met Wally, they had a mutually adversarial relationship, but over time, they softened towards one another and developed a friendship that then became a romance. She helped Wally mature and grow up a bit, and he helped her loosen up and have fun. The two of them are great for one another, and, in spite of some rough patches, have a very healthy relationship.
Linda is a very intelligent woman and has no shortage of bravery; she's helped Wally face down many criminal threats and is a formidable opponent in her own right. Her skills as an investigative journalist also frequently aid Wally in his battle against crime.
Linda is a loving and devoted mother to her three children, and she will do anything to keep them safe. Woe betide anyone who is foolish enough to mess with her children. While she is the more serious and responsible parent, she is obviously very fond of her children and enjoys spending time with them and her goof of a husband. She's also handles most of the family's finances (since Wally lacks the patience for that sort of thing). She's also very close to her parents, who visit the family regularly. Much like Wally, she is friends with the Pied Piper.
Linda is also a huge sports fan. She loves baseball and is just as big a fan of Keystone City's hockey team, the Combines, as Captain Cold.
Iris "Irey" and Jai West: Wally's twins, both of whom have super speed. Jai can use his super speed to temporarily give himself super strength, while Irey is particularly adept at phasing through walls. Both of them are sweet kids who love their parents and each other, but still they bicker and fight with one another. They are siblings, after all. Jai is more introverted than his sister and seems to prefer playing video games and writing in his journal to socializing. Irey is more outgoing and mischievous, and she has become close friends with Maxine Baker, the daughter of Animal Man (Buddy Baker), who goes to her school. Both children are eager to help their father fight bad guys, but for the most part, Wally and Linda try to keep their kids away from too much combat. The twins are also very fond of their Uncle Piper, their Grandpa Jay, their Grandma Joan, and their Uncle Barry.
Pied Piper (Hartley Rathaway): Hartley Rathaway was born to multi-millionaire publishing magnates Osgood and Rachel Rathaway. He was born deaf, and it took his neglectful parents nearly two years before they realized something was wrong. Once they finally caught on to their son's deafness, and determined to "fix" their heir, they spent millions of dollars to get Dr. William Magnus to implant Hartley with super-advanced hearing aids. The operation was a success, and Hartley was left with not only the ability to hear, but super-human hearing. Upon being able to hear, Hartley quickly became enamored with music, which became something of a solace for the lonely child.
Hartley's parents, though extremely wealthy and able to give him the best of everything money could buy, were also cold, controlling, and neglectful, and Hartley never felt accepted by them or their high-society friends. He seemed to have no friends, and every aspect of his life was controlled by his parents...except his hobby of tinkering with musical instruments.
When Hartley turned 18, his parents selected a prestigious university for him, enrolled him in courses, and, when Hartley, uninterested in the courses they had chosen for him, didn't perform to their expectations, bribed the college to give him high grades. Hartley, for his part, had invented a flute that could hypnotize anyone who listened to it, and began using it to try to take some control of his life.
After several months (maybe even a few years) of conflict with his parents, everything came to a head when Hartley told his parents that he was gay. This kicked off an enormous argument that ended up with Hartley being all but disowned by his family. No longer welcome at home, and having dropped out of college, Hartley decided to use his magical flute to become the Pied Piper. By becoming a costumed criminal and openly stealing from the rich, he would have his revenge on the parents he had never been good enough for...and he would finally have control over his own life.
Hartley's parents were, predictably enough, infuriated by his activity as the Pied Piper, and promptly bribed everyone from the Chief of the CCPD to the FBI to keep Hartley's identity a secret. He was even given a new name, Henry Darrow, to make sure nobody connected the polka-dot-wearing thief with the Rathaways.
The Pied Piper was one of the youngest of the costumed criminals to battle the Flash (Barry Allen), and perhaps it was because he needed a substitute family that he joined up with the Rogues (after briefly dating a wannabe supervillain named Earl Povich/Fury, who would, years later, come after a reformed Hartley). With his upper-class accent and education, he stood out from the rest of the group, and many of them weren't quite sure where to have him---especially once he told them he was gay. However, he did become close friends with another of the younger Rogues, the Trickster (James Jesse), and he always got along well with Heat Wave (Mick Rory), who was gentle and easy-going.
During his career as a criminal, Hartley kept very little of the money he stole. He gave some of the money to his parents, to pay them back for the money they had spent trying to mold him into something he could never be (and to remind them that he still existed and remembered them), and donated much of the rest to various charities (he fancied himself as a bit of a Robin Hood figure, and viewed it as a way to help make reparations for the wealth horded by his family)...but he could still be a very dangerous opponent for the Flash, especially when angered or cornered.
Shortly before Barry Allen's death, Hartley had a nervous breakdown. This, combined with his old foe's sacrifice to save the universe, prompted Hartley to realize that he was wasting his life as a criminal. He reformed and became an advocate for a variety of social causes, including providing aid to the homeless. He became friends with the new Flash, Wally West, and he even reconciled with his parents. Since then, he has helped the Flash save the Twin Cities many times, and also helps to keep the Flash informed as to what's going on the criminal underworld. He's also stayed friends with James Jesse, the Trickster, who himself decided to join the side of the angels (mostly) and who never fails to keep Hartley's life interesting.
Hartley Rathaway is the sort of person people reflexively underestimate. Slight of build and rather quiet of voice (you would be too if whispers sounded like shouting sometimes), he doesn't seem threatening---but if you threaten him or the people he cares about, he can be every bit as dangerous as the Flash (or the Rogues). His weaponized musical instruments allow him to not only hypnotize people but to weaponize sound in a variety of ways, and he is very skilled in using them in combat. He's also a very skilled inventor and is constantly updating his arsenal of pipes, and he knows a lot about sound. (He also sometimes serves as Wally's tech support.)
In addition to being very intelligent, Hartley is a loyal friend and a devoted champion of the poor and underprivileged. He is extremely passionate about his causes and works tirelessly to help others, sometimes to the point where he exhausts himself or forgets to eat. He wants to create a better world for everyone, and he is very compassionate, especially to children, such as his little sister, Geraldine Rathaway. He is also a beloved "uncle" to Jai and Irey West.
Hartley feels a fair deal of guilt about his criminal past, and for that reason works hard to make amends by aiding Wally in his role as the Flash. He spends a good deal of time and effort in helping other ex-convicts reintegrate into society, and also passionately helps Linda expose corruption in high places.
Hartley loves all kinds of music, more or less indiscriminately and equally. He sometimes plays in the Central City orchestra, and he is rarely found without his headphones on and his flute in hand. In addition to his love of music, Hartley is also a baseball fan, and enjoys watching games with fellow fan Linda.
Hartley loves rats and has several pet rats, including one named Moon.
Hartley has had a number of partners over the years. Aside from the aforementioned Earl Povich, he has dated Mike, a chef (probably) and James, who worked as an architect (not to be confused with James Jesse, the Trickster, whose real name is actually Giovanni Giuseppi). His most recent partner is, as you noted, David Singh, who works as a police officer. I don't really know a lot about David other than his occupation, since his relationship with Hartley was introduced in the New 52, and Hartley has had shockingly little panel time since then. Nor do I know how they met (I don't think the comics have ever really explained this, and inquiring minds would like to know, given one of them is a police officer and the other one used to be a supervillain). That being said, Singh does seem to serve as a moral compass for Hartley when he's tempted to revert back to his criminal ways.
Paul Gambi: Paul Gambi is a tailor of Italian descent, and he makes costumes for the Rogues as a sideline to his main business (since the Rogues pay very well for their costumes). He seems to be somewhere between 40 and 60 years old in most of his appearances, and I assume he's older than all of the Rogues.
Gambi has at least two brothers. One of them, whose name we don't know, is in prison, and he left behind a son, Tony, who Paul took in and raised. The other brother, Peter Gambi, is also a tailor, but he makes costumes for superheroes (notably, he made Black Lightning's costume).
Gambi is an expert tailor, and he designed all of the Rogues' outfits so that they would withstand the forces of the Rogues' weapons (e.g., Heat Wave's costume can resist ridiculous amounts of heat, Weather Wizard's costume can withstand high winds and rain, etc.) Although he has gone to prison for brief periods, for the most part he manages to stay under the radar and continue making costumes (it helps that he has a legitimate business as well).
Gambi is very fond of the Rogues, and they are equally fond of him, viewing him as a friend and an ally. Messing with Gambi is a great way to get all the Rogues to come after you. Gambi also seems to be a good uncle to his nephew Tony (whom the Rogues are also extremely fond of), and both uncle and nephew are as good as part of the group.
Fun Fact: Paul Gambi was named after a real-life Flash fan named Paul Gambaccini.
It's late now and I'm tired, so I will finish up the rest of the characters tomorrow.
#flash comics#flash rogues#pied piper#barry allen#wally west#jay garrick#iris allen#linda park#joan garrick#irey west#jai west#paul gambi#dc comics
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Who's Who In The DC Universe #2: Bat-Mite, Batwoman
Bat-Mite by Marshall Rogers
A pint-sized imp from another dimension
Claims to be the greatest fan of Batman and Robin, comes to Earth to watch his idols in action
Loves to use his powers to complicate matters for the Dynamic Duo
Forever being ordered back to his home dimension by Batman, like a bad boy being sent to stand in a corner
Bat-Mite is a silly character that mainly appeared in the Silver Age. He did have a mini-series in the New 52 era and has made a few appearances in the various Batman animated series. If you don’t mind an occasionally silly Batman, Bat-Mite can be a fun character. If the “Dark Knight Strikes Again” Miller-Batman is your ideal then Bat-Mite is not the character for you.
Batwoman by Dick Giordano
Kathy Kate was a circus stunt-cyclist and trapeze artist. She later became a socialite and owner of a circus.
A longtime admirer of Batman, Kathy decided to become a costumed crimefighter after she received a considerable inheritance.
She had a mansion constructed atop an abandoned mine tunnel and built her own version of the Batcave.
Often partnered up with Batman and Robin
Kathy’s own niece, Betty, developed her own costumed identity as Bat-Girl
Katy had counterparts on Earth-One and Earth-Two – their careers were mainly identical except for the endings
On Earth-Two, Kathy retired and remained a prominent citizen of Earth-One
On Earth-One, Kathy retired and bought a small circus to keep herself occupied
She was later murdered by the Bronze Tiger in a struggle between Ra’s Al Ghul and the League of Assassins
Kathy Kane is one of my all-time favorite characters and my 2nd favorite love interest of Batman (Andrea Beaumont is my number one Batman love interest). Was she a silly character? Yes, in her late Golden Age/Silver Age appearances but it was a rather overall silly time for DC Comics. She is the first heroic female Bat character as she debuted in the 1950s and Barbara Gordon wouldn’t debut until the late 1960s. Loved her rare Bronze Age appearances. After Kathy’s death, her time as Batwoman was erased in the post-Crisis but Bette kept her role as a costumed adventurer as Flamebird. Kathy -as Batwoman – made an appearance in one of the Kingdom one shots. Batman sees Batwoman and says “Kathy?” so he retained some memories of her costumed identity.
As for Kathy’s death…she was essentially stuffed into the fridge. In Detective Comics #485, Batman visits Kathy’s circus and helps her fend off attackers. A second wave of attacks separates the duo and Batman later finds a deceased Kathy clutching her Batwoman costume. Ra’s Al Ghul arrives at the circus and informs Batman that Kathy was killed by the order of the Sensei of the League of Assassins and that Ra’s was the one who sent the note warning Batman of Kathy’s upcoming assassination. Batman questions why the Sensei would consider Kathy a threat and Ra’s tells Batman it is because he told the Sensei that Kathy was a threat. The Bronze Tiger is implicated to be Kathy’s murderer.
We don’t receive a reason for why Ra’s went out of his way to have Kathy assassinated. The only reason I can head-cannon relates to Ra’s obsession to have Bruce as an heir. Around this time there were four main love interests of Bruce: Selina, Talia, Kathy, and Silver St Cloud. Was Ra’s eliminating a possible romantic rival of Talia?
The aftermath of Kathy’s murder received some attention in the Ostrander’s Suicide Squad series – mainly in Bronze Tiger’s attempts to break the League’s brainwashing and his attempts to remember if he killed Kathy.
Kathy frequently married Bruce and was the mother of his son in “imaginary stories” (Elseworlds) from the Golden/Silver Age.
I was so excited when Batwoman was rumored to return in the 52 serie and was so disappointed when it wasn’t Kathy. (Not that I don’t like Kate, I simply wanted the return of Kathy).
Grant Morrison brought Kathy/Batwoman back during his run on the Batman titles and she also featured in the Grayson series. I don’t know if she’s made appearances since the Rebirth era but I’m always up for more Kathy.
#Batman#batfam#bat family#batwoman#kathy kane#bat-mite#bette kane#bat-girl#flamebird#ra's al ghul#talia al ghul#talia#bronze tiger#league of assassins#sensei#dc comics#dcu
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After watching I Will Save The Universe For Food and the last Like A Dragon games, I had an idea.
What happens in a superhero universe when superheros and supervillains become obsolete, like knights and cowboys before them?
When society outgrowns their neccesity and the system which they are part stops working how will they adapt to a world that no longer need, wants or supports them?
Which will fight back and which will try to give them a place in this new world?
(If this question is too complicated, just respond in the context of the Marvel universe)
I think that depends on what you mean by "like knights and cowboys before them", because that can mean different things. The simplest answer for these is that you don't have a superhero universe anymore, if your universe is one where superheroes can just vanish into irrelevancy and become historical curio figures that definitely 100% won't need to come back to stop the Anti-Monitor from exploding a world or two, as they always do everytime they have a "but what if we didn't need superheroes anymore?" story in a superhero universe.
Closest example I can think of within the Big Two is, probably the stretch of time between the disbanding of the Justice Society in the 1950s, and however long it takes in the continuity for Superman and the Justice League to be a thing and inaugurate the age of heroes proper, where in-between you have all those less-known almost-superheroes and your Task Force X / Challengers of the Unknown / fringe guys guys running around until the superheroes become the center of the universe again. Alfred's espionage career goes here until it's time for the Waynes to be shot, that kind of thing. And of course, that's not an ending, that's backstory, that's a gap in between proceedings. The DCU didn't stop being a superhero universe during those years and it doesn't really stop being one when all capes are gone in the Kamandi future either, where the lack of dominant superheroes is supposed to be an outlier state.
(And to address the proverbial elephant here: Watchmen is a world where superheroes are depicted as socially detrimental and warped, and yes there's only one guy with outright superpowers, but this is still 100% a superhero world where superhero things have and have happened, where superheroes and masked crimefighters were and still are an incredibly useful thing for the powers that be even in spite of being specifically outlawed. The best thing for the people who live in Watchmen would be for them to live in a world where the superhero was truly no longer supported and allowed to fade into irrelevant fantasy, but they don't, they live in the 35 minutes murder squid massacre world)
If we're comparing superheroes to knights and cowboys in the sense of the archetype, the storytelling tradition they socially occupy, the superhero as a character figure the way knights and cowboys are, then if they go, they go the way those did, and become historical characters and costumed personas within the realm of fantasy. In fact, if this is a thing that can happen or always could happen and the story chugs along just fine, it's possible you didn't even really have a superhero universe in the first place, you just had a universe with superheroes in it.
Which is a thing that can happen, and happens quite a bit in universes that want to take a crack at superheroes but don't want the proceedings to revolve around them. Like League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, or Redline with Lynchman and Johnny Boy, deranged pastiches of Batman and Robin who are very much real superheroes, fighting supervillains and outrunning cars while tanking gunfire and all, they're just not the thing the film revolves around nor are they even the weirdest thing in it, so they don't warp the universe and they're just one more freakish thing about it. The key word here is irrelevancy: Captain Universe is not the protagonist of LOEG, the universe of Redline and it's races do not revolve around Lynchman and Johnny Boy, the Crimson Chin doesn't show up to pull Timmy Turner out of trouble on most Fairly Odd Parents episodes, and etc. These guys are superheroes, they can even solve some big problems, but they are not needed, the universe spins just fine without them, which means they're not really much of superheroes to begin with. It's not for nothing you mostly see this play out with gag characters, or at least, characters whose superhero-ness makes them dissonant next to their surroundings (think Captain Falcon in Smash Bros).
Now, if we're talking about comparing superheroes to knights and cowboys in the real world practical sense of what they were and did, if we're talking about them as part of a system through which they operated and applying it to how superheroes operate, well, then we still have cowboys, and knights, and samurai and all that. Individuals or groups with enhanced weaponry or fighting skills who go around stopping crime and enacting vigilante justice with a mission to defend something / "society". It's just we generally call them cops or private military contractors now. Or mercenaries, if you wanna split hairs a bit and go with the "independent operator who sells his services and brutalizes people for money/political favors", which was what knights and cowboys did also, but they all work within and for the same system.
There's been a lot of commentary already on how the superheroes, as a western action genre, operates as an extension of cowboy stories, most visible when we get to the superhero-supervillain dynamic, the "eternal frontier of gangsters and super-scientific menaces who play the role that Indians take in frontier narratives" as I elaborated here. And it's easy to point out the similarities between cowboys and knights, who comparatively skew a little closer to the mercenary side of things than the "cops-and-robbers" paradigm, but historically tended to benefit from political privileges and whitewashed reputations as adventuring defenders and champions of the community in very similar ways. Works that explore superheroes as an institutional power, like The Ultimates or Worm, tend to touch on this, and how "lucky" these guys are that there's always a bigger villain or monster in the room to fight to justify the continued superhero project. The superheroes can have as many Civil Wars as they want provided there is a Norman Osborn at the end of the day to be the bigger bastard they can settle their differences by punching out.
A story about a society that "outgrowns their necessity and the system which they are part of stops working", a story that abolishes the need for superheroes entirely and doesn't provide them allowance anymore, is a story about a society that would have to, at minimum, either have cops and law enforcement so effective and powerful that there's no room for superheroes or any kind of alternative to even pretend to exist, in which case congratulations, you're writing Judge Dredd, or a society that has completely abolished a need for cops and law enforcement of any kind so thoroughly that superheroes are not needed or able to fill the vacuum either, which is a much taller order and it's the kind of stuff you find in speculative political fiction and utopian sci-fi. But, even that wouldn't even necessarily stop superheroes from being active figures.
Because for one, systems fail, in several ways by design, and superheroes tend to exist in the first place because of that, conceived and presented as a superior alternative to traditional law enforcement. And two, obviously the concept of independent policing exists, the concept of communal policing or unlawful vigilantism and so on, and it's typically the thing that gets brought up as a rebuttal whenever superheroes are criticized for being too much like cops, the fact that they don't answer to law enforcement or government and therefore cannot be exploitative or opressive or, god forbid, that dirty word that starts with f and ends with -ascist. But we already live in a world where vigilantes are not supposed to be needed, a world that doesn't support them, and still they exist. And we do have a name for unaccountable, community-based solutions to crime policing and what those look like, people got very angry at Alan Moore for bringing it up even.
Of course this is an extreme negative example (if no less of a foundational one because of it), there are many many different degrees and reasons and methods by which vigilantes operate, just as there's a difference to the degrees by which heroes associate with law enforcement, but that's part of the issue here. No matter how repugnant a precedent is set by the KKK and others, vigilantism is an extremely popular idea for many reasons and it accounts for so much of why knights and cowboys and superheroes become so popular.
Everyone has their own reasons as to why they would support or become vigilantes, everyone has things and causes they'd fight or kill or die or embrace violence for. So unless we're going the utopian sci-fi route again, there is no rendering vigilantism obsolete, and there is no rendering the superhero obsolete in a superhero universe, even if we completely strip away superpowers from the equation. Vigilantism is and will always be deeply popular no matter how wrong or horrible it is as a thing for people to embrace. There is no pretending otherwise in the aftermath of this
being the most globally beloved political development of the past 5 years at minimum.
Superhero universes trap themselves into the vicious cycle where superheroes are needed to stop super-menaces and even other superheroes, and they all justify each other's existences and they all recreate Cold War dynamics just by existing (and this is something that Kieron Gillen and Caspar Wijngaard are gonna be exploring in their upcoming mini The Power Fantasy, so be on the lookout for that), even if just those who become vigilantes to stop other vigilantes from going rampant. But if superheroes aren't on some level impossible to replace, whether it's because they are genuinely necessary or simply too enmeshed into the inner workings of society to be removed without issue or ending the story, then you don't really have a superhero universe.
The questions of what happens when they go, where have all the good men gone and where are all the gods and where is streetwise Hercules to fight the rising odds, those I think tend to get explored a bit, but not too much, because generally speaking you write superhero universes to tell stories about superheroes, not to write about what happens to those universes when they're completely and utterly gone and never coming back.
Again, it is entirely possible to have fantastical universes with hero stories in them and not have superhero universes, superheroes are not synonymous with cowboys, knights, samurais, wuxia and other kinds of hero stories either. In fact, if you take a step back from America and away from European and Japanese works exploring said relationship with the US, the idea of a superhero, let alone a whole universe full of them where everything has to revolve around them, kinda shatters. Much as I may be trying to do just that, it is more than a fair bit ridiculous and self-defeating and even a little impossible to authentically put superheroes in the global south, although that is considerably less of an issue when thinking of supervillains. Those can and do crop up whenever and whatever.
And I'm ending on those because, the reason I'm not even really touching so much on the supervillain side of the question because supervillains don't actually need any kind of superhero context to exist, as I keep reiterating they predate superheroes by a significant margin and are far less defined and restricted in terms of how they exist and operate. By design, supervillains can and do exist in systems that don't allow for them and don't want them, it's kinda what they're supposed to be doing even, it's even kinda the main thing that separates a supervillain from a regular villain.
But you don't even need supervillains most of the time to be a superhero. The masked avenger pulp heroes tended to not have them, and the Golden Age superheroes took a while to get going there. You need supervillains only when you're strong and good and long-lived enough at it that you need, well,
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The last Golden Age superhero created by MLJ (now known as Archie Comics), Red Rube was that company's answer to Fawcett Comic's Captain Marvel.
Or, to be more precise: MLJ's blatant rip-off of Captain Marvel.
Both heroes were young orphans, Billy Watson and Reuben Reubens, who were granted powers from different entities after shouting magic words. For Billy it was "Shazam!", after which he was struck by magic lightning and transformed into Captain Marvel. Reuben, on the other hand, shouted "Hey, Rube!" and was transformed by a magic tornado into Red Rube. And both Billy and Reuben got jobs as young reporters.
The biggest difference between the characters, however, was their popularity. Cap outlasted the majority of other comic book superheroes, and only stopped being published in 1953 because of Fawcett's legal troubles. Red Rube didn't even last a year.
Red Rube was a rare breed of hero for MLJ, as he actually had superpowers; the majority of their characters were just masked crimefighters. He was created at the time when MLJ was phasing out its costumed heroes and replacing them with more comedic features, including a certain teen-aged Archie Andrews. Rube reflected this trend: he did not take himself - or his adventures - seriously, and they were written with a comedic bent.
MLJ/Archie Comics revived and revised most of their superhero characters several times over the next several decades, but Red Rube, and another hero named Mr. Satan, were not among them. Because of that, both of those characters are now in the public domain.
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April 1950. Years before Betty Kane or Barbara Gordon, the Robin solo strip in STAR SPANGLED COMICS briefly floated the idea of giving Robin a female counterpart: Roberta the Girl Wonder. The story begins at Dick Grayson's high school, where the girls are discussing their hopeless crush on Robin. One of them, redheaded Mary Wills, then has a brainstorm:
Mary is adorable in this story, although the assertion that Dick Grayson's peers are enamored with Robin (something that was repeated on and off into his college days in the 1970s) doesn't withstand close analysis. Even by the standards of the late '40s and early '50s, Robin is only a little less of a nerd than the young Clark Kent in the Superboy strip (who quickly established himself as the epitome of squaredom), and Dick Grayson at least as bad. However, Mary is determined:
A crime-compact! Obviously, Mary has already grasped the merchandising potential of being a Bat-adjacent crimefighter, but where did this teenage girl get smoke, gas, and explosive capsules? (Is that what we're supposed to assume she was making in panel 2 above?) Troubling …
As "Roberta the Girl Wonder," Mary quickly manages to introduce herself to Robin, even sneaking into the Batcave by hiding in the trunk of the Batmobile. However, to her dismay, Robin responds to her with irritation and disdain.
She asks a pretty reasonable question, honestly. Upon meeting her, Robin's immediate reaction is that "this is too dangerous a game for a girl" (but totally fine for a boy who doesn't even have any pants, apparently), and he subsequently becomes very critical of her ability to cover her tracks to protect her secret identity (much of which criticism seems unmerited or at least overblown), but even if you consider those reasonable arguments, his almost total disinterest in her (the above splash page not withstanding) does end up coming across as kind of gay. The comics were a little vague about how old Robin was supposed to be, but the beginning of this story indicates that he and Mary go to the same high school, so he's probably 15 or 16. That he reacts to a pretty girl his own age expressing obvious interest in him as if she were trying to sell him aluminum siding is thus a little odd unless, as Mary suggests, he just doesn't like girls.
To underscore the point, Robin deliberately sabotages her, arranging to douse her with chemicals (with which he's surreptitiously dosed the perfume shown below) to make her mask fall off in public:
Poor Mary.
Mary Wills is more than a little reminiscent of another STAR SPANGLED COMICS character: Merry, the Girl of a Thousand Gimmicks. First seen in STAR SPANGLED COMICS #81 in June 1948 (although she didn't adopt her costumed identity until the following issue), she was Merry Pemberton, adoptive sister of Sylvester Pemberton, the Star-Spangled Kid. Syl tried to discourage her from getting involved in crimefighting, but not only did she not listen to him, she soon took over his strip.
The above panels are from a story in STAR SPANGLED COMICS #86, which is still identified with the Star-Spangled Kid logo on the splash page even though Syl himself is nowhere in sight. With the following issue, the strip officially became Merry's in name as well as fact. However, with reader interest in superheroes fading rapidly, the strip lasted only through #90, in March 1949.
Roberta the GIrl Wonder may have originated an attempt to create a similar heroine for the Robin strip, but given how hard the ending of her story shuts down the possibility of her reappearing, one assumes editor Whitney Ellsworth decided that particular ship had sailed. National-DC was not very likely to replace Robin with a girl the way Merry had replaced her brother and Black Canary had superseded Johnny Thunder, and in any event, it had already become clear that it wasn't going to arrest the sales decline. Even Robin would soon lose the STAR SPANGLED cover slot to Tomahawk, and in 1952, the book became STAR-SPANGLED WAR STORIES.
#comics#star spangled comics#win mortimer#the writer of this story is unknown#robin the boy wonder#dick grayson#robin#roberta the girl wonder#merry the girl of 1000 gimmicks#star-spangled kid#whitney elsworth#otto binder#merry pemberton#sylvester pemberton
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The Silk Spectre is a comics heroine I don’t know a lot about. Like Black Canary, the character spans the generations. The mother, a red-headed beauty named Sally Jupiter (she changed her last name from the Polish Juspeczyk to avoid prejudice), was a member of the 1940s vigilante group The Minutemen, but with her striking looks, burlesque dancer background and tight yellow short-skirted costume, Sally was always more sex symbol than crimefighter. Sally retired and had a daughter, Laurie Juspeczyk, who took up the mantle of the Silk Spectre in the 1970s, joining a superhero group called The Watchmen, where her athleticism and martial arts skills were put to good use. The main title in which both versions of the Spectre appear is The Watchmen comic and its spin offs, published by DC Comics. The title is definitely of the “dark” genre which eschewed camp action adventures in favour of introspection, adult themes and relationship issues, and which became particularly prevalent in the 1990s and 2000s.
Although not my favourite type of heroine, the stories of both Silk Spectres are sufficiently intriguing to make me want to read the Watchmen comics, which I will do, and post on this mother/daughter character again.
With acknowledgments to Wikipedia for the background information above.
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0In terms of Worm’s larger deconstructive project, I’ve always sort of pattern-matched New Wave/The Brockton Bay Brigade to The Fantastic Four. Not necessarily to the internal family dynamic itself; there’s no one-to-one there, besides the fact that they’re both crimefighting families- but to the celebrity element. An examination of what would happen, what would go wrong if you had a public-facing family of crime fighters, no secret identities.
There’s very little money in it, for one thing; Ward establishes that unlike the Fantastic Four, the Dallon-Pelhams have a hard time monetizing their situation, soliciting donations and relying on their out-of-costume careers to make ends meet. No super scientists extorting Proctor-and-Gamble here.
Panacea loosely covers the “why don’t they change the world with their superscience” bit- because it would lead to burnout, put too much descision-making power in the hands of one fallible person, and lead to someone who’s both guilty about not doing enough and resentful of how much of their time is monopolized by helping people to try and feel less guilty.
Glory Girl covers the perverse incentives you’d see if you had maskless, “publicly accountable” heroes; if your whole image is tied up in being a wholesome family that plays by the rules to earn people’s trust, you’re incentivized to go to unethical lengths to cover up your missteps, and being “publicly accountable” is kinda just code for being able to effectively swing celebrity power and institutional connections around like a cudgel.
The situation with Fleur and Lightstar is another example of the “public-facing-family” dynamic turning sour, and actually pattern-matches pretty closely to a problem the FF have dealt with at numerous points, including during Civil War when The Human Torch was attacked by a mob in his civilian identity. If you operate without secret identities, people can hunt you down when you’re out of costume and murder your uncostumed ass, and turn you into an example as to why nobody should follow your lead in unmasking. (For a long time, the FF were some of the only heroes without secret identities not because they were making a statement, but because the circumstances of their empowerment made it too hard to get away with what they were doing.)
Now, the thing is that there’s a big and obvious way in which New Wave doesn’t map to the Fantastic Four, and it’s a pretty foundational one; the Fantastic Four are scientists, explorers and adventurers. Structurally speaking, their stories hew closer to Lost in Space or Star Trek than they do to a lot of conventional cape stories. They’re specialists who you call to look at the latest weird science thing. They’re the vanguard you send through a portal to see what’s on the other side. You send them to open relations with Wakanda and Atilla and The Savage Land, and they’re the perfect people to send because of their (or at least Reeds) genuine sense wonder and love of discovery and their disdain for political intrigue in favor of collaboration and SCIENCE! The crime fighting is ancillary, something they do as it comes up or becomes immoral to ignore, but it’s not their charter.
This is something Worm doesn’t model as precisely. You get close-ish with Toybox, the extradimensional Tinker Think Tank, but there’s no group that serves the same function the FF does as a public-facing adventure-research institute staffed by parahumans. This is something that’s actually much easier to imagine forming during the Ward era, due to the thinning of dimensional walls, the increased accessability of Shardspace, and the deaths of Mannequin and Simurgh and everyone else who was making a point of wiping out would-be Reed Richards. It still wouldn’t line up perfectly, because a big part of the FF is that they were the first, the foundationals, the first spark of wonder the world had seen in years. But a “go-where-no-man-has-gone-before” team in the Ward era really would round out the archetype!
#parahumans#worm#ward#wildbow#worm meta#glory girl#victorial dallon#amy dallon#panacea#thoughts#meta#story ideas#worm web serial#fantastic four#the fantastic four#marvel
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if there’s one thing I love about the writers of Darkwing Duck 1991 and Ducktales 2017, it’s that they keep one point consistent: anyone that was ever Darkwing Duck for a long time, whether they’re just acting or an actual hero, are in danger of losing themselves and they need loved ones (Gosalyn and Launchpad in this case) in order to keep going and ground them
i’ll touch on the others briefly but let’s talk about jim starling specifically. he has almost kind of a possessive, entitled, and selfish attachment to being darkwing, and it’s clear his ego is huge. i didn’t think of it much at first, but you can clearly see that jim starling wears his costume as his civilian clothes. he’s got the turquoise turtleneck and the signature buttons on his coat. it kinda implies that being darkwing duck IS his life, which really bodes poorly for an actor like him if he can only take one 1 role for a TV show (a show that got canceled bc of poor ratings + jim himself according to francisco angones)
it doesn’t seem like he had any other roles, so he has no life outside of darkwing duck. when a darkwing doesn’t have a life outside of just doing w/e it is, they get... ‘obsessing’ (as gosalyn puts it in the ‘91 show’s Time and Punishment)
and having no life outside of darkwing means he doesn’t really have any great personal relationships. he hates superfan #1 drake from the second he found out the younger actor took his role, and he doesn’t even call superfan #2 launchpad by name; LP to him is just his sidekick
in the end, this darkwing duck became a villain. more specifically, he became negaduck
and isn’t that just familiar? it’s similar to what happened to darkwarrior duck. in some twisted future, he thought gosalyn ran away from him and so, he became depressed for awhile until he rescued a kid that looked like gosalyn. ever since then, he resolved to be tougher on crime, and to that end, he fired launchpad from being his sidekick (sweet launchpad, the man stayed at Darkwing Tower for all those years out of a sense of loyalty) and went on a tyrannical campaign. when gosalyn came back to him, darkwarrior was more concerned with making gosalyn his sidekick than actually properly raising her and making sure she has a great childhood. this contrasts heavily with how drake mallard in the 1991 show mostly tries to stop gosalyn from being involved as much as he could for her own good (to keep her safe. heck, before she accidentally hitched a ride to the future with megavolt and quackerjack, drake explicitly forbade her from coming along with him and launchpad to confront said two supervillains). i think darkwarrior doesn’t remember what a normal life is like and frankly, doesn’t care. he threw away the identity of drake mallard and with it, the need to care for gosalyn properly as his own daughter, as well as his own relationship with launchpad
in a similar case with 1991 negaduck (the second version, the one we’re all more familiar with, he came from the negaverse), we really had no indiciation that negaduck really tried to pursue a father-daughter relationship with her. heck, it was up to nega-launchpad to get her toys and flowers, and even then, there doesn’t seem to be an emotional attachment between her and nega-launchpad either. it’s not really the same becos yk, i’m inclined to believe that og negaduck was evil since the beginning. but it does point to how parenting gosalyn properly is an indication of drake’s morality
all i’m saying is that anyone that’s ever been darkwing (or alt versions of darkwing whether they go by that name or not) need gosalyn and launchpad to keep them grounded, as well as maintaing a relationship with them. even with og drake mallard in 1991, it was implied many times that he would eventually give into his ego and gloryhounding ways and lose himself to crimefighting if it weren’t gosalyn and eventually launchpad barging into his life. he was going to drive himself mad from loneliness and isolation and the need for glory and attention from a thankless city that wasn’t going to supply him with any. and with it, he was also going to put himself in even more danger without a care about his own well-being because, well, he had no one to go back to at the end of the day after crimefighting. he was well and truly alone, and he was probably going to die painfully while crimefighting alone without gosalyn and launchpad.
so yeah jim starling was lonely, he didn’t really care about anyone except his image and his ego, and he turned into a villain after a particularly bad day
edit: 2017 drake, on the other hand, at least symbolically dresses in a way in his civilian forme that doesn’t really imply he’s too far into the darkwing shtick. sure he wears a light violet shirt, but it’s not the shade of violet that darkwing is known for, and he also dons a smartwatch and sometimes a baseball cap and sunglasses hanging from his shirt. even 1991 drake looks very different from darkwing in his attempt to keep his two identities separate: a salmon shirt under a green argyle sweater vest.
#darkwing duck#drake mallard#ducktales#launchpad mcquack#drakepad#probably#gosalyn mallard#gosalyn waddlemeyer#jim starling#darkwarrior duck#negaduck#time and punishment#launchpad saved drake in '17 by believing in him and seeing what drake couldn't about himself#and drake found a purpose to life that's more than just crimefighting when he met gosalyn and resolved to help her find her grandfather#but if launchpad wasn't there to talk sense to him gosalyn would have been hurt or worse when she went back to bulbas lab alone#so in other words THESE 3 NEED EACH OTHER#also pointing out that drake went into another depressive slump in the comics becos he had a divorce arc with launchpad and kicked him out#long post#text#also didn't escape my notice that drake couldn't 1v4 the fearsome four but when launchpad was with him#suddenly they won a 2v4
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Batman: The Animated Series - Paper Cut-Out Portraits and Profiles
Elseworlds Edition
Batwoman / Kate Kane
Katherine ‘Kate’ Kane is Bruce Wayne’s cousin on his mother’s side. She had been a highly-decorated soldier in the United States Army yet was drummed out of service due to her being a lesbian and refusing to comply with the armed force’s insulting ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ policy.
Kane felt directionless once discharged from the army. One evening she was attacked by a would-be mugger. Kate fought off the mugger with little difficulty and Batman arrived not realizing that she did not require his assistance. Kate was taken by the strength and intimidation Batman was able to wield with his costume and legacy.
She decided to emulate Batman and made a costume for herself, equipped with high-tech gadgets and weapons similar to those used by The Dark Knight. She became The Batwoman.
A fierce combatant and skilled tactician, The Batwoman proved a highly effective crimefighter. Batman did not even attempt to dissuade her from her vigilantism. It was entirely clear that she could more than take care of herself and would prove a invaluable alley in the battle against crime and injustice in Gotham City.
Although an entirely new character, Kate was inspired by the Kathy Kane Batwoman from the Silver Age of Batman comics. This newer Batwoman did not appear in the original DCAU, although the character of Katherine Duquesne from the animated feature, Batman: Mystery of The Batwoman, was something of a homage to both the Silver and Modern Age versions of Katherine Kane.
The Kate Kane version of Batwoman first appeared in the pages of 52 #7 (2006).
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If you could switch powers with anyone
Who's would you switch with
I’d rather use “steal” or, even better (my morals would never allow me to steal anything), “borrow” powers from anyone than “switch” powers with anyone. Because after all I’m just a young woman with no powers behind the mask and the costume.
Having said that, I’m friends with Supergirl and Zatanna and they know I admire them so much and wish I could have their powers even for just 24 hours. Crimefighting would be easier then.
Thanks for asking me, Anon!
#Batgirl#ask Batgirl#thanks for asking!#women fighting crime#superpowers#superheroines#Supergirl#Zatanna#Gotham#Metropolis
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