Oracle: [over the comms] the teams are all in position. Things are quiet so far.
Batman: Hm. Ok, thank you Oracle. I’ll check in on them. [switches over to Nightwing and Robin’s frequency]
-
Nightwing: -nd I’ve already bought it! You need to socialise more; this is an important part of your childhood.
Robin: No.
Nightwing: It’s so cute, though. You’ll look adorable!
Robin: [with feeling] No.
Nightwing: [huffs] At least try it on; I already paid for it.
Robin: I am NOT going trick-or-treating.
Batman: …[switches over to Orphan and Batgirl’s comms]
-
Batgirl: -so then I said “you put that hand anywhere near me again I’ll break it off” and he-
Orphan: B is listening now.
Batgirl: oh, hey B. Anyway then we had sex and he had this-
Batman: [cuts off the feed before he becomes even more traumatised] …
Batman: …ok. [tunes into Red Robin and Red Hood’s frequency]
-
Red Hood: [in a fake posh voice] the handyman?!!! How could you DO this to me Dolores?!
Red Robin: [in a high-pitched voice] How could I?!! How could I NOT?? You married your office long before I ever fucked Juan-Eduardo!
Red Hood: Don’t you DARE put this on me! I knew I shouldn’t have hired that ridiculously good looking sonofabitch!
Red Robin: Hah! Well that wouldn’t have stopped me from sleeping with CHAD!
Red Hood: NO!
Red Robin: [Triumphantly] OH YES
Red Hood: NO! MY BEST FRIEND?? WILL THE LIES NEVER END DOLORES??
Red Robin: YES! And let me tell you- he was SO MUCH better than you. He-
Red Hood: YOU’RE TEARING ME APART DOLORES
Red Robin: [breaking character] nice one
Red Hood: thank you
Batman: [over the comms] what are you DOING?
Red Robin: Hi B. There’s a couple in the building across from us who’re having a huge fight. We’re giving them voices.
Red Hood: [in his fake voice] Look at all these papers! These papers that I’m waving around! Look at them!!
Red Robin: [as “Dolores”] Well if you love your papers so much why don’t you MARRY THEM?
Red Hood: MAYBE I WILL
Red Robin: I HATE YOU! I have always hated you! and what’s more- I HATE your MOTHER.
Red Hood: [gasps] MY MOTHER IS A SAINT AND A GIFT TO MANKIND
Red Robin: YOUR MOTHER IS A DECREPIT OLD WHORE
Red Hood: I WILL- DON’T YOU WALK AWAY FROM ME DOLORES
Red Robin: [hisses] Whenever the Mets play, I wish they would lose.
Red Hood: [gasps] YOU BETRAY ME LIKE THIS?? ME -the man who obviously bought every piece of Mets Merch known to man and display them in every room of our apartment like a tool?! HOW COULD YOU??!
Red Robin: Well what are you gonna do about it? HUH?
Red Hood: WHAT AM I GONNA DO? I’LL TELL YOU WHAT I’LL DO! I’M GONNA TAKE THIS GUN- [breaks character] Ohmygod he’s got a gun! Shit fuck moving out
This morning I’m thinking about manpain. Specifically, superhero angst.
Specifically Batman. And Captain America.
As a digression, I feel like what distinguishes “manpain” from just regular pain is not so much the man but the shooting directions. Like, you know it’s manpain when the camera goes into tight closeup on their clenched jaw, or when they are shot backlit in an alley with smoke swirling around their feet. Or with a big fire blazing behind them. Or if they are trudging through a crowded cityscape that’s all black and white and they are the only ones in color.
Case in point: this is Batman. His parents are dead. It’s very sad. He has a lot of manpain.
Because of all his pain, Batman is not fully able to trust anyone. He pushes everyone away. Sometimes he lashes out against those closest to him.
This is Batman at Christmas time.
Batman is not ever going to go to therapy and deal with his trust issues, or talk about whether he might have something like depression and whether it might respond to medication, even though he could definitely afford it because he is a billionaire. He’s not going to do these things because of editorial decree.
“They put on a cape and cowl for a reason,” says DC co-publisher Dan Didio. “They’re committed to defending others — at the sacrifice of all their own personal instincts. That’s something we reinforce. If you look at every one of the characters in the Batman family, their personal lives kind of suck.”
Okay. This is Captain America. His parents are dead too. Actually, almost everybody he ever knew is dead, because he got frozen for seventy years.
(By the way if you do a Google image search for “Captain America Punching Bag,” Google will show you some stuff and will also, right at the top, helpfully prompt you with a couple other search terms that you’re probably interested in: “Chris Evans” and “Butt.”)
(A++ Google, carry on.)
Anyway, so Captain America has a lot of manpain too.
Because he’s grieving and lonely, Captain America works hard at forming connections with the new people he meets. He doesn’t understand their frame of cultural reference, so he diligently follows up whenever somebody gives him a book or movie or other kind of recommendation.
He visits a support group for veterans.
He also checks in with his teammates regularly, and makes sure they know that he cares about them. He listens to their problems and offers his support.
So my point here is pretty simple. I think the Captain America characterization is a lot more interesting and complex. It just gets boring to have a character like Batman who is always going to have the same shit because he’s never gonna deal with his shit because he’s not allowed to deal with his shit. By contrast, Steve Rogers is warm and human and adult and fucken’ heroic. He’s got shit too but he mans up and carries it the best he can.
Both Batman and Captain America are actually team leaders, but Batman isn’t allowed to be a very good one because he also has to be a brooding loner who hangs out on top of gargoyles most of the time. Preferably in the rain.
Captain America gets rained on, too. The difference, I think, is that at some point he would go out and buy an umbrella.
Captain America gets rained on, too. The difference, I think, is that at some point he would go out and buy an umbrella.
for some reason. i am. Endlessly amused by the concept of superheroes getting fast food. so in between art fight attacks i’ve been making unfunny comics about batman and co going to mcdonalds or something. then i got bullied into posting them by my very mean baby sibling @rockmilkshake i hope you’re happy
[Batfam member finds out Tim Drake figured out Bruce Wayne was Batman because Dick Grayson Robin did a quadruple somersault]
Batfam: lol Dick only did that because he is so extra
Me [vibrating]: trapeze artists tried unsuccessfully to nail the quadruple for 70 years because the flyer picks up enough velocity on the spins that they reach 80 miles an hour and hit with so much force it can dislocate the shoulders of the person trying to catch him and rip the skin off their hands in big flaps
the flyer would hit so hard the people attempting it would box and slap their hands against wooden blocks to toughen their skin and hitting a quadruple in the air magnified the power behind tiny nine-year-old Dick’s strikes to the point where it could have probably stunned a metahuman and this was probably a large reason behind his ability to be a crimefighter at an earlier age than any other person in the DC universe and in this essay I will
How dare you leave the emoji somersaults of doom in the tags
Literally everything about Batman is so much better when you think about all the little behind the scenes things that must have happened to make Bruce such a goddamn dad
Like yeah he’s really bad with change and his communication abilities are really lacking due to being extremely heavily isolated and traumatized for the majority of his formative years, but like
I am at least 99% convinced that all the bat-named things like the batmobile, batcomputer, batfridge, etc., were originally normal phrases like ‘the car,’ ‘the computer,’ etc., but then Robin showed up he started calling them bat-things because he was nine, and Batman went along with it.
It’s too late to turn back now. Too late to make excuses to anyone. He’s committed. Nightwing doesn’t say anything. The other Robins have no idea. No one has any idea.
Everyone thinks Batman is legitimately obsessed with bats.
No, he just wanted his cave to be child-friendly, and when it turned out Robin #1 really liked the bat idea and thought it was cool enough that it should be incorporated into everything, Batman fucking incorporated it into everything. He just wanted to make the kid happy, damnit
