I Think, After No Man's Land Was Over, Babs Was Probably The One To Go With Cass To Get A Full Doctor's

Incorrect DC quotes part 24: Batfam dynamics

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4 year old nephew leaned over to look at my phone screen, pointed at Cass Cain, and said "that's Batban"

Okay I’ve been thinking about the Parallax retcon again cause god do I hate it. I’ve done some meta on it but I’m gonna focus on what it did to Hal. Earlier to day I said there wasn’t much build up to Parallax but that’s not exactly true because I wasn’t considering the frame work of Hal’s headspace.

So back after Crisis, Hal Jordan wasn’t doing so hot. His best friend had died. Carol was possessed by the Star Sapphire and committing all sorts of crimes to fuck with Hal. John and Guy weren’t that close with Hal back in the 90s. John and Hal fought over a ton of shit Carol did while possessed.

Hal was pretty isolated at this point. He tries to go to people he thought were his friends and they all wave him off or openly tell him to get over himself. Some of them were down right malicious about it. Hal wasn’t in a good place.

Then Coast City is destroyed. And Hal wants to try to fix it. He tries with the rings and the Guardians tell him no. Hal is so completely isolated at this point no one even notices that he is running to take a swan dive off the cliff of sanity.

Hal goes to Oa. He steals the rings of the other Lanterns and leaves them in Space to die. He kills Sinestro. He kills Kilowog. Then Hal steps into the Power Battery. He kills every single one of the Guardians minus Ganthet here.

And his plan? Reset the universe. Hal wants to put everything back to his it was before Crisis. When Coast City wasn’t rubble. When Barry Allen was alive.

Now the heroes step in. They look at this man who they turned away, who they ignored in his grief, in the aftermath of the destruction of his city, and they call him a villain. Then they act surprised he doesn’t wanna hear what they have to say? That he maybe doesn’t care about their opinions on him because they certainly couldn’t be bothered with him before this.

In the end Ollie shoots him in the chest. And Ollie thinks he killed Hal but he didn’t. Hal and Kyle just ended up on Oa.

And the heroes wipe their hands clean. They were then absolved of any guilt around Hal because he was clearly a bad guy. They couldn’t have stopped him. But that’s not true. Anyone at all offering a hand out might have stopped him.

By the time Hal attacks Kyle in New York he’s desperate. He has no other plan than try Zero Hour again. He wants the Green Lantern ring. He wants to be a Green Lantern. That’s all Hal. Hal is there and he’s been practically screaming for help for years.

And Kyle oh hopelessly naive Kyle is the first one to tell Hal what he’s doing isn’t heroic. Everyone else declared Hal himself a villain.

Kyle was the one who saw the hero in Hal. Kyle went to the Source Wall to ask for Hal’s help in restarting the sun.

And only once Hal had died did the others look at him like a hero again. And with a bittersweet taste nonetheless.

Kyle set up Hal’s funeral. He made the memorial. He wanted everyone to know that Hal was a hero truly and fully.

But they turned their backs to Hal. They decided he wasn’t worth their time. What good are they to decide who’s a sinner and who’s a saint to paraphrase Hal himself.

And then the retcon. That it wasn’t Hal at all. It was Parallax.

That is their wipe away for everything that happened to Hal. It cloaks his depression, his anger, his loneliness in some supernatural fear bug and we can all just move on.

It means when Hal tells Barry about it that Barry waves it off as not Hal. As if nothing Hal was feeling then matters. As if Hal didn’t exist at all. Just Parallax.

This means the other heroes don’t have to feel bad at all, as if they would, for abandoning Hal because his emotions were being influenced. Nothing at all could have been done.

Except then they fucked up again when Kyle was possessed by Parallax. Hal held out a hand and he helped Kyle break free. Which means yes they could have helped Hal. But they chose not to.

The Parallax retcon is a massive cop out so the writers didn’t have to address a characters actual mental state. Because it’s easier to draw a smile I suppose.

But even with the retcon it shows how the others dropped the ball. Hal wasn’t suffering in silence and they “couldn’t have known” he was asking for help. He needed help. And they turned him away.

TL;DR: Hal Jordan needs some better friends

This was inspired by @pulsar-1919 thank you for that reply about The List. I forgot how much of a dick everyone was to Hal. I knew about Bruce in the robe being a jackass but that’s par for the course for Bruce tbh.

Can you imagine someone realizes Batman is more aggressive with Cassandra Wayne’s kidnappers so to cover it they say Batman wanted to adopt Cassandra but Bruce Wayne did it before he could.

Together.

Batgirl (2000) #67 // Batgirl (2000) #27 // Batgirl (2000) #18 // Batman and Robin: Eternal #3 // Truth & Justice #16 // Batman & The Outsiders (2019) #9 // Batgirl (2000) #29 // Batgirl (2000) #60 // Batgirl (2008) #6 // Batgirl (2000) #59 + Batgirl (2024) #3

"I was born a wound"

This line holds such a wealth of meaning. Because it is both - Cass was born to be hurt. Born to be abused and mishandled and made into something that would tear herself open, tear others open. Cain didn't know it, maybe Shiva didn't know it, but they made a child to give her pain.

And. Cain stole something from Shiva, took from her in a singular moment of weakness, and that memory cannot help but haunt her still. Cass is the moment, given legs and arms and a soul, Cass is that pain walking upright, haunting her all over again. The moment Cass was born, Sandra could never be hurt again, not truly, until all these years later where she has one wound she can never guard. Cassandra the thief, the assassin, the murderer, to take first from her mother before she'd take anything else at all.

Cassandra the innocent. Because she would not be a wound if she could not bleed.

There's a serious comparison to be made between how Barbara fails as a teacher for Cass and how Cass fails as a teacher for Stephanie. Barbara's brain is biological supercomputer with an eidetic memory which can learn a new language in like five minutes. Cassandra is likewise superhumanly talented at fighting.

In both cases these aren't just learned skills to them. Cassandra's fists and Barbara's mind are core to their identities. They're the things that make them heroes, that give them agency, that make them matter, it's who they are. The reason they have no patience for teaching these skills to others is they're incapable of contextualizing a world without them.

Barbara can't teach Cass because the prospect of a life without language is simply inconceivable to her. Likewise, Cassandra can't teach Stephanie because she has no context at all for what learning to fight must be like for other people without her natural affinity. Their respective talents are so core to their being that people who can't do what comes easily to them must simply not be trying hard enough.

Ironically it's one of the very few ways in which they're actually extremely alike.

What I think would happen if the batfam gets shipwrecked to an abandoned island.

Alfred; is enjoying his vacation.

Bruce; doesn’t know what to do because he hasn’t gone a single day of his life without someone helping him and can’t cook edible food.

Dick; dies from lack of physical affection.

Jason; can’t figure out how to hunt without guns

Tim; dies without coffee or wifi.

Damian; is worried about the animals and dies from starvation because he refuses to kill.

Duke; is okay ish, like he survives but not easily.

Barbra (not paralyzed cause she wouldn’t survive paralyzed in my opinion); is having a little fun with making traps.

Steph; is having the time of her life without her stupid classes and teachers.

Cass; was literally trained for this and is happy she finally has some alone time even if she misses her family.

Meanwhile Oliver is just watching this all and sighing because how did he survive but some of them didn’t?

Lethal Bat Trinity 🦇⚔️

Epic AU

Odysseus: How many suitors are there? Servant: 128. Though, twenty of them formed a guard, after Antinous turned out to be a dick. Odysseus: *Thinking* Servant: Ten are away with the prince, the other ten are keeping guard over Penelope. Odysseus: Why? Servant: They're being bodyguards Odysseus: No, why did they come if they're not seeking the Queen's hand? Servant: Oh, they're trying to convince the Prince to marry their daughters. *Meanwhile* Guard #1: *Watching Telemachus with one of his friends* I'm starting to think the Prince might be swinging the other way. Guard #2: That's alright, I've got a son.