J’s narration in this is so brilliant. The way he defines so much in terms of his friends partly because he doesn’t remember but also because he cares so much for other people that their views are important to him. He feels really embedded in Gotham already, he has the history of the Red Hood from his friends, he knows and is part of the city. That really contrasts with Owlman’s rule on high thing, where he wants to own Gotham but isn’t truly living in the city. Also, just the voice has such a strong sense of character and it’s different from his voice as full-time Jokester, I don’t know if I can articulate how, but it feels right.
‘(Psychotic, too, but Jack had been informed by people he counted friends that so was he, so he maybe couldn't point fingers there.)’ Thank you so much for not equating mental illness and automatic evil. This is what I love about this version of Earth-3, you keep the full diversity and relative positions of power of the villains and heroes. There’s so many more people who aren’t white and able-bodied and rich on the villainous side and it’s fantastic to see them as heroes.
root causes are really hard to punch in the face :))))
Thank you! Yay, that is all the things I was trying for. J is so intensely people-focused, and on the one hand yeah his relationship to Gotham is no less intense than Bruce's but much less conceptual, and on the other we get to see here how it's founded partly on his intense early need for an identity.
<3 And I'm so glad to hear there's a strong distinction between how he thinks now as a baby vigilante amnesiac, versus how he is after several more years bringing a lot of trauma, and the disfigurement that cuts into his sense of himself as a normal person, and rebuilding his identity increasingly around his role as someone who fights, and then later how he thinks as all that but plus family. Because I'm certainly shooting for that, but I'm not surprised it's hard to define, because it's just a mindset thing pretty much. A sense of context and focus.
That's something that bugs me with Batman, definitely. Like, I understand why they can't be very realistic with mental illness (read: that would be a lot of work and result in more boring comics and these people are writing on a strict and pitiless schedule) but they could stand to stigmatize it less consistently? Even when they're building up Bruce as mentally ill in some way and linking it to his strengths as Batman, it's always with this really dark tortured slant. And..idk. It's Too Much.
It's not like the Joker is ever depicted with anything you could call symptoms; I've never seen him written in such a way you could plausibly get him declared legally insane; he knows exactly what he's doing and why it's terrible.
But yeah, the Gotham Rogues are pretty damn white as a group and run to the highly educated--several doctors and a lawyer--but they're mostly marginalized in one way or another, and it was *super* important to me to retain that power imbalance between them and Batman, here. Changing it feels so disingenuous. Mind you, it's pretty grim this way, because having power and ruthlessness on one side is a little unbalanced, but he still doesn't have all the advantages.
XD They are! Come, did I not break costumed vigilantism down to its bare essentials?
Well, yh, you've definitely gotten those across. :) (I keep saying it, but I love that J has *friends*, so many shows/books/films cannot seem to grasp having fully fleshed, people in their own right friends with whom characters are in loving friendships.)
Yh, I mean the distinction comes from what you say, with J's identity changing, and you've expressed what the change is exactly. But in story, it's not going to be perfectly obvious what the difference is exactly but rather that there is a difference and the area of it, because identity isn't clearcut, and J doesn't dissect his psyche, because he's working off of it. (if that makes sense?)
these people are writing on a strict and pitiless schedule <- oh yh, definitely not blaming them, and it's tricky, but you including stuff like that is :))) thank you
dark and tortured mentally ill Bruce is just arggghhh! like you say, Too Much
he knows exactly what he's doing and why it's terrible. <- yh that's why he's so awful
Oh yh, there is very little racial diversity (i was thinking there was more in villains than heroes - but actually i guess with Dick and Duke and Cass and Damian, maybe not, yay). And yeah, like you're saying, reversing or at least minimising the power dynamics with canon Owlman is disingenuous at best and ties in terribly with the Batman, old money rich man beating up poorer criminals.
pretty grim this way <- i mean it is, but that's why what J says is important - you have to laugh at it all, mock the unfairness, refuse to take them seriously
having power and ruthlessness on one side is a little unbalanced (I hate that I feel like saying isn't this true to life to some extent?)
he still doesn't have *all* the advantages <- i count: egoism, avoiding weakness, treating people as tools and thus not having loyalty only fear, and self-defeating nature of trying to have all control
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H (Guest) on Chapter 2 Thu 21 Feb 2019 10:26AM UTC
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Kieron_ODuibhir on Chapter 2 Wed 13 Mar 2019 05:16PM UTC
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H (Guest) on Chapter 2 Wed 01 May 2019 09:26PM UTC
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