(no subject)

[scottyquick]

Is-is it over?

Written by ANDREW KREISBERG; Art by MIKE NORTON and BILL SIENKIEWICZ; Cover by LADRÖNN

It's "Five Stages" part 5 and this issue requires a full-length adventure to do it justice! Prepare for the final showdown between Green Arrow and Black Canary vs. Cupid and Dark Arrow for control of Star City.
FINAL!

Comments

[mystery]

I can too.

Agreed on Bruce's record, both pre- and post-crisis. He's one of the best fathers in the DCU.

[scottyquick]

I had a huge list of Batdickery typed out, but let me just put it this way - risking the lives of your children in the name of your cause isn't good parenting.

[mystery]

Superheroing's not common in real life, but I don't think the superhero comic concept of kid superheroes is going to go away anytime soon.

[scottyquick]

Well, yes, but that doesn't make it any less reckless and silly of him.

[mystery]

But that's not Bruce-centric. It's a trope. Ollie and Babs and others are guilty too.

Also, we wouldn't have Robins without it.

[scottyquick]

I would not use Ollie Queen as an example of good parenting. And Babs? Cass could outfight and outdefend anything out there, and she couldn't have stopped her if she wanted Cass not to. Besides, Cass being Batgirl was healthy for her, it gave her a chance to try and redeem herself. Charlie can heal herself. Steph would do it with or without Babs, and Babs would never abandon someone like that.

[mystery]

Just using as examples of 'the adult superhero training the young heroes'.

Babs did abandon, though. Not sure why they wrote her as doing so, but she did.

[sistermagpie]

Wait, this is getting weird. I thought this all started with Bruce being compared specifically to Ollie and so other superhero dads of superhero sidekick kids. If we reject them on those terms they all get rejected (and probably most of the universe along with it). So Bruce also trains his sons (by their consent) to be Robins and then become superheroes. Ollie is just as irresponsible in those terms--and so is Babs, who has been known for abandoning people--it's been the one major complaint of the Batgirl title. Not that it would be abandonment for Babs to not devote herself to Steph's fantasy career.

[scottyquick]

Yes, because eight year olds can totally consent to deciding to throw their unarmored bodies in front of serial killers and murderers. And Ollie is just as irresponsible. But an incharacter Babs shouldn't be. Cass came prepackaged as a superhero, someone who needed that to live. Misfit can heal from bullet wounds and teleport herself away whenever there's any trouble. Steph would do so even if Babs wouldn't let her.

[sistermagpie]

So you're applying real-world rules to reject a foundational principle of superhero families, except with Babs, because she's running after a teenager who isn't listening to her anyway. However, Babs isn't Steph's parent. She was something like Misfit's parent, but then she passed her off to someone else, which is where the abandonment came in. So you really can't say she wouldn't abandon anyone--it was the parenting aspect that editorial had her lose interest in. I can accept the level of questioning of this idea that canon brings up itself--like with Jason's death--but it doesn't really seem like discussing the different superhero families to focus on that issues. It's like I might as well say none of this stuff would really work.

[scottyquick]

Babs is Steph's mentor. If Babs stopped mentoring Steph, Steph could keep going on doing what she's doing, just with a hundred times the danger.

Babs abandoning Msifit is exactly what I mean when I'm saying "horribly OOC Babs". An in character Babs would never do that.

[sistermagpie]

Babs abandoning Msifit is exactly what I mean when I'm saying "horribly OOC Babs". An in character Babs would never do that.

It's you can see why it would be odd to hear an argument of "Steph would never abandon anyone like that!" when the fact that she's doing it right now is a current discussion. I'm not yet sure how we're supposed to take the Misfit thing until she shows up again. (Maybe it'll be something that is supposed to fade away as if she never existed, for instance.)

But the main point, for me, is still that if somebody's talking about the Wayne family and Bruce's relationship with is sons, "he teaches them how to fight and solve crimes, dresses them in brightly colored clothing and then takes them out to fight people who have weapons" is more like the joke you get out of the way at the start of the conversation, imo, than an actual discussion of how the fictional family operates. They're a family and a sort of Knight Order. I accept that as the premise. I can see why it worked as a wish-fulfillment fantasy where it wasn't a bad situation, it was an awesome situation for an orphan to wind up in.