Tim's first visit to Hong Kong - pt. 4

[whitesycamore]

In part 4 of 4, Tim Clyde and Shiva infiltrate Dorrance's tower and do battle with the King Snake himself.

(parts 1, 2, and 3 here)




I can't disagree with Clyde; Shiva is getting off on this way too much. Part of what I like about this mini is the sense that Tim is still very much a child, although he's wiser than the adults he's hanging out with. He's caught up in the emotional dramas of Clyde and Shiva and doesn't yet have the independence he'd become known for.




Dorrance certainly owns some weird statuary. Is that a sculpture of a boy in panties and pixie boots in the background there?! He's being caressed by a winged man too; if this is symbolic, I'm not quite sure what it's referencing. Dick and his "flying Grayson" father, perhaps? Jason and the angel of death? And I'm not even going to touch on the horned (bat-eared?) dude in the foreground with the weirdly rectangular bulge.


Meanwhile Tim makes sure that the plague weapon is safe for the time being, then follows to see if Clyde is ok.



I did mention before that Dorrance is blind, right?





I wish I could have posted the entire fight scene, but... here's the denouement anyway.



I'm sure you can guess what Tim's answer to Shiva was.
Surprisingly he makes no effort to save Dorrance here. He merely comments that fifty floors is a long way to fall, before heading down to the basement to dismantle the bio-weapon.


Now that the plague threat has been averted Tim still has a few more loose ends to tie up in Gotham. He goes to the docks to intercept a shipment of Dorrance's drug-money.



So that was Lynx's punishment. Pretty grim. (I have no idea why Tim is making the 'gun' gesture with his finger here. Any suggestions?)





That's a novel interpretation of Batman's motives, but not one I'd fully agree with. Bruce has always been so focused on results that I see it more as him wanting to save himself through saving the world. The fact that he DOES make a difference is absolutely vital to him.

Comments

[jarodrussell]

I like to Bruce does what he does for himself in the same way a person with OCD might pick up a bunch of ball berrings that fall on the floor. Picking up the ball berrings helps everyone out, but they do it for their own peace of mind. Bruce stops criminals and saves the world, which has the side-effect of helping a lot of people, but he does it for his own sake, trying to fix what was broken when his parents diied.

[whitesycamore]

It's not really a side-effect though, is it? Being Batman helps to fix Bruce precisely because it helps lots of other people. I don't think the ball bearing analogy is very apt.

[jarodrussell]

But you can help people without caring you help people. If a millionaire donates a bunch of money to a charity and all he cares about is the tax write-off, does that denote goodwill or is goodwill a side-effect? That's not to say I think Bruce does this for the rush, I do think he wants to help people (more so than I guess my first analogy suggested).

I think that being Batman, fighting crime as Batman, training to be Batman, etc. is what Bruce does for himself. As cool as Batman is (and I do think he's cool), imagine how much more effective a personal army of ex special forces guys would be than one, lone Batman (or one Batman with a half dozen partner/sidekicks). Bruce could easily afford to farm out the Batman grunt work to hand-picked mercenaries, but instead he dons the costume and goes out.

The thing that, I think, makes a difference to Bruce is getting out there and fighting crime with his own hands, knowing and physically feeling that he's changed things. Emotionally I don't think Bruce has the capacity to grasp an abstract concept, like someone saying, "Crime is down 15% because of your army's work," the same way my hypothetical person with OCD won't be satisfied with someone saying, "We'll get someone to clean those up right away." In both cases, they have to be there, seeing and doing the cleaning before they feel better about it.

That's my opinion, and it's probably an outmoded opinion given the (hopefully) new status quo with Batman, Inc. Time will tell, I guess.

Also, thank you for posting these! I'm just getting back into being a Tim Drake (Tim Wayne?) geek, and seeing these origins really, really make me smile. Thank you!

[sistermagpie]

I think I see what you mean. I get impatient when people list things that Bruce should be doing differently--like instead of being Batman he should run for senate or just donate a lot of money to X charity or organization (as if Bruce doesn't already do those things too).

And that annoys me because I think Bruce has just found a balance between what he needs to do for himself and being sure that thing helps other people. He's not in any danger of creating crime to give himself something to do, but he's also doing exactly what he wants to do and that makes him enjoy it more so he's always invested in it. Either way it's better than what most people do. (And he even has put together at least a small team of special ops guys with his family...)

[whitesycamore]

The thing that, I think, makes a difference to Bruce is getting out there and fighting crime with his own hands, knowing and physically feeling that he's changed things. Emotionally I don't think Bruce has the capacity to grasp an abstract concept, like someone saying, "Crime is down 15% because of your army's work," the same way my hypothetical person with OCD won't be satisfied with someone saying, "We'll get someone to clean those up right away." In both cases, they have to be there, seeing and doing the cleaning before they feel better about it.

Ok, yeah, I definitely get that. Batman isn't the most efficent method for him to fight crime, but it's the most satisfying and cathartic for Bruce. I was a bit thrown at first because I thought you were suggesting that Bruce isn't particularly bothered about helping people.

Also, thank you for posting these! I'm just getting back into being a Tim Drake (Tim Wayne?) geek, and seeing these origins really, really make me smile. Thank you!

I'm glad you're enjoying these scans! I only picked this mini up a couple of weeks ago, but as soon as I started reading it I knew it had to be posted. I love it when comics are just fun.

[omgwtflolbbqbye]

Well Mark Waid sort of explored that in an JLA story, suggesting that Bruce needed to become Batman to give an outlet for, and the discipline to handle all his rage and grief.

[zechs80]

Well this Lynx just goes to show you crime just doesn't pay because if you're not careful, someone will poke your eye out.

[whitesycamore]

Crime is all fun and games until...

[myniamh]

Batman's little grin in the last panel is giving me the creeps.

[starwolf_oakley]

The last captions remind me of NIGHTWING #99, which I once posted. (Paraphrased)

DICK: Jason didn't know what the hell he was doing or why, Tim spends most of the time wondering if it's worth doing, and Stephanie... Stephanie went up against odds so long even I would have to say it couldn't be done.

[icon_uk]

Dick said that? About Tim? Ick! Tim might spend time wondering whether he was worthy of the challenge, but the challenge was always worth fighting for him.

[whitesycamore]

Well, Dick by name...

[icon_uk]

Any other character I might agree with you, but not Dick Grayson.

[whitesycamore]

How likely is it than anyone in the world seriously thinks Dick is a dick?! (Other than the guy who wrote Nightwing #99, apparently.)

[icon_uk]

Gal, not guy... Devin Grayson, and whilst I have many, many issues with her output as a writer, I don't think she's ever viewed Dick as being a dick, and essentially that line doesn't even come off as dickish to me... woefully misjudged, but not dickish.

[whitesycamore]

She wrote that line with love for Dick?

I don't know much about Grayson, but I know that I often find Dick unappealing, verging on unlikeable when she writes him.

[icon_uk]

The line is Dick talking about Tim's perception of the Batclans mission, and whilst I think it's incorrect, it doesn't come across as dickish. He's not being mean about Tim, or thoughtlessly cruel, or even snide.

[whitesycamore]

It's startling when writers attribute such unpleasant opinions to Dick of all people. Not to mention that if Jason really was a glaringly unsuitable Robin right from the start, that just makes Bruce seem even more irresponsible (and possibly perverted).

[starwolf_oakley]

A link to the page.

http://pics.livejournal.com/starwolf_oakley/pic/004ep9sk

[icon_uk]

I remember noticing the apparent Robin statue in the first part (pixie boots and elbow gloves) and wondered if that would be a feature later, with Tim taking it's place or the like, but yes that is some very odd statuary, I guess he told his decorator he was a psychotic crimelord who would murder anyone on a whim, and the decorator just went from there, possibly from IKEA's "Evil lair" look.

The last panel is a little disappointing, a happy Batman and a scowling Robin might work with Dick and Damian, but not really with Bruce and Tim. Tim is not exactly a happy-go-lucky Robin, but just looks SO grim there.

[xammax]

I really hate it when writers don't even back up their own claims.

Most Dangerous man alive is taken out by Tim Drake before... well alot of things. I mean people can say Shiva helped him and so did the other guy but in a one on one fight he loses, due to Tim being clever not in a hand to hand way. Here is the thing though; later that same issue you show the other guy who has had the title and who you at least buy it from. Hyperbole doesn't sell me on characters it just makes me hate them.

Like Ragdolls sister in the Secret Six; no way in hell people in Arkham quake in fear from her.

[psychopathicus_rex]

I think the idea is that he's the most dangerous man alive in a fight - that doesn't necessarily make him the most dangerous when it comes to things like strategy. If you can outmaneuver him, you can beat him.

[randyripoff]

I was at a Q & A with Dixon a few years back when he stated that he viewed King Snake as Tim's arch-nemesis. If that was his stated opinion, I can understand him building up Dorrance in a big way.

But you're right: I think that most of the DCU's premier martial artists probably think of King Snake as a bit of a joke, or at the best some guy who's decent, but really not top of the line.

[icon_uk]

Sadly for Dixon's POV, IIRC the next time that Dorrance showed up he was in Robin-obsessive mode, but by the end of that story Tim was more or less sidelined by Dorrance fighting Batman,

[shadur]

"Oh, I was beautiful once..."

I'm sorry, am I supposed to sympathize with a smug snake villainess who's been playing pet thug and hired killer for a genocidal maniac? Cry me a frickin' river, lady. Maybe you'll find a cellmate who'll still think you're pretty.

[whitesycamore]

I'm sorry, am I supposed to sympathize with a smug snake villainess who's been playing pet thug and hired killer for a genocidal maniac?

No, I suspect you're probably supposed to feel schadenfreude. I feel bad for her though.

Maybe you'll find a cellmate who'll still think you're pretty.

Classy.

[shadur]

Well, she shanked several people in the back to claw her way to the top of that gang, took the time to gloatingly mock Robin for his earlier white knight impulsive attempt to 'save' her, and cooperated willingly with someone she knew was planning to unleash a bioweapon on a very dense population center just because he didn't like who was going to be in charge of it.

So no, I can't say I feel bad for what happened to her at all.