Teen Titans #89 preview, now with more Damian

[sherkahn]

DCUBlog has the preview for the Teen Titans as they have to deal with a pain in the ass.

Two behind the cut.





"CHICK" FIGHT!

The artist does impress. Damian does have his father's scowl down.

Comments

[benicio127]

Here's what I wish: that Dick would get off his fucking ass and sit this kid down and say, "Hey, yeah so insulting women? Not so cool. Making comments about women being tramps or commenting on women's breasts is not cool. Stop it and start respecting women."

Why the fuck has this not happened yet? I put a lot more responsibility on his mentor than on a 10-year-old kid. Who's the adult here? I mean I get that Dick is trying to do good things with this kid, but seriously not impressed with his mentoring/parenting skills when it comes to Damian. (And yet, look at all the others he's mentored and helped. And this is a guy whose best friend is an Amazon woman. And has a great respect for other strong women. Not. Cool.)

[star_of_airdrie]

That is a good point, not cool at all. With Bruce 'gone' all this time, something should have been said or done even with Alfred as back up to that 10-year-old. He needs to respect adults at least a little, no matter if you can kill them, but yes he has to respect women.

Have Kory come back for a long weekend and teach him a thing or two - although she is avoiding Earth and Dick - but you are right, she's closer and around more (but odd these days IMHO) get Donna to talk to him.

[fifthie]

Why the fuck has this not happened yet?

Because of Damien's magical Mary-Sue field.

I'm not about to start blaming Dick for Grant Morrison's crush on his own terrible character.

[alienist]

And the books Damian appears in that Morrison isn't writing?

[kagome654]

Which seem to be the books in which Damian interacts negatively with women the most. The only women I can remember Damian interacting with under Morrison's pen are Talia and Scarlet, both of whom he seemed to treat with something approaching a basic level of respect, or at least concern.

[benicio127]

Yes, but it's not just Grant who writes this character or this duo together. Gutter tramp comment about Selina? Written by Paul Dini. Dick just smiled. Comments about Steph's boobs? Written by Bryan Q. Miller and Fabian Nicieza. Dick said nothing. One time he wasn't even there, but the second time he was.

And the writers are ultimately to blame, but character-wise, why hasn't Dick said anything? He of all people I would *expect* to say, "No. Not Cool."

[sherkahn]

Because Dick knows better.

Damien responds better to action than verbal reprimands. Part of it is his mother's side of the family's arrogance, part of it is his upbringing, and mostly 10 year old attitude alpha males who NEED to establish themselves high in the social ranking. A 10 year old who was sent specifically TO Bruce to learn how to be humble.

Dick's trying to show Damien how to a better human being and still have the respect of his peers in the meta human community through action, not through verbal reprimand. The kind of respect Mr. Grayson commands.

(... wait for it... )

Because if you tell a 10 year old not to do something, they will do it again and do it worse, just to prove a point.

[benicio127]

Because if you tell a 10 year old not to do something, they will do it again and do it worse, just to prove a point

Not all 10-year-olds. Damian happens to be different because he is a spoiled brat.

Damian has responded to verbal commands by Bruce (in Batman and Son). Granted, those were verbal commands out of extreme anger. But Damian also just wants love and family.

The problem if Dick doesn't re-enforce this message that what he's doing is not cool re-enforces that that kind of talk is OK to readers - men, boys, women and girls. Well, it's OK, because he's just 10. But that boys will be boys mentality is a big part of why we see misogynistic crap when they become adults.

[sherkahn]

The problem with that logic is that Damian isn't bullying anyone that can't stand up to him, he's mouthing off to very strong-willed men and women who are more than willing to "hit him on the nose with a newspaper".

Some kids learn when you tell them not to do things, others learn when they burn their hands after they were told not to do things.

[batman]

But he's not learning because there's no real consequences. In fact, I'm genuinely confused as to why people continue to work with both Damian and Dick. Damian keeps coming out with these comments and Dick's silence when he hears them is a tacit acceptance that this sort of conduct is okay. Damian doesn't care when a woman tells him off for his conduct because he doesn't think they're remotely equal to him. That's why he keeps reducing them to objects; they're not people so what does he care? He does, however, care about Dick's opinion, Dick knows this, so Dick not calling him out on it and correcting his behaviour reflects badly on him too.

[whitesycamore]

But when has Damian suffered anything that he would consider a negative consequence for his misogyny? He's had a few fights with Steph (but he seems to enjoy that) he had an earnest but incredibly mild talking-to from Kara (which he ignored), and....?

No one has ever looked him sternly in the eye and said, without humour, "you are an insufferable, over-entitled little child, and until you get enough sense to grow out of that you aren't worthy of the name Robin. I'm surprised Dick isn't ashamed to be your mentor, because I sure as hell would be"

That's the kind of response that might actually get him to think about what he says.

[sistermagpie]

I have to say, this sounds like a convenient way to let Damian keep up his hilarious misogynist act--an act that doesn't even really have that much of an explanation in his character. I'm not seeing Dick teaching Damian to respect women in any way besides the most passive--by not behaving that way towards women himself. He doesn't give Damian any orders about how to speak to women--and Damian has been shown to follow orders that Dick is serious about in the past. If Damian can learn to not use first names in the field he can learn what language is acceptable.

He doesn't talk to him about why what he's saying is unacceptable. The women usually just grumble and steam over his awesome burns while they continue working with him. Occasionally there's something like Supergirl giving him a verbal spanking like in that one book--of course, that was about not calling anybody fat--and then he goes right back to his usual insults.

But meanwhile he's pretty much got free reign to call Catwoman a whore and Donna harlot with nobody doing anything. Far from being addressed in any way it just seems normalized. Can he gain the respect of their peers through action while still being misogynist? Possibly.

Personally, I question why Damian's alpha male persona has been attached to labelling women by default as whores or inferior or things to objectify at all, tbh. I don't even think it's mostly a Morrison thing. It seems like a lot of other male writers thinking it's natural to me. Interesting that he hasn't been given a racist mentality for laughs.

[batman]

This. I've been saying for a while (since the issue in Batgirl) that Damian's comments to women have been grossly misogynist rather than cute, funny or flirtatious. Dick is present or within earpiece-shot of almost everything that Damian says to female superheroes, and the fact that there hasn't been a scene where Dick comments to Damian that he's out of line (given that Dick knows that Damian respects him, otherwise his whole defusing of the Damian-bomb is just stupid) reflects badly on Dick too.

[sistermagpie]

It is a total tacit acceptance--really it comes from everyone but Dick is the worst since he's the person acknowledged as keeping Damian in line. It seens like Dick doesn't see this as any sort of priority or a special problem in itself--which is frankly weird. And completely OOC on Dick's part--and stupid. He's supposed to be making him fit to work with others but he doesn't think it's an issue that he considers half the superhero population to be beneath him because they're women? Isn't that the type of thing Dick has a history of nipping in the bud immediately? That would have been a basic starting point for him. But it isn't because clearly in a meta-sense it's considered a plus for the character. They know enough to not have Dick join in with him, but he has to just stand there helpless and not really interfere so we can laugh at Damian and the woman who just got called a harlot.

[batman]

The worst is that the only people who pick Damian up on it are ... well, the women he openly despises. He doesn't care if Kara tells him off for calling Steph fat, because he doesn't care about Kara or Steph's opinions of him. If Dick said something then he could possibly reconsider his behaviour (after grousing that he doesn't listen to Dick omfg >E), but that would mean highlighting that his behaviour is not cute or misplaced but instead just really offensive Damian knows very well that what he is saying to Catwoman, Donna Troy and Stephanie Brown is wrong. He doesn't care.

What's always confused me is that it's very rare for someone to bring Dick to task for letting the conduct go on. I remember Babs commenting that Damian's out of line early in the Batgirl run and I don't know if it's happened elsewhere. Dick does just let things go when it comes to Damian, presumably under the idea of "well he's still learning how to be a good citizen", and that's offensive. Firstly, it's insulting to Damian because it means that Dick is assuming that he is less aware than he is (and Damian is completely aware that what he says is offensive). Secondly, and most importantly, it is Dick prioritising Damian's comfort (over not being told off for his conduct) over the myriad of female superheroes who deserve to be treated as humans rather than objects.

It's why I tend to grit my teeth when I see Damian in a book now; I know that a bunch of sexist commentary is going to come through, and the metatext of the book is going to tell me that it's entirely reasonable.

[sistermagpie]

Right, it's like it's established that Damian doesn't listen to women-why would he when the whole thing he's saying to them is that he's better than they are? None of these women should really have to say anything to him because--hello? Batman?

But the women don't even get to really seriously talk about it either. It's like someone said to me about it recently--laugh at an angry woman and the world laughs with you. It's just played for laughs with the woman either giving an annoyed eyebrow or flailing and angry. Just as Dick isn't doing what he should (and imo would) be doing as Batman, which is stopping everything at the first comment and not letting him out until he learns his lesson, the women don't get many chances to seriously say to Dick that this is unacceptable. Because everyone in the universe--Dick, Damian, the women--have to be okay enough with it that it continues.

It all combines to give approval of it. If they had Dick actually come out against it seriously they'd be faced with either making Dick look ineffectual by Damian going on as usual or Damian having to knock it off, which they don't want. Though even having Damian keep it up--but only out of Dick's earshot--would show some understanding that it's not cute.

But of course they don't have to do any of this because the whole "Damian insults women" seems to be gold for them. It's the only reason I can see for the way they keep recreating that exact thing, teaming him up with Stephanie more than once and then Kara etc.

[batman]

His conduct to Kara, to me, is the worst of all. He calls her "Alien" for the entire issue, which on the face of it is pretty gross.

Then you remember that Kara had been recently hunted down by the US military for simply being a Kryptonian, her best friend just got immolated and she just saw everyone she loved on New Krypton die. It'd be stretching it for Damian to not be aware of the events, so Damian calling her "Alien" consistently rather than her name for an entire issue is deliberately and maliciously cruel.

Does he demonstrate the same conduct to male superheroes? I've seen him be dismissive, but I don't see his comments to male superheroes take on the ugly character that his comments to female superheroes do.

I genuinely don't see why we're meant to find him entertaining. I tend to drop books he's in. Teen Titans is now off my pull for good until he's off it, Red Robin is next on my axing list and the only reason I keep Supergirl and Batgirl on my pull is that Kara and Steph deserve better.

[icon_uk]

Male characters he can be very rude to or ignores (cf the Guardian, Dick himself) or attacks Tim (repeatedly). Female characters he is more likely to just be rude to.

[fifthie]

Damien responds better to action than verbal reprimands.

Which is why Dick and every other character should kick him in the head every time he says anything whatsoever.

[fifthie]

Gutter tramp comment about Selina? Written by Paul Dini. Dick just smiled.

Paul Dini doing a shitty job writing Dick Grayson: Not a thing I'm real surprised at.

[sistermagpie]

Dick doesn't do that because Damian's insulting of women is considered awesome. Not only awesome, but proof that he's a ladies' man. Sure Dick based on all his years of characterization would not be cool with that, but nobody's going to write Dick as taking away something people actually like.

[benicio127]

This, pretty much!

[icon_uk]

Closest in-universe explanation I can get is that when Damian badmouths women, he does so to women who are all more than capable of putting him in his place, every single one of them; Selina, Kara, Donna, Rose, et al and Dick knows this. (ANYONE, least of all a Robin, being rude to Selina is asking for so much trouble even Bruce would draw a sharp breath)

I can only guess that Dick is waiting for THEM to take some sort of action, (since if he intervenes he assumes he'll be assumed to be being over-protective to women who don't need his protection) and is just constantly surprised when they don't.