Last Week's Top 3 Future's End Issues (Part 1)

[zapbiffpow]

Hi! Splitting this into three parts - this one's text heavy enough as it is. Here we go!

Grayson, By Tom King, Tim Seeley and Stephen Mooney

I would have made this #1, if not for its first two pages. To be honest, I don't mind 'grimdark': what I'm not cool with is 'disturbing'. And Dick pleading for his life before being hanged is like, non-stop double that.

But this issue shines because of three things: one, its experimental storytelling: It’s set backwards, so your brain is fighting itself to classify the plot points. Callback? Foreshadowing? Also, the ending is set up for an Inception-like debate.

The second is this: Batman and Robin versus the Cluemaster.

Check out that page: it’s not Batman being a dick to, well, Dick. It’s a gentle rebuke, like a mentor teaching a student, or, uh, Don Corleone advising Michael. (Dammit, bad simile.)

Weird villain, crazy clue-solving, Robin learning crimefighting lessons from Batman: somehow, they recreated the core of an Adam West Batman episode in just two pages.

And if you need proof:

“QUICK. TO THE BATMOBILE!”

The third one is this panel:

I'm not exactly sure why I like this. I guess it’s the knowledge that in five potentally sucky in-universe years from now, Dick Grayson is still capable of sparing time to comfort and embrace a small, orphaned child.

But in the off-chance you'd like to lay on this heartwarming dramatic scene, let me start the festivities:

Anyway, surprisingly decent work all around - I don't remember the last time DC greenlighted a mainsteam issue as interestingly bizarre as how King and co. laid this out.

Except, I guess Morrison. Morrison is always the exception.

“I…I also happened.”

Anyway, special mentions to Green Lantern (decent ending), Green Arrow (great art) , and Detective Comics (decent twist, but iffy Calendar Man. Was he better as a creepy killer, or as the bouncer he is today?)

Comments

[starwolf_oakley]

DARK VICTORY ended with this on the Robin outfit:
"You might want to rethink the colors."
"No. These were my parents' colors."
"All right, then."

[zapbiffpow]

Making it Dick's choice to wear the outfit. Interesting.

Sometimes I wonder who should have made the final decision concerning Robin's outfit: Dick or Bruce.

[falkner]

Sometimes I wonder who should have made the final decision concerning Robin's outfit
Alfred, probably.

[icon_uk]

In nearly every version of the Batstory (apart from the very first one, which also featured a retcon making Bruce the first Robin during his own training period), Dick designed the Robin costume. He definitely designed the post-Flashpoint one... so not being happy about his own design and colour scheme seems a little odd.

Also, not struck on Batman's "Earn the night" bit, seems like too much of a challenge, when he wouldn't want Dick to do that if it wasn't Dick's nature. The fact that he DID is more or less incidental. Bruce would want Dick to be the best Dick Grayson he could be, whether that included "the night" or not.

[zapbiffpow]

"He definitely designed the post-Flashpoint one..."

Oh yeah, I remember him cobbling it from different environmental Batsuits before going out to fight Shiva. I think.

P.S. Heh. There we go. Thanks!

[lbd_nytetrayn]

"He definitely designed the post-Flashpoint one... so not being happy about his own design and colour scheme seems a little odd."

Eh, it happens. Doubt, second thoughts... Seeing something in your head that just seems so perfect, yet seeing it in reality, it's less so.

I doubt that's the case here, though; didn't Nu52 reestablish Robin as being Batman's intern position? Which would explain the reuse...

[icon_uk]

Just a little note, that didn't actually work as a Reply to my Comment. When replying to someone you have to make sure you use the Reply option on the post you're replying to. If you just use the Reply option at the bottom of the page, there's no thread.

Done it quite a few times myself, so know how easy it is to slip up on.

[mr_cyn1cal]

I get that it's grimdark...sorta...

But read the first two pages again, using the code, and it's a lot more ambiguous than that...

[zapbiffpow]

Nah, the grimdark doesn't bother me so much, to be honest. I'm pretty sure Dick made it out of this alive.

But holy crap on that first page! I just now got that one. Thanks. But what about the second page?

[mr_cyn1cal]

Oops, sorry, it's just the first page - don't have the book with me.

But yeah, when you combine the code, the rope trick, and "the roof"...I just figure that well...yeah, it's a pretty clear picture to me of what happens next :)

[icon_uk]

Yup, I will give them props for that one, I was more pleased than I probably had any reason to be to have got the first page on the second read through! :)

[zapbiffpow]

On a lark, I did check Page 2, and I got "STSTST YIYIS IA," which I guess is code for "No, man, the secret message was on Page 1." Heh. Thanks again!

[icon_uk]

It sounds more like clearig out one's sinuses.

[burkeonthesly]

"Ia, Ia, Cthulhu ftagn!"

[omgwtflolbbqbye]

It sound like that old joke about Batman giving Robin bright colors to draw gunfire away from himself is now canon.

[zapbiffpow]

I've always had a slight problem with that, but I guess if Bruce thought his boy Robin was wicked agile enough...

[starwolf_oakley]

More than a few "takes" on Robin's early days (Post-Crisis, Post-Zero Hour, etc) have people downright *stunned* about Batman having a partner who looks like a little kid. Commissioner Gordon being one of them.

[zapbiffpow]

Right? And then in ASBAR, with I think like half the underworld looking for the last surviving Grayson, Batman's solution was to send Robin out into the streets dressed like, well, Robin.

I heterosexually love Batman, but his decision-making can be weird. Then there's Robin: Year One...

[falkner]

I almost choked laughing at that edit. Thank you.

Also, to quote an anonymous user of /co/:

Heh. The issue forms a spiral.

The story is told backwards as well as forwards, with hints told forwards to lead you backwards. You have to go around and around in order to get the idea.

[zapbiffpow]

My pleasure! Also, nice find on the spiral reference thingy: this issue was indeed freaking, well, spiral-y.

[blueprintstyles]

I think it was implied that Dick survived the hanging with the same chemical that ate the ropes on the bridge and in the circus, a tleast that's how I interpreted it.

[zapbiffpow]

Same here, although I guess that'd have to be a new batch of the same compound. I don't know a lot about the shelf life of crime acids.

[tcampbell1000]

Uncertain, but however long it lasts, Dick is clearly keeping some viable samples of the stuff close to him, for reasons that say a lot about the poor boy's head.

[icon_uk]

Yeah, that was just... not how Dick has ever operated. "I'll keep a large flask of the acid compound used to kill my parents, and store it under my bed because..." and then I just can't come up with a single damn reason.

[tcampbell1000]

Batman and Robin have kept chemical solvents in their utility belts since the 1960s. Grayson the secret agent needs a few such tricks at his disposal. He chose something with a weird connection to his past, because he's wrestling to hold on to that past: a gesture he didn't need to make when he was part of the Bat-family and his peers were as invested in the no-kill code as he was.

The depressing world of FUTURE'S END is rife with moral compromise and outright moral defeat, so it portrays a bit of a failure on that front, but it at least does so in a more nuanced way than "here's 20 pages of killbots assimilating and killing everyone." Grayson and Helena still have each other, and their story isn't over.

[icon_uk]

Given the number of times he's been tied up, Dick carrying some acid capsules around is fine, recommended even.

Even having a small portion of time delay acid might, I suppose, notionally have some use on a case, it's just the thought he keeps a whole jar of the stuff which makes me think it odd. (Never mind why a small time hood like Zucco would be using an IIRC "untraceble" acid (I'm not even sure what that means) that Batman had never seen the like of.

We will also ignore YET AGAIN, why Zucco is still breathing after disrupting the Court of Owls secret "Nubile young acrobat Talon candidate training program" as he did.

[zapbiffpow]

"We will also ignore YET AGAIN, why Zucco is still breathing..."

Hah! What? No! Let's do the exact opposite of this! How is that guy even alive? He just broke a centuries-old tradition! Is he affiliated with a stronger, more secretive ancient Gotham society, like the Gentlemen's Club of Ospreys?

Hilarious: I need someone to go in-depth on this. Also, phrasing.

"it's just the thought he keeps a whole jar of the stuff which makes me think it odd."

This I don't mind, though - I bet a whole jar'd be barely enough for a bridge like the one they took out this issue, with them thicker cables and all that. He'd probably had a small row of acid jars under his bed, like some morally bankrupt guppy collector.

[glprime]

I mean... red and green were both colors used by actual ninja to blend in with the shadows, so... It's not like he can't hide in low-light conditions wearing that.

The only real problem is that day-glo yellow cape. But like Batman's earlier chest insignia, it can draw focus and attention, and to an amorphous, non-vital area, so even that's not awful.

[zapbiffpow]

I think New52!Robin's cape is the same as YJ!Robin's - yellow on the inside, black on the outside.

That way he could drape it closed over his body, covering the red, green and yellow in one move if ever they need to go stealth.

[zapbiffpow]

Also, wait: actual ninja wore red? Was it for some sort of "Bring My Brown Pants" deal, for when they get wounded?

[icon_uk]

I suspect that ninja's were practical people; if black was suited for camoflage, they wore black, if they were hiding in trees they'd wear green, red might be suitable for certain conditions too like... ummm... hiding in a field of poppies perhaps?

[burkeonthesly]

Straight-up black is actually really bad night-camouflage, it stands out. Browns, greys, and colors that match the surroundings are better for stealth in most situations. Ninjas tended to make themselves invisible by dressing to blend in with people who were easily overlooked--peasants, merchants, servants, etc. Or they'd dress in ways that break up the shape of a person, the way modern camo does. Or-or, they'd get very good at acrobatics and climbing so they could hide in places no one would think of looking for them.

The image of the ninja in black pajamas comes to us from kabuki theater, where those outfits are worn by the "special effects" people, which allows them to blend in with the black curtain of the background. The audience is supposed to ignore them, to focus on the visibly-dressed actors and the effects the pajama-guys create. At some point, some playwright wanted to have a ninja character emphasize how very stealthy he was. The audience was shocked when what looked like a special effects guy straight-up stabbed another character, exactly the effect the playwright wanted (death coming suddenly, from nowhere). It became a trope, and fictional ninjas have been pajama-clad whether that was appropriate to their surroundings or not ever since.

[silverhammerman]

That is still one terrible, awful, not-good-at-all Robin costume, just an absolute mess. I mean, I know that showing Dick Grayson's time as Robin isn't top priority these days, but that design could not look any more phoned in. It's not like it's impossible to do a good design, both that Damian and red/black era Tim Drake had Robin costumes that looked modern and avoided the classic design elements that don't work in a modern context. All it takes is a modicum of effort.

[zapbiffpow]

I could spend an entire post good-naturedly mocking that uniform. And I will, one of these days.

[icon_uk]

The first Tim Drake costume remains my all time favourite update of a classic superhero costume, it added a degree of functionality that the original (love it though I do) lacked, whilst retaining the definite Robin-ness of the outfit. Yes it left his elbows bare, but the short sleeves are just part of the whole Robin look.

The Robin costumes Tim got after the first one were just... not nearly as good IMHO (The Batman-like spikes on the gloves, the scalloped cape, the lack of green etc). If you have to modify the cape, do what "The Batman" cartoon did, and split it down the back, so it's not as constricting and adds the elements of wings (a la Gatchaman) when he's dropping down from above.

[zapbiffpow]

Yeah, I actually never minded the short sleeves - Young Justice Robin had them, Arkham City Robin had them - although I'm gonna have to go for more than 'just part of the whole Robin look' before entering the, I dunno, International Batman Debate Competition or something. It does raise some skin safety issues.

I'm gonna trawl back through some of the old Tim Drake Robin issues to see if Bruce ever mentioned anything about those sleeves.

[icon_uk]

Bruce is the one who designed Tim's first outfit, so he'd have no one to blame but himself.

There was even a one off special which included a variety of different artists initial submissions for Tim's outfit, which were all included as part of Bruce's ostensible designing a new outfit so Tim would feel like his own Robin rather than be reminded fo jason Todd every time he looked in a mirror.