Investigation Arc Into Jasons Death in Gotham Knights #42-#45.

[lipsofpoison.insanejournal.com]

As requested by sistermagpie, this is the arc where Jason's death is being investigated in Gotham Knights.

Gotham Knights #42 [1 scan]
A social worker looks into the suspicious circumstances around Jason's death, but with Alfred sick, Bruce is in no mood to cooperate.



Gotham Knights #43 [2 scans]
Bruce later reminices about Babs' adventure with Jason and wanting her opinion. Babs then comes down to the depths of the cave to talk to him about it.





Gotham Knights #44 [5 scans]
We're given background on Jason's case and see how Bruce is reacting to being investigated.












Gotham Knights #45 [7 scans]
The guy shows up and does his interviews.

Comments

[sistermagpie.insanejournal.com]

Thanks so much for posting this-yay! I'm struck by the repetition of Bruce *not* being a father. And Dick's testimony is weirdly cryptic and vague!

I love the whole idea, though, the way the guy just feels like there's something "weird" even though frankly, looking at it from a distance, Bruce has done pretty well. Jason's death had nothing to do with him and Dick is pretty well-together. But the guy still feels like there's something even if he's not saying it. Though it's pretty laid out with Cass coming to Bruce with coffee at the door in her bathrobe!

[jlbarnett.insanejournal.com]

I think his asserting it at the end though was to show it was wrong.

[sistermagpie.insanejournal.com]

Bruce asserting that he was Jason's father, you mean, on that last page?

Btw, was that from an older comic? I feel like I remember seeing that scene before w/different art.

[lyraeinne.insanejournal.com]

I always found the testimonies really fascinating just because they're so *weird*, even knowing that they're all obviously working primarily to protect the Batsecret. It really does feel like we're meant to think there's something else going on under the surface, and I wonder if I'm just reading too much into it.

[icon_uk.insanejournal.com]

No, I don't think you are, and it's why I'm not a fan of this arc, or Devin Grayson in general. She just can't NOT put in those undertones.

The boys' testimonies seem so laden with subtext it's absurd that a social worker wouldn't find it suspicious, Dick describing how life's hard knocks continued whilst with Bruce, the nervous Tim who stops giving testimony as soon as Bruce shows up.

[runespoor7.insanejournal.com]

The arc is written by Scott Beatty, though, so I don't think you can explicitly blame Devin Grayson for this dialogue. And the social worker's questions to Tim could certainly be interpreted as subtext-laden, thus his reaction.

[lipsofpoison.insanejournal.com]

Um, this isn't Devin Grayson?

[icon_uk.insanejournal.com]

(icon_uk bangs head repeatedly onto desk)

Ye gods, I'm firing on all bloody cylinders THIS morning aren't I?

I withdraw my comments about Devin Grayson in this context, but maintain my feelings about the issue, whoever is writing it.

If you want me, I'll be in the corner kicking myself repeatedly to wake myself up!

[lipsofpoison.insanejournal.com]

It's okay, even I had to look it up!

[lyraeinne.insanejournal.com]

I sort of go back on forth on that, I guess. I think there's a lot of ways to handle that kind of subtext gracefully without turning it into an anvil or sacrificing the story in the process, but here the boys' reactions just seem so improbable it's hard to get past it. I find it very hard to believe that they haven't all been trained pretty extensively in interview techniques, and regardless of whether or not they had anything to hide none of them should be coming across quite that flustered in this context.

[sistermagpie.insanejournal.com]

That's the thing. I assume that they have some cover story already re: covering up the Bat secret, so I don't understand why they'd sound so suspicious, all of them. Particularly Dick. Why's he darkly hinting at "hard knocks" after his parents death? What's the interviewer supposed to assume he means when he just claimed he didn't much even know Jason, the "hard knock" they're speaking about now? Why's he qualifying his life with Bruce--which to an outsider is very stable indeed--as just "as stable as any" and "not all fun and games?" That seems to suggest the worst of both words--as if his life was both decadent and dangerous.

And where he points out social workers wouldn't let him stay at the circus--I assume he's supposed to be accusing them of not really caring about him in general so why are they showing up now, but it risks coming across like he blames the authorities for taking him away from his "real" family still.

And then there's the whole "He wasn't my father and he never tried to be..." what's that about exactly? I assume it's like he's respecting Dick's parents and so never tried to literally replace them but it's a little off in this context. Is that supposed to make him sound like a good parent that he never tried to be a father to the small orphan boy? Wouldn't that imply he didn't try to be a father to the boy he adopted like a son? Originally I thought this was Devin Grayson and thought Dick just automatically correcting on that issue because it's a little sensitive for him (and this is pre-adoption for him) but what's it supposed to convey to the social worker? I think Dick would be able to convey these ideas in a lot less suspicious way that made it clear Bruce never expected him to forget his family but was still a father to him.

It sounds like he's trying to hint to the guy to check further and that seems completely OOC for Dick. Not just because he'd want the guy to leave but because afaik he doesn't view his time with Bruce this way, really. He even sounds off from Bruce, who's asking if he was a good father where Dick's saying he never tried (with him at least). Though that, at least, I could chalk up to misunderstanding between those two characters.

[proteus_lives.insanejournal.com]

I've seen the Cass as "Bruce's Asian-child-bride-bringing-him-coffee" scan before. It always makes me laugh.

[(Anonymous)]

This continues to break my heart. Though this just supports my theory that Jason needs some WOMEN in his life and less emotionally walled off men, lol.

[espanolbot.insanejournal.com]

Well... that explained Cass' coffee and dressing gown appearence well. *laughs*

Thanks for posting this. :)

[nevermore999.insanejournal.com]

Aw, poor Bruce. Poor Jason.

Though I do wonder about the emphasis on not a father, and why Cass is Bruce's drink server all of the sudden. And it seems like Babs would object to being carried.

I like that Cass was involved though. Gee wilikers, girls were once involved with the Bat family.

[lipsofpoison.insanejournal.com]

Babs kind of has to be carried because it's underground and she had to hand walk herself down on grips without the chair. She does comment on it.

I think it might be a POV thing. Bruce viewed himself one way and the others did another.

[sir_razorback.insanejournal.com]

Batman has tear ducts?

[mcity.insanejournal.com]

I know, Aquaman was surprised too.

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

...and once again, Cassandra gets left out in the cold.

That's what you get for having breasts!

[bluefall.insanejournal.com]

At least she's here, which is more than you can say for any of the other Bat-family writers. -_-

[icon_uk.insanejournal.com]

When did Cass spend time living at Wayne Manor though?

[bluefall.insanejournal.com]

She wasn't living there so much as just camped out to help take care of Alfred (and the not-real-effective-at-taking-care-of-himself-while-Alfred-was-sick Bruce) while he was all Clench'd.

[runespoor7.insanejournal.com]

I think she does here because of Alfred's illness. At one point they're quarantined, and I'm pretty sure that includes the page shown here. Maybe she stuck around for a while afterwards, or maybe she's just visiting.

[lyraeinne.insanejournal.com]

Definitely one of my favorite arcs of this run. I love the way the ambiguity in all these relationships is explored here, especially in the way the scrutiny of an outsider makes the Batfamily on a whole function even more as a unit. I love that Dick knows when to push it when Bruce is hurty and also when to leave it alone, and that awesome moment of awesomeness between Dick, Tim, and Cass. We need more happy Batkids, damnit.

This story is also a little weird in a lot of ways, especially in the really deliberate offness in everyone's testimonies, and even now I'm really not sure what to make of that. But the man tears at the end never fail to kill me dead. Oh, Bruce.

[octopussoir.insanejournal.com]

Cass looks like Brock from Pokemon. I think they're having a squinting contest. Bruce's eyes start tearing from the pressure.

I really like that Babs and Cass were included in this storyline. Bruce carrying Babs while she's lecturing him is especially cute. I really wish that they did something with the female characters post-Batdeath.

This is an interesting storyline, and I'd never seen the Cass-in-a-bathrobe scan before. Thanks for posting.

[faile_neume.insanejournal.com]

Is he implying what I think he's implying when he asks Tim if Bruce or Dick have been anything other than 'role models'?

[lyraeinne.insanejournal.com]

I definitely think that's exactly what he was implying. Just look at Tim's face. Heh.

[faile_neume.insanejournal.com]

Oh man. That's so awesome. Bruce/Tim is squicky but Tim/Dick! He only gets defensive because it's true.

[mcity.insanejournal.com]

I think it's a reference to Wertham.

[faile_neume.insanejournal.com]

Wertham?

[mcity.insanejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fredric_Wertham

More specifically, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seduction_of_the_Innocent

[faile_neume.insanejournal.com]

Ah okay. That would be interesting if it was a reference to that.

[lieut_kettch.insanejournal.com]

Umm... so what was a barely-dressed Cass doing serving Bruce coffee at the Manor? Not that one should ever need an explanation for barely-dressed Cass, that is.

[lipsofpoison.insanejournal.com]

Alfred had the Clench and Bruce wasn't taking care of himself because he was so freaked out. Everyone, Cass included, was trying to take care of him and Cass, Alfred, Leslie, Tim and Bruce were quarantined in the Manor, which was why she was staying there. She just stayed on a little longer afterwards.

[runespoor7.insanejournal.com]

One reason I love this arc - and especially the scene with the social worker interviews the Batfamily - is that it acknowledges that the relationship between Bruce and the Robins can look iffy. Bruce took in both Dick and Jason as older kids (Dick even got aged up to twelve, and Jason was supposed to be twelve or thirteen), and Tim lived at Wayne Manor when he was around that age too. Teens and older kids almost never get adopted because people want young kids; Bruce's interest in becoming Dick's guardian could be easily explained in the similarity between their histories and the fact that Bruce was there when Dick's parents died, but with Jason and Tim it's a pattern. Rich bachelor billionaire living alone with his butler regularly takes in kids, the oldest of which abruptly left home at nineteen and was replaced by a younger model with a shady history. There's no way this wouldn't look suspicious in our world.

Cass' case is only slightly different - read: better - because while she looks very young as well and probably underage, she doesn't legally exist. There are no papers, no family name linking her to Bruce Wayne. It's important here that she's not his daughter in the eyes of the law; the social worker's investigation only concerns her because she cares, not because she's in the middle of it. She's a girl and she's there and she may or may not be one of Bruce Wayne's conquests and that makes her out of reach for the investigation.

Incidentally I read Cass' remarks to the social worker and to the boys as humor and curiosity, because otherwise I'd have to admit that it's some horribly written Cass up there - the characterization where she speaks little because she's too wise for words rather than because she doesn't get words - so I'm choosing to read it as Cass attempting to communicate with the others in the way both Dick and Tim do, with words and puns and humor.

I'm glad Tim's the one to react directly to these implications as well; he's always been the "meta" Robin, he's always been written as the one most aware of the roles and masks, so it's fair that he gets to remark on things people out of universe comment upon.

"I allowed him to have hope and it killed him" remains one of my key sentences to explain Bruce. And it's so ironic that the social worker's name is Felix Desidero. (Beatty must've been so proud.)

Also I love the photographs of Jason so much.

[ar_feiniel_.insanejournal.com]

Bruce's "favorite automobile"

I love you, Alfred.

[mcity.insanejournal.com]

I want more comics that have Cass randomly walking in and being awesome. All in favor?

I also like the fact that even in his civvies, Tim has hair at least 20% cooler than everyone else's.