Some Gotham City Sirens for you all. Just a little quick thing the other day - I am working on a copic version of this but Im not practised with them so its going to take a while.
I really love this Ivy design though and may have to draw her again much sooner when I’m taking breaks from the watercolour work.
I wanted to draw a bit of Rose Wilson. This version of her is mostly feral and drives her father insane (she gets it from her mom). She’s a master of psychological and guerilla warfare, in a forest she’s nearly unbeatable.
Her mother has fun advice like -Never make a threat you can’t or won’t deliver on in some way, if you do make a bigger mess than initially threatened
-Be the crazy one in negotiations if everyone thinks you’re crazy then they will have to think how to reason with you
- go to your father for protection he makes a good meat shield
-people like to think they’re smarter than you, teach them the wrong patterns to look for let them think you’re predictable
-never fight like a man or for a man, no seduction don’t play their game make them play yours
-strike fear before you strike fast hurt their moral and make them want to give up before they even start fighting, have them begging for death before they even meet you
I’d imagine this rose would lose her eye to overexertion of her powers or she’d carve it out as a last ditch fear tactic in a desperate situation.
I also drew baby Jason and Rose. He’s a goody goody paragon she’s a daring rogue. They’re good friends and perhaps he’s in love?
Riddler loves the wacky costumes absolutely adores the ridiculousness of fashion. Sometimes he gets in the mood to dress like the lovechild of Elton John, lady gaga, Elvis Presley, and a glitterbomb because it’s fun.
Penguin cares very much about his appearance because he’s got a reputation to uphold. So he hates the ridiculously taller top hats ed always gets him. However Oswald has found that they’re a very powerful persuasion, pacifying, and negotiation tool against Edward.
(They almost always wear at least one piece of the other’s gift, Oswald like the penguin cuff-links, occasionally pants, and umbrella handle. Ed likes it all but mostly goes out with the shoes, ocasionally gloves, and belt)
Made a little comic book cover. it’s a comic to focus on Jason’s time at the league of assassin where Talia is a mother to him with Damian as his little brother. Kind of like lost days but with a little more focus on the lazarus pit recovery. Since Jason got his head bashed in to then be blown up, he lost a lot of his memories.
I might switch out the Batman title later for redhood instead but I didn’t find anything preexisting that worked. For now it’s Batman. I also created the FC (fan comics) logo kinda like DC’s. Lemme know what you guys think!
* A pointless rambling of the relationship and parallels between Bruce Wayne and Jason Todd.
Picture this opening scene: There are two boys in a dark alley.
One is dressed in an expensive suit with a tie his dead father helped him with only earlier that evening. His hands are stained red with the same blood now puddled on the grimy cement. His face is in shock.
The second boy is dressed in tattered jeans and hoodie. His hands are stained with tires grease and are clutching a tire iron. His face is in shock.
Decades later, there are two more scenes to consider.
A seriously injured man sits slumped over in his father’s study. Without warning, a bat crashes through the window, and everything falls into place. He now knows what he needs to do.
Elsewhere, an emotionally distraught teenager is curled up into a fetal position on a hotel room floor. Heart wrenching cries can be heard from him. But it is only momentary. He now knows what he needs to do.
These two individuals are Bruce Wayne and Jason Todd. While they are both broken and determined men, Batman is a hero. The Red Hood is not. He is the anti-Batman and this is why.
Two Boys in an Alleyway
Despite similarities in their stories’ early themes and elements, Bruce and Jason came to walk down very different paths. One of justice, and the other vengeance. Batman is determined to protect the innocent and Jason more so on punishing the guilty. Both their ideologies have intrinsic flaws, of course, and will naturally clash often. But this wasn’t always the case.
Before they became a father and son perpetually in mourning for who they once were and what could have been, Bruce and Jason were remarkably similar. The two are cut from the same cloth and Bruce knows this better than anyone else.
In the Dumpster Slasher three-part story line, (Batman #414, #421, #422) Bruce becomes emotional. Violent. He sits in the batcave alone that night and contemplates his emotions.
“Nearly blew it. I let it get too personal. Lost my detachment…nearly lost control. Almost beat Cutter to death. Wouldn’t have been any big loss.”
Only one issue later, at the end of this story arc, Robin is out on the streets and becomes angry when he happens upon a pimp is threatening a prostitute with a knife. Now, I want you to compare his line here to Bruce’s and note what Jim Gordon said to him as well.
Batman: “I think he’s had enough, Robin. What were you trying to do, kill him?” Robin (Jason): “Would it’ve been that big of a loss if I had?”
It is important to note here that Batman is not worried or upset just because Jason roughs up a pimp. That would be hypocritical considering his own earlier actions. If anything, it’s because one of the main reasons Batman even takes in these kids, these ‘robins,’ is because he doesn’t want them to be like him.
And Jason was acting just like him.
Jason can and has screwed up and failed due to his own actions, but it was never the reason Batman became upset with him. His reactions in the comics when Jason does things like running ahead and ‘jumping the gun,’ are more like this:
He either makes a teaching moment out of it or is attempts to understand Jason’s reasons in doing any such thing. When Bruce does become harsh in his discipline, it’s either when he feels as though Jason has endangered his own life or as I said, he acts too much like him.
While there are quite a few more similarities between Bruce and Jason that makes them alike, such as both being introverted and interested in obtaining all sorts of knowledge that they might not even feel is relevant, they are both, at the core of their characters, deeply caring and compassionate people.
The differences only start to show with how they acton it.
The Not-So Dynamic Duo?
“What happened to you as a child, the terror, the pain, the horrors (…) you were broken, and I thought I could put the pieces back together. I thought I could do for you what could never be done for me. Make you whole.”
Hot take. Jason Todd is a villain and is best written as a villain.
Not in that campy way like he’s written during Dick and Damian’s Batman and Robin run while wearing that stupid pill-headed hood, (although, I grant he has a few lines that are enjoyable to read) but in all his serious, vengeful and downright brutal motives.
The Red Hood is the perfect Batman villain because he’s so different from what the widely perceived perfect foil to the controlled and disciplined Bat is…the Joker.
The Red Hood was vengeance at its purest. It is justice without being tempered by mercy. It is the rage of victims who were forgotten to become statistics. While other vigilantes wait for a cure, hope for rehabilitation, and pretend their system works, the Red Hood is a man of no such faith.
And this makes him a villain. And a damn good one.
During the Red Hood’s time as a crime lord in Gotham, he goes around blowing up buildings. He throws grenades into trucks. He mows down his competition with gunfire. Batman comes upon the bloodied hanged corpse of a man he was finished interrogating.
But what is so compelling about this all is that before all the murder, all the guns and explosions, Jason Todd was a very different little boy. And all the great and memorable villains start that way.
The Joker is not someone you’re meant to sympathize with or even understand. In fact, I find him more terrifying because he’s unknown. He has no backstory (unless you want to believe the one he gave in Killing Joke, but the clown has a new story for every face he meets) and seemingly does what he does for a laugh of all things.
Jason Todd is in pain. He’s traumatized. Betrayed. Buried. Replaced. He is no one’s son because his father abandoned him.
Once upon a time, Jason Todd was a boy who saved himself. One of the biggest lies that Batman himself perpetuates is that hesaved Jason from a life of crime. He tells Alfred that Jason was always dangerous. Bruce simply took him off the streets before he could be any worse.
But I don’t believe that’s true.
Jason grew up surrounded by crime, poverty, substance abuse and yet this amazing kid saved himself everyday by making a conscious choice to be kind and care about school, care about keeping his mother alive for over a year when he was just a child himself. That amazing kid was magic.
Jason Todd as Robin was magic.
“Jason smiles. A bright smile. The kind Robin, the Boy Wonder should have.”
A good portion of his character’s assassination was in order to push the Tim is the perfect Robin idea. It was editorial decisions. The same ‘suits’ who insisted that Tim Drake be the Robin in the New Adventures cartoon despite having Jason’s backstory and personality. But I digress on that.
Jason Todd was an introverted, studious, and emphatic person. He wanted to make friends with other kids his age even though he was a loner at heart. He joined the school baseball team and was a class officer, even if his training kept him from most social interactions.
He was also very much in tune with non-verbal cues and small changes in the environment around him. He was a thoughtful person who could be found admiring the stars or passing by scenery. When he teams up with the New Teen Titans, we get to see these aspects of his personality:
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so beautiful before. We’re actually riding above the clouds.”
“Every so often, I notice you become awfully agitated…like something was going on you didn’t want to be part of. Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”
It didn’t take Bruce long to fall in love with this boy and ask to legally adopt him. He found him to be smart, thoughtful, quick at learning and funny as hell. Their first meeting opens with Batman laughing in the very same alley his heart was ripped out decades earlier.
Even in the Rebirth canon, (RHATO #48) we see that Bruce is already set on taking in Jason while he’s still with Ma Gunn’s school. He likes this kid. A lot.
“Butler, actually. You’ll meet him someday, I’m sure.”
Jason Todd was happy. Mostof the time. Unfortunately, he still wrestled with depression and would sleep all day on occasion and could be found crying hidden away on his own, withdrawn from the concerned Bruce and Alfred.
In A Death in the Family, Alfred and Bruce sit down and discuss Jason’s worsening mental health, particularly after the Diplomat’s Son where Jason becomes witness to sexual assault, suicide and the failings of both Batman and the GCPD to protect innocent people. Barbara, his tutor, someone he cared about and got along with, is also shot a few months earlier.
Bruce thinks Jason has become suicidal. Alfred does not disagree with this theory and supplements it with things he’s observed himself about the ‘lad.’
“I’ve come upon him, several times, looking at that battered old photograph of his mother and father, crying. When he’s seen me, he’s hidden the picture and left the room, refusing to talk.”
It is then that Jason discovers the truth about his mother at the worst possible time, when he’s not even thinking straight, and thus leads way to the tragedy that will be his murder at the hand’s of the Joker.
The Curse of Jason Todd
“Do you have any idea what you have done?! Do you? You have no inkling of what you’ve created – what you have unleashed! You have set free a curse upon this world!”
Red Hood: Lost Days, which depicts Jason’s dark post-resurrection origin, opens with Ra’s al Ghul bellowing this line, the steam from the Lazarus Pit still rising off of him.
I’m not going to analyze this line, I’m just using it to supplement a point of mine I hope I’m getting through well enough. The Red Hood is a compelling, tragic villain. He is similar to Batman in ways that Bruce always knew and may have even feared because of how intimately he knows his own deepest, darkest thoughts. Jason is the perfect foil as an antagonist for him because of what he represents to Bruce.
And it’s not his anger, or his rage, or even his brutality.
It’s his compassion. His caring. His emotions. And how they can open up the worst parts of themselves.
Both are motivated by preventing whatever trauma happened to them from ever happening to anyone else. They both trained for years with this motivation. And they’ve both acted out on the very person who inflicted their trauma onto them.
Here’s where their paths start to differ, however, and what separates them with a line of morality.
They both get angry. They both care so damn much. About Gotham, about innocents, about each other. They both get too emotionally invested and deal with consequences related to that. To manage with that, Bruce shuts down. He creates all these choices, rules and symbols. He uses every ounce of his self control to keep them.
Bruce Wayne is not a good person. He forces himself to be with discipline and will. He chooses to be a good man and constantly pushes himself to live up to that. Because it’d be too damn easyto be just like the Red Hood.
Jason doesn’t understand that. Because no matter what Bruce had done or will do, he doesn’t hate him. He can’t. Despite his denial of the fact to different people, he still thinks of Bruce as his father. This great figure that so many others revere and are even intimidated by.
He’s not the only bat-kid to think of Bruce in this light despite the fact that the man is not. It took Dick years to overcome that perception. Tim only just started to begin understanding this true nature after his own father was murdered.
But even if he did understand his (once)father, he still became the complete opposite of him despite so many early parallels. He doesn’t hold back his words and emotions, he doesn’t go into a state of controlled dissociation or emotional disengagement.
Jason Todd—the Red Hood—is Batman without all his rules and control. In a way, he’s what the darkest part of Batman himself wants to be. Jason does what Batman can’t do when it’s needed.
Because in Batman’s book, life beats out justice. Even if he could take down abusers and murderers, he won’t. He will choose saving and protecting lives over the apprehension of killers…he always does.
Batman is justice. Red Hood is vengeance.
Jason is a victim’s fantasy. He punishes and kills the guilty. Something Batman won’t do.
Here’s a cleaned up Riddler and Penguin. They’re inspired by the Gotham show. Here they like each other but neither of them are clear with where they stand with the other. So they’re kind of mean at times.
I’ve been thinking of trying for something a little closer to comicbook style? what do you guys think?
Also I did redesigns for some villains
Riddler is up in the air still need to work out his main outfit some more. While I liked the Batman movie, that interpretation of riddler is not my favorite. I like Gotham’s Riddler but the costumes in the last episode timeskip doesn’t do it for me.
I’m happy with scarecrow, I was going for something a bit more safer around his own fear toxin. This scarecrow is kind of neurotic and anxious, this man could be spooked by his own shadow. A coward to the core and hates confrontation. His fear toxin will trigger panic attacks not hallucinations.
Joker is Joker I don’t like this character I don’t find him all that compelling the best joker on screen is Cameron Monaghan and I don’t care for all the crazy for crazy Heath Ledger wannabes.
Selina…I have plans for her later down the line.
I darkened clayface so he’s not weirdly orange brown like a melty turd. I don’t know if I did great but I think he’s decently spooky looking.
I don’t think there’s ever been a real definitive look for two face so here’s another one to all the variants. I did a small comic for him I would like to expand on his relationship with Bruce and his trauma.
I loved the brief look at pink haired ivy from batman ninja and will continue to roll with it. I think it allows for more focus on the parts to make her look more unnatural like maybe her eyes of strangely sharp teeth. This ivy is not really human, talking to her feels like making deals with a devil who takes payment in dead bodies. So I try to convey a bit of that.
Lastly is penguin who I tried to make him more of a reflection of what I imagined an older fox’s Gotham penguin would look like. Half of his face is scarred and shredded from a grenade and the monocle is on the eye that still sees. This penguin is a classy sharpshot with silver and blue color scheme.
I made an original character for Riddler, her name is Peggy Boniface and she’s his therapist. I was thinking it would be quite fun to have a character that is the opposite of Harley Quinn with Riddler. This therapist is very professional and pragmatic. She appeals to Ed’s sense of reason and always plays along with his games. She has far more patience with him than anyone else he’s interacted with, even staying late to try to solve his puzzles. Ed used to mock her for being too dumb to get them but came to be mildly amused to impressed with her persistence to try to solve his games.
I think it would be funny for Riddler to fall in love with her while she’s feels pretty neutral towards him. But when it comes to confronting feelings he’d be a bit dumb at recognizing it and when he does he’s even worse at flirting. His first thought is trying whatever he did to become friends with Penguin.
the answers to those question - He left it in his cell because he hates getting blood on his glasses - Arkham security sucks he could leave whenever he wants he’s only stuck around because Peggy is nice - Regular Arkham breakout, he’d usually follow every else in the riot but he’s been having a good time. - He’d suggest burying the bitch alive but the therapist wouldn’t be happy with that response ( he could not give less of a shit about Harley or Joker) - He sticks them to the ceiling of his prison cell in the arrangement of actual constellation, he’s only ever seen stars in books because the city has so much smog and light pollution
Guess who just watched The Batman!!! I liked the movie because it’s just so different from the typical Batman you see all the time, He actually gets to be a detective! yay. Though my favorite batman villian has always been the Riddler and it’s nice to see him get some attention, even if this isn’t really my favorite interpretation of the character. As a whole the movie is really solid I think it’s quite good. However towards the end and some moments throughout I don’t really like how they pushed Riddler’s character to be like more like Joker. That is really my only complaint, everything else was entertaining.
I drew a small comic for my riddler, I’ve been thinking about him being a former talon would be really cool. I’ll draw more to the concept soon.
I don’t know what most people’s relationship with comic canon but for me. I just…ignore… whatever I don’t like. Like I don’t generally care for ginger Jason or rapist Talia Al Ghul, so I just pretend it’s not true to my version of the DC universe. There’s some aspects that I might re adapt if I think they could be interesting but I don’t feel beholden to what is canon and what isn’t. I don’t really want to argue over what is correct pre-new 52 or post crisis or dc rebirth or future state shenanigans.
As far as how canon Slade is, He’s not as interesting as I think he could be. I know that he’s done fucked up stuff (relationship with Terra? really???) but I don’t find those to be interesting. This Slade is still a bad guy and not the best dad ever by any means, but at this point his kids are pretty fucked up in their own right and nobody in this family is sane that Slade for the most part just wants some peace and quiet and will kill to get some.
- Rose probably gets along the best with dad but has no impulse control whatsoever (she’s no longer allowed to fly any planes after crashing the 3rd one this year) - Joey talks to Ghosts and hangs out with Dick, he’s weird and a traitor - Grant…Slade isn’t sure if he’s real half the time everyone including Grant acts like he’s a ghost haunting the house, he mostly freelances or stays with mom
My Slade is a bit of a combination of Captain America and a Geralt of Rivia wannabe. He wants to be a cool and chivalrous Knight but that has never been in the cards for him. He wishes Rose could be like Ciri, Joey could have been kinda like Jaskier before the throat thing, and Grant was like Bucky Barnes before dying.
As far as I’m concerned with Slade he’s a captain America (Steve Rogers) if nobody had any expectations or respect for him because he was a symbol of truth and justice… and was treated less than human for killing people, because he could never be a proper hero. A sort of anti captain America situation where everyone has the worst idea of him believing he could never do good, and Slade is just doing what he feels like he should do anyways. Not a hero, never loved, and never respected but he’s still out here doing what he was made for and that’s pretty much all he’s ever known. He’s been trained to be practical and to be a strategist that looks at everything and anyone as pieces on a board to manage to get the job done. Sometimes people get hurt because of it. He generally tries to not feel much about it.
He has a family but they don’t care that he’s the most badass assassin and one of the top mercenaries in the world, he’s just their dad who’s a mean and stoic hard ass and nobody is afraid to call him out on it. He has a butler who doesn’t give a shit about being nice, but it always there when he most need it , like Alfred but actually an asshole. A brother who is a depressed unkillable annoying wacko that hangs around sometimes to “keep him on his toes” and he’s probably the only one who understand him. An ex-wife that he suspects might have a bigger kill count than him (she’s just better at hiding it because she doesn’t run around with bright orange to advertise) and a (mostly) one sided rivalry with Bruce Wayne and a mutual hatred of Dick Grayson (Dick would unplug his life support if given the opportunity).
I don’t think it’s a secret that I ship Rose and Jason. I want this ship to be one of the few that is as set as Clark Kent and Lois Lane.
Not only because they potentially have a lot in common to bond over. They’re both killers that could “get” each other, morally grey, sassy, insane siblings, near death trauma, and parental issues (the butler is my favorite dad)
largely because I can only imagine how funny it would be for Slade to be the best Father-in-law to Jason while simultaneously flipping off Bruce and Dick. Like how ridiculous would it be for the Wilsons ending up as the better family that Jason wants to be a part of post joker death.
Imagine all the “you only live once” jokes Jason would make with Grant and Joey. Maybe even comparing throat scars (batarang) with Joey. Jason having the instinct to following around Wintergreen like he did with Alfred as kid. Slade taking his boys out for insane missions, father son bonding, and Jason being the only one who’s actually happy to be there.
If there’s anyone who’s ready to spite some morally holier than thou superheroes, it should be Slade. Especially if he’s showing up Batman with his son.
I want a Batman story where he starts off as a cheerful and a bit socially daft guy. Where Bruce Wayne is a complete goof and hopelessly romantic fool. He tries to court Talia or Selina with the extravagance and thoughtfulness of a man with the means and mind to try to give his love the most fantastically romantic time ever. He’d be so proud and happy for Dick and his team of superheroes, and all he can imagine is the good they’ll do when they become the next Justice league. Even the criminals in Gotham aren’t too violent, just people looking out for their own.
Then Jason comes into his life, He loves this child so much. The kid adores Alfred and follows him around like a duckling and is quietly delighted with all the toys, books, schooling, ect. that Bruce can provide. He’s smart, studious, sassy, curious, and adorably enthralled with magic (magic!Jason) practically a prodigy but still playing little pranks here and there. He can imagine Jason fitting in very well with Justice league dark if he wants to follow his big brother’s footsteps. Though that plan doesn’t quite play out as he’d hoped.
(I’m just so done with Jason only ever being destined for death and nothing more, and the death of a child being treated like no biggie or a goddamn joke. That shit should be goddamn traumatic and serious.)
However Jason is mercilessly murdered by the Joker, then Barbara is paralyzed, Talia doesn’t want anything to do with him, and Harvey well…Harvey went insane chasing shadows before killing himself. Bruce then starts to spiral into his dark and broody, emotionless, cold and calculating Batman. Turning paranoid and controlling, because if he could have planned for everything then he would have prevented the worst from happening to the people he cared about.
I want Batman’s closed off and harsh personality be a result of his life getting to a point of falling apart instead of the insanity of “dead parents” because frankly I’m sick of those damn pearls. I get it as a motivation to start being a hero but the rest of why he’s a dick to his allies and so damn standoffish about being in control all the time shouldn’t be tied to that. I think it should be a process of him losing his hopefulness to the thoughtless acts of cruelty later down the line.
Give me a batman that starts with everything to lose, a hopeful man who believes that people can change for the better if they were given a proper chance. That goodness is inherent because superman who has all the power to do anything still decides to do good. A batman who thought people were only evil because of desperation, or needed/wanted something but is proven so wrong that it slowly breaks him, into the batman we’re familiar with.
(the kind of batman that lashes out at Dick, ignores or doesn’t care for Tim and Steph, beats & banishes Jason from Gotham, and makes contingencies & plans to be able to take out his JLA friends)
Maybe even have the parents be secretly not the best people. I’ve been thinking about Martha Wayne being a high ranking member of the court of owls, and his father sharing a hand with Hugo strange to make Arkham asylum a hell on earth.
Lemme know what you guys think because frankly I kinda hate how toxic Batfam is and I really don’t care for trying to pretend it’s a good time to be with the kind of batman we have. Straightup fanon gooddad!Bruce is so far away from what Batman is, I can’t imagine them being the same person at all. At least with this kind of timeline I feel like it could possibly work.
I’m under the impression that you guys really like the Magic!Jason idea. Here are some of the villains I’d imagine him facing up against as a robin, they’re a bit revised from their obscure original outing. The 10 eyed man is a straight up monster that eats eyes. Nocturna is a Vampire heiress that just wants all the money and riches and respect of being an amazing vampiress, Unbelievably vain and greedy and no fucks given about what you think. Lastly Magpie she’s a Harpie, bound to a cruel master and made to steal magical artifacts for them. Just going full supernatural on a couple of canonically lame villains.
If I were to make a batman show with Jason Todd as robin these guys would be the 1st season villians that Batman works with Zatanna and Talia to sort out., While Jason is still a very young robin. As he gets older the crimes get nastier where the demons get terrifying and criminals get really cruel.
I feel like the Nolan movies did a really good job at starting him off as just a guy who got really screwed over but I think we could still go further with his character beyond the “funny coin man times 2” As I thought about it more I love the thought of him actually having to be two faced to the public and his personal life after the incident. Not mentally ill, not bipolar, or multi personality disorder just a guy who’s torn between being the same old good man Harvey dent and his real feelings about himself and the world around him after being mutilated by the court of owls. I personally don’t like how overused the joker is and I find the owls to be kind of underdeveloped.
Also feel free to ask me stuff about this fan batman project or share some headcannons or fanfictions. I love talking about this stuff.
How come all supervillains have their degrees in stem and psychology?? Where’s my English major villains!!! Where’s the villains with art degrees!!!! I demand change
Last night I had a dream that Batman’s rogues gallery kept getting in trouble with staff for arranging epic Arkham-wide rogue orgies. The security guards would bust in and lug them back to their cells and then like five days later they’d be back at it again. Everything was so well organized, it was kind of impressive.
