Nickie :)

Dick (Narration): Sooner or later, I was bound to end up here. Every statistic points to it. Male orphan, victim of violent crime. Rootless, "unstable" childhood with minimal formal education. Racially "other." White, but not white enough. The only thing that kept me from ending up behind bars before now was a talent for putting other people there. That, and a guy called Batman.

this narration is often cited as evidence that devin grayson believes romani people are inherently criminal and will inevitably end up in prison unless they are raised by wealthy white men. which is such an overtly bad faith misreading it's kind of worrying. grayson isn't saying "i as the author believe romani people are Bad," she's writing dick thinking "when you look at the statistical likelihood that someone with my demographics and history would end up in jail, i am statistically likely to have ended up in prison." not to have committed a crime; to have "end[ed] up here."

it's also not really about dick crediting bruce with dick being a good person. initially, dick's narration seems to frame it that way, and we see the first of a series of three triptychs comparing dick's childhood in the circus to his childhood with bruce:

here, dick is presented as more willing to be violent when living with his parents, and more restrained when living with bruce. but these panels are part 1 of a set of 3. they aren't the final word on dick's nature or his nature.

in part 2 of 3, john grayson intervenes, breaking up the fight and presenting dick with alternate outlets for his restlessness and anger (performing, then potentially tussling with "the townies"). in the third panel of this set, john grayson stands proudly behind dick as he performs, visually mirroring dick fighting as robin later on:

these matching pages aren't about how bruce "fixed" dick. they're about the lessons that dick's father john taught him and how he carried those lessons into his life with bruce as batman and robin. bruce also acted as a father figure to dick, but it's clear in the dialogue from john/bruce as well as in the color choices (calm blue for john, angry red for bruce) that dick's memories of john's lessons are much happier and more helpful than his memories of bruce's.

leading up to the final triptych, dick thinks about "the real law. the one we learn before we can even count to twelve," then reflects on how his father (his romani parent) is the person who first taught dick the moral code that dick still follows:

and not only did john grayson instill dick's heroic morality, not bruce, john grayson is the person who did that effectively, with kindness, and gave dick room to grow. dick loves bruce, of course. but it's very clear across this sequence that bruce is not the reason dick is a hero. john grayson is.

i have never seen the opening monologue from this issue criticized in the context of the actual issue, only out of context, and that's just not how comics work. those panels are part of an entire issue. the issue is about criminals and heroes, about nature and nature, about fathers and guardians, about dick taking responsibility and catalina rejecting it, about dick truly valuing his idea of justice and the cops (including amy, dixon's "good cop") being willing to dismiss justice in favor of corruptly helping a fellow boy in blue. and over the course of this issue we see clear evidence presented that shows us that dick would have been a good man with or without batman.

Hal Jordan for the five Hal Jordan fans out there

various panels from sinestro (2014) issue #5

i could be crazy, but something about this scene between sinestro, parallax, and hal had always struck me as being allegorical for sexual assault.

maybe it's sinestro previously referring to parallax as a "demon lover" which primed me to make that association, maybe it's hal's clothes being torn in suggestive areas without him even properly lighting up to fight against parallax, maybe it's how hal is constantly getting pinned underneath parallax and otherwise positioned as vulnerable in contrast to both parallax AND sinestro, maybe it's the unusually heavy emotional weight of the scene where soranik seems to be concerned about hal and uncertain in an almost child-like fashion whereas hal can't even look her nor sinestro in the eye.

The fact that the first thing Hal does after finding Coast City destroyed. He uses his ring to bring up a construct of his dad. Which is sad in of itself. But then he starts talking about how much Coast City meant to him. All the memories just gone, and now Hal has power, he's a hero, he's saved people.

and yet

A construct of his own dad won't even say that much. It's like Hal summoned a construct of his own father just to punish himself for what happened. Something that was out of his control. But the fact that the first thing he does is summon his dad to punish himself?