These two panels make me sad and Iâve never been able to articulate it. Please tell me why Iâm sad. Are you sad? It makes me sad. Sad.
Well now Iâm sad đ poor baby omfg
I think part of the reason why itâs so sad is because how itâs phrased. Like âNow stay down.â is such an assertive command that you would expect a superhero to say to a supervillain, or even a protagonist to an antagonist. But then Dick follows it up with the âplease.â that radiates sheer exhaustion, with his head in hands.
Itâs like he physically and mentally cannot handle any more shit at the moment and just wants a moment of reprieve, to the point where heâs resorted to begging an unconscious villain to not fight any more. I think it also highlights a lot of his anxiety and how it effects him, because even after the threat is eliminated, heâs still worried about the future, about the possibility of her getting back up to fight him again and heâs not sure heâll win.
And I mean obviously itâs sad because we have context of what happens later on, and you could kind of view this as Dick begging her to stay out his life, to stop fighting him and interfering with his work, and you know that later on it just gets worse.
Iâm also not sure whether this is intentional or not but it is a good juxtaposition for their morals/ideology as well. Like here is Dick, with a knocked out supervillain drawn in what I assume is a purposefully sexy manner (like the positioning of her body is just unnatural and is clearly meant to be sexy), and all he does is go âPlease stop fighting me âšď¸đĽşâ. But when Dick hits his low point with the murder of Blockbuster and heâs freaking the fuck out, fully covered, and overall itâs a moment where you would not look at him and think âwow you look sexyâ but Tarantula still uses that as an opportunity to take advantage of him. I think you could argue that it makes the point that it doesnât matter how you dress/look or what you do, people will rape other people because they are rapists and want to take advantage of you, because they have shitty morals and see an opportunity to be a predator.
Like I said Iâm not really sure whether that was intentional or not but I feel like that is one of the ways this could be interpreted too.
