No. There's a heartbeat. A strong one.

Steph was a great vigilante as Spoiler, but a Robin's role isn't just to be a vigilante. A Robin's role, first and foremost, is to be Batman's sidekick. And if Batman doesn't really want you for the job, it doesn't matter how good you are at it, you will never be good enough for him.

It was pretty explicitly clear that Batman took her on in part because he was hoping to tempt Tim out of retirement. Batman wanted to work with Tim still, and no matter what Steph did, she wasn't Tim, she was her own person.

Yes, Steph made mistakes, because she was a teenager, but no mistake she made was worse than anything Dick, Tim or Jason had done (it's worth noting that Batman had previously wanted Steph to stop being a vigilante because he saw too many similarities to Jason and was worried that she would get hurt or killed, so it does make sense that he'd have less leniency for Steph than he'd had for Jason). Disobeying Batman's orders in order to save him, the thing she got fired for, is something they must all have done at least once.

this kind of policing is why ao3 was created

remember, kids, the three laws of fandom are:

- don’t like; don’t read

- your kink is not my kink

kink *but your kink is okay*

don’t forget that part

🦾 ironstark-forever

i'm sick of you people acting like our mayor isn't gay and fucking a billionaire

edit 1: now which one of yall sent this post to their kid he's vagueing me on social media

🕶️ shattertremes-13151015-deactivated

mayor cage has a WIFE. he is M A R R I E D. why does everyone always assume there's some kind of cheating going on

🦾 ironstark-forever

??? oh so bisexual people don't exist now? polyamorous people don't exist now? people like you are the fucking problem

👊 bottom-ironfisting

the way op's archived posts show that they ship tony stark with his bodyguard lol. there's no way you're gonna glaze iron man getting his oil changed by that reject and then shit talk luke and danny BYE.

edit: acting like ms jones-cage doesn't think they fucked either is wild

😸 the-only-tigra-hellcat-shipper

is fumbling genetic or some shit why is hawkeye two always dating some d list zero when she could get with a HERO. ms america if you're reading this I know how to show a lady a good time i promise

🐈‍⬛ hellcatty

the implication that hawkeye is related to the other hawkeye pls

😸 the-only-tigra-hellcat-shipper

???? are they not? like i assumed that they were since the brooklyn spiderman is related to the queens one that it was the same situation here ???

🕷️ hyphenbot

spider-man

Beep-boop! I look for accidental misspellings where there should be hyphens

👊 bottom-ironfisting

this is a callout post for @ironstark-forever

they're making several false claims, namely reducing danny rand to a billionaire. he went MISSING as a CHILD why are we acting like the stuff rand did while he was lost at sea was his fault???

Keep reading

🕶️ shattertremes-131510151-deactivated

my most unhinged conspiracy theory is that haikubot is controlled by ultron. like. or maybe one of his grandkids idk I was lowkey addicted to heat for like the entirety of that m day stuff so I don't know what the family situation is

🪃 yes-im-boomerangs-cousin

oh my god this post is literally broken in every way what the fuck. why does it say it posted 2 centuries ago. what the fuck.

🕶️ windsong-truther-131510152-deactivated

genuinely fuck m0j0

🕶️ x-tremities-131510153-deactivated

dude this isn't Freaking Awesome you don't need to censor mojo if you're dissing him??

⚡️slothbaby

hypersonic space travel (or why interdimensional e-mails should have a schedule send function)

Chapter 15/? Word Count: 20K

When Ororo Munroe gets an interplanetary collect call from the Shi'ar to pick up her shortstack of a coworker from a prison cell, her first instinct is to send his daughter to get him. Instead, she and Logan embark on a mission that should have been an email thread.

read on Freaking Awesome

👽 the-silent-watcher

🪃 yes-im-boomerangs-cousin

MY LAWYER JUST WALKED IN AND HE LOOKS LIKE HE FOUGHT SHE-HULK BUT LIKE. NOT IN A COURT????

🪃 yes-im-boomerangs-cousin

oh he said he tripped because he's blind aren't i a fucking asshole

🐈‍⬛ hellcatty

how are you always in these situations girl

🪃 yes-im-boomerangs-cousin

oh yeah my fuckass cousin moved in with me because his roommates didn't renew their lease with him or whatever and his situationship got killed by some guy from the news AND IT TURNS OUT MY COUSIN IS A FREAKING SUPERVILLAIN???? AND HE FOUGHT SPIDER-MAN????? and then I got arrested because this PIECE OF SHIT had some kind of blackmail encrypted ON MY WORK LAPTOP.

They hate me having fun, that's for sure. I would say it's recent-ish, as in the past decade specifically. After all, Grim Hunt was published in 2010, and in it Peter rips off Sasha Kravinoff's face, threatens to kill both her and Kraven, and has to be actively stopped from actually murdering them.

(ASM #637) They just don't let him be hot anymore. So as recent (and it is recent when we're talking about a character who has remained in the spotlight since 1963) as 15 years ago, they were still letting him be pretty violent when the situation called for it. Violent, but more importantly competent. Peter is good at what he does, and that extends to both intimidation and hurting people.

And his anger at Kraven and his family is justified in this comic. He's been hunted, tormented. Kaine, his clone, his brother, is dead in his place. Mattie Franklin, the third Spider-Woman, Jonah's foster daughter, a teenager who looked up to Peter, is dead. Madame Web is dead.

(ASM #637) "You'd be amazed what anger does for a body, Julia." Julia Carpenter being the second Spider-Woman, about to become the second Madame Web. I'm using Grim Hunt as an example because it and One Moment in Time (OMIT) are kind of my cut off in terms of truly good Peter characterization. I find that once Horizon Labs enters the picture, we sort of start sliding into Flanderization, as fun as I find Spider-Island conceptually. (Everyone in New York is spiders.) I wouldn't say it's like. Good. Entertaining, occasionally! But not good.

There's good Spider-Man content after this, don't get me wrong. Just... not in ASM, particularly, beyond a handful of issues (love you, ASM #657: Torch Song). I don't want to blame Slott entirely; I think editorial played a huge part here. But Slott is a weird case when it comes to writers where when he hits it out the park, he absolutely hits it out the park. That being said he hits it out of the park maybe twice every five years. (He's very good at writing Johnny and Peter together, I'll give him that! Modern patron saint of Spideytorch, unfortunately. Without his incredibly, unbearably long tenure on Spider-Man, we probably would have much less modern Spideytorch content.) There is ASM #665, one whole issue before Spider-Island, when Peter violently took to the streets after Betty was mugged and assaulted. (Harm to Betty is definitely one of his big red buttons, granted.)

(ASM #665)

It's not even entirely about Peter crossing any lines, since circumstances generally interfere in him actually killing anyone, with the notable exception of Charlemagne in Spider-Man vs Wolverine (not really his fault, but a hit from him is the direct cause of her death) and one could argue the burglar who shot Uncle Ben in ASM #200. It's more just this inability to let the character function as a competent, aggressive vigilante. There's just this real erosion of his personality and his priorities that has cropped up in the last decade. Comparison time. In ASM #797 (published March, 2018), Peter stops a mugging by webbing a purse snatcher, in the process wrenching his previously injured arm.

And then he apologizes to the mugger? Who is apparently a repeat offender when it comes to purse snatching? What the hell. This is a case of what I mean when I say Slott is a sloppy writer -- the intent here seems to be to show that Peter has a familiarity with various street criminals, but it just comes off so pathetically wishy-washy and spineless. The joke with "friendly neighborhood Spider-Man" is that it's sarcastic; the neighborhood isn't friendly and neither is Spider-Man. It also puts Peter's sympathy on the purse snatcher, and not on the woman whose purse he snatched. If we go back to 2010, there's another purse snatching scene:

(ASM #627) Same crime, same method of webbing the purse snatcher, but he couldn't care less about the pressure he's putting on this guy's shoulders. His focus in on the woman whose purse was snatched. Similar scene, completely different tone.

To take it back even further, I'm very partial to this subway scene from DeMatteis' Spectacular Spider-Man. (JDM and JMS are probably my top two go-to Spider-Man writers.)

(Spectacular Spider-Man #199) This is exactly one issue before Harry's death, and Harry's gone full Green Goblin, so Peter's under a lot of stress, granted, but the fact of the matter is it's very easy for Peter to hurt ordinary people if he isn't watching himself. (Something something Wolverine is a loophole for him and that's why he can throw him out a penthouse window without a second thought.) He can't really afford to lose his temper in civilian situations, and that's something he's had to exercise some strong control over through the years.

(Spectacular Spider-Man #134) "Peter, you're -- you're scaring me." "Sorry. You're not the one I had in mind to scare. Later, hon." Note the hand print in the stoplight poll Peter had his hand wrapped around.

I think that, for all I will talk about his flaws all day, it's easy to view Peter as sort of -- inherently nice because he really is so good at the end of the day. But let alone nice, I don't think Peter's even inherently kind. I think it's something he works for, every day. It's not a natural reaction. It's a choice he makes: to be kind, even if it goes against his base nature. And if anything I think that makes it more meaningful that he's able to be so kind and be so good.

(Amazing Fantasy #15) "I'll see it to it that they're always happy, but the rest of the world can go hang for all I care!" That's a hard mindset to get out of, and while the guilt of Uncle Ben's death carries him part of the way there, he has to be self-motivated to make those changes in worldview, too.

There's just been such a serious dilution of Peter's whole personality the past decade and like, it's easy to blame Slott and Spencer and Wells and the last couple of runs. (I think Kelly is a decent enough Peter writer from what I've previously read from him, I am just. so tired.) But I find it difficult to like, solely blame it on the author. Editorial obviously plays the part, and so does readership -- there's a large swathe of the fandom that wants Peter to just be like, your Regular Little Old Nice Boy. Which is fine, that's their prerogative; it's when Marvel starts listening to what certain subsections of fans expect rather than the decades of preexisting canon that it becomes a problem. Like please I am begging you to let him almost murder someone again. For me.

Because at the end of the day, I think Peter's gentleness matters so much more when it's a choice rather than his default mode. When he looks at someone in his life and makes himself softer, sweeter, tender.

(ASM #509) "There are days I love her so much I can't breathe."

(Marvel Knights Spider-Man #5) "We'll be fine, baby."

(Webspinners #12) "Beautiful, benevolent smile. You never really told her. Not really. Tell her."

(Black Cat/Spider-Man: Evil That Men Do #6)

(Fantastic Four v5 #12) The gentle hold.

(Marvel Knights Spider-Man #9)