KELSO :]

Hello! I'm Kelso, this is my comic blog (I follow from @strangesickness). I love comic books and spreadsheets and often make spreadsheets about comic books! I love TimIvesAri and my favorite DC character is Duke Thomas!

My favorite comics are Robin '93, Secret Six (all of them), We Are Robin, and Birds of Prey '99. Other than Duke, I love Barbara Gordon, Scandal Savage, Jay Nakamura, Jon Kent, Selina Kyle, and Stephanie Brown.

My posts about my dream Duke Thomas solo can be found here: #The Signal (2025) is real to me

My posts about potential WFA stories can be found here: #there should be a WFA chapter where...

I'm kind of an annoying post-crisis purist and I spend most of my days thinking about how Duke could have fit into that era. Despite this, current releases still make up a large percent of my weekly comic reading. I post about new releases as they come out, to avoid spoilers please block #wednesday spoilers.

I ship everything. Particularly TimIves, BatJokes, DinahBabs, DickTim, DinahShiva, and JayJon though.

My LOCG is searchforahero, I review comics there sometimes. I also talk about comics on my website overwinter (on the "wednesday spoilers page). Please feel free to email me [email protected]. Either to chat or if you have questions. I have written some Batman fan-fiction which can be found here.

"I don't like the new guy playing James Bond. I don't like Curtains '95. I don't like the 'new' Bible. And I don't have to!"

I'm mostly just. Okay I don't like War Games or general Stephbin era (I love Stephbin don't get me wrong but. Everything surrounding her is hell). In fact it is probably one of my least favorite comics of all time. But. Augh. Steph's constant struggle to prove herself against Tim and other vigilantes is SO (dies). And it is really fun to me to transgender beam that. Like I am already soooo fascinated by Steph as a mostly regular teenage girl in this world of people who constantly underestimate and disrespect her because of this and how that stunts her potential as a hero, so it is very natural to me to sometimes think about her as transgender during War Games sometimes as well since my own experiences with misogyny are so often intertwined with transphobia and I find that intersection very interesting to explore in the context of superheroes, and DC doesn't exactly have a wealth of well-established trans men to choose from (I am very aware of the few that exist tbc) if I want to explore this specific experience. So. My most lovely Steph Brown who Gets It <3

Like so many other vigilante stories, War Games just soooo easily maps onto such a common trans experience of being compared to your cis peers by people who want you to fail. I'm also pretty fascinated by the concept of Bruce who is aware Steph is a mostly-closeted trans man but does not make it clear he knows this and very much does use it to fuck with him. I do think War Games era Bruce would be perfectly willing to use Steph's dysphoria to get him to behave how he wants him to. I think about this page a lot for many reasons, but one of them is because I am sooooo obsessed with the concept of Tim basically being everything Steph wants to be in a man, and Bruce knowing this. Like Steph is into Tim, but he's also just. Deeply envious. I think War Games era Steph is at a very difficult time when it comes to his view of his own self and gender and I love thinking about that really weighing on his relationship with Tim.

Robin (1993) #126

Before we move on to better things, I do also think a lot about a Steph who wanted to use the Spoiler identity as a chance to just be a guy for a bit, but getting outed pretty much immediately and feeling very robbed of this chance very early on.

Which brings us to... my much happier late 2000s trans Steph thoughts. I love the idea of Steph coming back as the Spoiler, but since everyone thinks he's a different Spoiler he gets to experience that early dream of this vigilante identity allowing him to live as a guy where no one knows the previous version of him. I think he would go a little bit longer before revealing his id than in canon, and just generally really get to have fun with it <3 I just think Steph deserves to live out these types of things wahaha I'm not really sure what I'd do about Batgirl 2009 because. Gestures. Batgirl 2009! But also I see the specific confrontations (particularly the StephTim confrontation that directly lead up to Stephgirl) going very differently than they originally did. Already have very confused and complicated feelings on Batgirl 2009 Steph and the Spoiler/Batgirl mantle situation in post-crisis. So. IDK. But. I kind of just want to say forget all the stupid shit that happened with Steph in Robin around this time and just let him be happy wahaha

I do also really like trans woman Steph <3 who I have veryyy different thoughts for her story trajectory than I do trans man Steph. Mostly with 90s era Robin and the Spoiler mantle succeeding in its goal of letting Steph live as her true gender with the mask on. Also... I kind of have an AU in my head where trans!Steph doesn't actually "die" during War Games because of reasons somewhat related to T4T TimSteph wahaha I can not explain it right now I think my brain is melting. But I do think the both of them being trans would change their relationship in pretty interesting ways both with each other and with their hero mantles and I think this would also change the way the pre-War Games stuff goes down...