#comic analysis

Bruce NEVER aimed at Jason or intended to hurt him in the "batarang incident"

in the panel you can clearly see that the Batarang was thrown at the wall behind Jason and then it rebounded back

Bruce NEVER intended it to hit Jason.

now before you come at me with the "Bruce is Batman and Batman can never miss" bs, please understand that Bruce is not a god. He is no meta. He has no powers whatsoever. He is a human being.

In the end of the day, behind the skills, behind the symbol, behind the mission, behind the cowl, there is only a man.

A man who, at this moment, was very much distressed and was definitely going thru it™

not to mention that only a few pages before this scene, Bruce and Jason just watched Bludhaven gets destroyed. Keep in mind that Bruce has no clue whether or not Dick is alive or not rn.

Ofc jason is pretty shaken too at first (look at the baby's face sjfdsd thats his big brother oh my goshhh 😭💔) but he quickly shoves it under and starts to taunt Bruce

You guys have to realize that Bruce can become very suicidal and emotionally distressed when it comes to his kids, ESPECIALLY when it comes to Dick.

(like thats his first baby what do u expect?? also Jason bringing up his own death (something that was VERY traumatizing for Bruce) and using it to jab at Bruce was a very low blow.)

Bruce immediately wants to call off the fight and leave but Jason doesn't let him, fighting back harder than ever, and Bruce, left with no choice, has to play along.

And Bruce finally gets the upperhand and instead of using the moment to apprehend Jason, he tries to talk. Tries to address the guilt that has been laying heavy in him for years.

Jason is quick to say that it was not the case and that the real reason as to why hes upset is bc he feels like his death meant nothing. (which... is complete baloney. Jason had been haunting both Bruce and the narrative for a looong time lol.)

and then he presents the Joker and makes Bruce chose between him or the Joker. Tells him that he's going to kill the Joker and if Bruce wants to stop him he's going to have to kill him (to which Bruce vehemently says he would never do)

Bruce also goes on to say that his no-kill rule is something to prevent himself from being a killer BUT that is just his response.

I think the problem is that many comic readers don't know how to read comics...

In comics, you need to understand that just because a character says something, it doesnt mean its always true. This is one perfect example.

Yes this might be the reason Bruce believes is true, and while there is some level of truth behind it, its not the full picture. the real, more deeper reason behind his no-kill and no-gun rule is bc it's a trauma-response.

-Batman and Robin: Year One #8

Anywyas the reason I believe Bruce begged Jason not to kill the Joker wasn't because he wanted that man alive. Nopeeee. Bruce has tried to kill Joker manyyyyyy times before lol. He does not want that man alive I can tell you that.

The reason why he screamed "no" was because if Jason actually shot the Joker this would be the final nail in the coffin, the final proof that the Jason Bruce once knew was a thing of the past.

You need to understand that the Jason Bruce knew was a Jason who pulled his hand back and pleaded for the Joker's life.

-Detective Comics 570

So rn with the fear that his first kid is dead, the guilt of losing his second son, and seeing said son trying to do the very thing he stopped him from doing all those years ago... Bruce is in no proper headspace.

In distress (just look at the man's face) he throws a batarang at the wall, missing Jason completely.

And it was never meant to hit Jason.

we know this bc previously in the fight, Bruce threw two batarangs on purpose and still made sure it wasn't too fatal. Also that time Jason ducked to avoid getting hit.

So even if Bruce threw it on purpose here (which he didn't) it is safe to assume that Bruce thought Jason would duck once again which would make him drop the gun and the Joker... which is a win-win

Anyways the batarang hits the wall and rebounds back (completely unintentional btw) and it nicks Jason on the shoulder/neck. Jason, shocked, falls down clutching his neck while the Joker laughs.

AND before Jason or Bruce could react or fully process what happened, Joker blows them all up.

It’s implied that all three of them died in the explosion bc the next panel we see the universe colors showing up (they’re the same colors that was in the panel when Jason wakes up in his coffin after Superboy Prime’s punch)

TL;DR:

Bruce NEVER intentionally meant to hurt Jason and he was too emotionally distraught to fully judge his aim which lead to his batarang accidentally hitting Jason.

Stop ruining this scene with stupid hcs and fanon slop just to woobify Jason and evilize Bruce.

Even if Bruce is not your fav, understand that he was not in the right mind frame rn (he literally thinks Dick is dead atm) and made a mistake (throwing the batarang without aiming) which accidentally hurt Jason. and NO, he did not leave Jason to bled out on the floor--all three of them freaking died.

And later scenes both Jason and Bruce are completely fine with no wounds or scars (there is no "batarang scar" it was healed by the universe)

So yeah. I beg of you all... please stop spreading misinformation just bc u want angst and actual read the comic. There is plenty of angst in the comics btw.

Anyways. You are in a comic book fandom talking about comic characters. Read the freaking comics. Its not that hard to look at pictures. Bruce never aimed at Jason.

And remember... fanon ≠ canon.

Just bc you see it in your favorite fanfic doesnt mean it happened in the comic. Stop spreading misinformation and please actually engage in the source material. UTRH Jason was not a hero and THATS OKAY. You guys need to understand that a character can be in the wrong and its still okay to like them. (recommend clicking on underlined text btw)

Like seriously i swear that so many Jason fans need to get the same attitude of Superboy Prime fans which is "yeah he did that shit and i still love him"

Characters can be complex and just bc theyve done some stuff doesnt mean you need to agree with it. They can still bc your blorbo and if you meet irl you would slap them--these things can coexist.

Like you do not need to defend the man. Jason did some pretty bad stuff in his early RH years and its okay to admit it. He was in no way shape or form a hero when he came back--he didnt even take over the crime underground with good intentions. He didnt come back to make Gotham better, like fanfics like to say, he came back to control it (using the threat of death, mind you. His options was “either you do what I say or I kill you just like I did these eight men”)

Jason did not just kill rapists, he killed anyone that got in his way or whoever he deemed was necessary to fuel the city’s fear towards him.

And sure it worked in making Gotham a bit safer by lowering crime, but it wasn’t a good or safe place to be. Jason created a dystopian world, one he ruled with fear. Did it help? A little, sure. But a world ruled by fear and a world where freewill is smothered out is a world that is not good. 

Say whatever you want to say, but thats not a very good thing for a hero to do lol. And yknow what?? Thats completely okay. 

He wasn’t originally meant to be a hero. The tragedy of the character of Red Hood is because he’s almost everything Robin!Jason would despise. 

You guys need to understand that just because he looked hot doing it doesn’t mean it's not messed up lol.

Be like a Superboy Prime fan and learn to develop the attitude of “yeah my man did that shit but i love him regardless” and if ppl don’t like Jason bc of his early years of RH? Their loss. He’s such a fun, complex character but to understand him, you need to approach his character with that complexity in mind. 

But yeah. Just because Jason is your fav doesn’t mean you have to twist the narrative and create stuff that never happened (ex: Bruce ‘choosing’ Joker over Jason… like wth is that take 😭) to defend him. He’s not in the right here and that's okay. Now are we saying that we have to like Jason as evil? Uh no??? BUT just because you would like a more PG-rated, batfam-friendly, WFA-style Jason doesn’t mean you’re allowed to rewrite canon, invent motivations, or straight-up lie about other characters.

And if you're not gonna read the comics, at least take this post and understand that Bruce never aimed at Jason and Jason was in NO way in the right in this moment. (this all is coming from me, Jason's biggest fan: just look at my handle lol)

So yeah. If anyone ever gives a stupid take abt #that scene in UTRH, you got this post to shove their faces into 👍/lh

All panels, unless mentioned otherwise, are from Batman: Under The Red Hood

EDIT: just feel like I need to add this bc my tone's being misunderstood but this is NOT a pro-Bruce anti-Jason post. This is just a full explanation of what happened in this scene.

Both are in the wrong. (Jason pushing Bruce too far and Bruce throwing the batarang)

Both made mistakes and both do not deserve to be villainized bc of it.

I would like to start his by prefacing a few things.

1.Intersectionality is a thing

People conceive of marginalized identities as separate from one another. Disability, Trans rights, Gay rights, Women's rights, Racial Equality are all viewed as different issues to cover with varying levels of priority. Those who are interested in discussing these topics quickly become aware of "intersectionality", where we view privilege and discrimination through multiple identities rather than one.

But, the effect of these combinations of identities on people's experiences have been simplified. As Kimberlé Crenshaw has said using the example of the experiences of black women, misogyny and racism don't simply come together, they create something entirely new.

2. Every form of oppression has different frameworks and approaches

Intersectionality shows how living with different identities can lead to newly formed methods of social oppression, the new thing is formed because all the identities mentioned above need varying approaches.

Decolonization is Not A Metaphor by Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang explains how colonialism impacts different groups differently. The settler-native-slave triad model to understand North American colonialism is used to explain this.

If you haven't read it(I read it like, 2 hours ago, thank you @chanth-thara for the recommendation, it really helped!!!), it talks about how the strategies taken to eradicate indigenous people and the strategies taken to suppress and use black people are different with varying end goals, and the liberation of one group of people cannot be achieved using the same methods as the other. Indigenous folks want their land back. Black liberation, struggle and freedom often involved the acquisition of land which ultimately contributes to Indigenous colonization. To liberate both demographics would require an acknowledgement of people's role in colonialism.

Similarly, the queer struggle and the colonial struggle while occurring due to imperialism, each require different approaches. They can't be lumped in together.

Unfortunately, the Jay-Nia-Jon story does treat oppression due to Nia's trans identity, and Jay's subjugation at the hands of U.S's colonization as comparable, which leads to the story undermining the impact of colonization.

Now onto the main thing:

A Conflict Undermined

Media likes to keep marginalized stories separate. If it's a queer story it's gotta be queer, not about racism, or vice versa, if it's about disability it can't be about caste or class, etc.

DC Pride, AAPI Month specials, BHM specials etc. These offerings for diversity demand the creatives to tell stories confined to these identities, which is attempted, leading to a lot of DC Pride specials ringing hollow. We deviated from this pattern of queer characters showing up only for Pride with Nia, Jay and Jon's story

The three met each other for the common cause of saving Gamorra. The foundation of Superman: Son of Kal-El is anarchist rebellion and going against status quo to liberate a colonized country. While they were queer, they had another cause to fight for.

Gamorra then became the center of conflict for a DC Event. Sara Nakamura, President of Gamorra was assassinated to create political chaos in an already unstable Gamorra allowing the United States to move in to colonize the country. Jay was then shot and taken as political prisoner. Later, we find out that the plans extended to Jay's assassination as well at the hand of the U.S., along with a plan for a genocide of Gamorran citizens.

Nia, was complicit in all this, forced as it was. As Absolute Power and Secret Six went on though, the above events slowly started fading to the background, often spoke in vague terms. Jay and Sara's names weren't even spoken, and neither had appearances. Jay was labelled a terrorist, dangerous enough to raise the Justice League's hackles. He lost his family, his love, his friend, and his country.

Meanwhile, we were seeing more stories and insights on Nia in the aftermath of Absolute Power. We see her guilt, her exclusion from the Justice League, her subsequently missing her gender reassignment surgery, and her heartbreak/sadness over her conflicting romantic feelings for Jon. We see her willingness to risk her life, saving Clark and the Justice League at the expense of her family, and losing her life saving Jon, and her suicidality.

Secret Six showed the fracturing romance between Jon and Jay.

We're not talking about Gamorra anymore. Gamorra was already set dressing when SOKE was happening, though it was much better at centering the voice of the oppressed through Jay. As the story went on, Gamorra's safety & the impact of the colonization faded to the background and it became battle grounds for generating plot lines and angst for American heroes. Jay was written out of Absolute Power, with great emphasis placed on Nia's guilt and self-sacrifice.

Move to Innocence:

Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang write about 'move to innocence' where people part of a colonial project, out of the guilt, try to justify their actions.

Later, we see Jay's anger, and Nia reaching out. While the story is clear that what happened in Gamorra was unjust, Jay's reaction is....not received well. Jon and Jay often argue, Lori mocks Sara's death. While Jon did say something hurtful to Nia, he was empathetic to her the rest of the run. The same goes for Lori.

On text, these characters often tell Jay (or to each other) he is in the right but when interacting with him or when Jay takes initiative regarding what to do about Waller or Gamorra, he is rejected, often with a level of hostility.

Lori tells Nia Jay is right, but she continues to mock him despite playing a role in the fall of Gamorra. Nia doesn't trust Jay and turns hostile when he states Waller is not responsible, the country is. Jon tells Jay off when he wants to fight the U.S.

All of these characters, while acknowledging Nia(and Lori's) part in colonization, ultimately begrudge Jay for not forgiving them because of their moves to innocence. In a Doylist sense, the story has provided these American characters, involved in colonialism, the perfect excuse to be absolved of their guilt. Nia's trans and was forced to do it, lori had a bomb in her head. "I had no power, I couldn't do anything".

Sympatheis were starting off low and continue to dwindle for Jay. Nia, while ostracized and definitely in trouble, gets empathy from Taylor, Oliver Queen(also responsible for Gamorra, moreso than Nia), Jon. They all know to varying extents she contributed to something horrible but are ultimately reaching out to her.

Jay's objectively in the right for being angry, for killing the soldiers who were involved in the plans to colonize his country, for not being forgiving or even receptive to Nia. The narrative says it, but emotionally speaking he is policed and pushed away.

Are we seeing the problem?

Jay, Nia, and Privilege

Nia's struggle as a trans woman in modern times has been set to the backdrop of colonization. While Nia is trans, she is also a white American who passes well and was directly responsible for colonization. No amount of claims to innocence is going to negate that. Blood is on her hands. The narrative wants us to see Nia as powerful, narration and exploration of her powers emphasize this, even if she is inexperienced. She repeatedly immobilizes Jay with minimal effort.

Jay is a gay refugee, and his struggles are centered entirely on his identity as a freedom fighter and victim of colonization. While Nia has played a direct role in Jay's oppression, Jay has nothing to do with Nia's oppression. And as established before, Jay is meant to be seen as weaker than Nia. I don't want to stretch it and this is more, an inkling of doubt than anything else, but positioning Nia as a potential love interest specifically with the context of the colonization story also undermines his character in an effort to elevate Nia.

The way Jay is queer is not the same as the way Nia is queer, and it's not just because gay and trans. It's because Nia is white, powerful, and an oppressor while Jay is a brown asian guy who has zero support systems and is oppressed. The colonization makes the manifestation of his intersectionality too different from Nia's.

Conclusion

Look everyone online is pissed off about Dream Girls #2 rn. People have been pissed since Absolute Power: Super Son. After about a year, the DC fandom has reached a boiling point.

People in the DC fandom are not nice about Jay. Racism, colorism, queerphobia, lookism, hang-ups about a decade old decision regarding volcanoes and time jumps. Most people are lukewarm, or hostile about Jay and Jon being in a relationship. But tides have turned. As off the end of Secret Six, people still don't want Jay and Jon to be together but because JAY is clearly in the right.

This shithole of a fandom where any character that doesn't have black hair, blue eyes and skin as white as paper with a possible relation to Gotham is ripped to shreds, people are going "hey that's fucked up what's happening to Jay".

It's hard to articulate why, because the Jay-Nia dynamic is a mess of intersectional identities and fandoms haven't much experience dealing with that. I actually had a positive reaction to DG #2 but as I sat with it, it went from nice, to uncomfortable, to "oh god no". People have had BIG reactions to it.

This is my attempt at articulating why.

It's probably childish to expect a comic company in America to acknowledge its role in colonization to an extent where some reparations are offered even in fiction. But, Pandora's Box on this plotline has been opened. There's no imperative to address it, but if we want Nia to be a hero again, Gamorra and Jay must be written about directly, and extensively to the same extent Nia and Jon's stories have been told.

The romantic conflict is out of most everyone's minds. The pertinent story to be told here, is that of colonization. As my friend @faemorrigan put it, yeah Nia missed her bottom surgery but there's trans people in Gamorra who can't get access to any form of gender affirming care because of her involvement.

The consequences of these actions which have been shoved to the very back so no one; not the writers, readers or these American characters- have to think about what colonization really means.

It means theft, millions dead, forests razed, resources stolen, famine, starvation, assault, and decades if not centuries of damage.

[Thanks to everyone at the JayJon server for helping me with this! Specoal shootout to @gossamerblue who also heloed me articulate.

Starfire has been undermined throughout her existence in DC comics, with many adaptations of her toned down or not considered powerful. But if DC really used her potential, she could beat cosmic-level threats. Starfire’s origin starts with her being a warrior princess born on a planet named Tamaran. She leaves her planet to go to Earth and joins a group called the New Teen Titans, joining forces to create one of the most iconic groups in DC. Starfire can absorb solar energy and develop blasts called starbolts. Her abilities also consist of super strength, invulnerability, which is seen in her berserker state, an angered and nearly impossible-to-beat version of Starfire, and Omni-linguistics, energy blasts, flight, Tamaranean physiology, combat specialization, and energy absorption. Starfire’s potential reaches stellar possibilities, and here are some examples.

1. Stellar Body

Starfire’s solar absorption could allow for her body to be transformed into a state of energy or light, allowing her to destabilize nearby stars, weaken or absorb energy users, and increase her strength output as well as speed and endurance, she could go through fights for hours or days without getting tired, move faster than light, and lift forces comparable or surpassing superman.

2. Light Manipulation

Not sorcery, not witchcraft, but bending energy in its purest form, creating beams of light, constructs such as hard light restraints or solar restraints, photon spears, whips, wings, even capable of purifying dark forces, if green lantern can create constructs out of willpower, Starfire can shape stellar energy and radiation.

3. Emotional Based Energy Outputs

Starfire’s energy heavily relies on her emotions, her emotions regulate the severity of her power, love could turn her energy into a healing force, rage into destructive and emotionally harmful outputs, grief into heavy, gravity-collapsing fields of light, and feats that could be physically and emotionally devastating.

4. Emotion Manipulation/ Empathy

Since emotions are so crucial to her character it would only make sense to be able to influence other people's emotions through energy waves or touch similar to how Starfire can learn language through physical stimulation, she could learn things through touch, memories, or gain insight into events through visions like in the show Titans.

5. Psychic Powers

Starfire has been seen with psychic powers, trapping opponents in balls of energy, telepathic immunity, and her starbolts can have spiritual impacts, capable of internal vaporization, and attacking opponents on a psychic level, in Titans she also had psychic dreams and retrocognitive dreams and certain depictions, astral projection, expanding on this Starfire could adapt psychic abilities that match up to ravens, like emotional telepathy, emotional amplification, cosmic awareness and many more applications.

6. Tameranean Physiology (Adaptive)

Tamaraneans potential isn’t explored and it's been confirmed that Tamaraneans don’t even fully understand their own potential so it would make sense that Starfire adapts to make up for this, in battle she adapts to her situation, her energy could become more harmful, converting opposing energy, and being harder to harm.

My argument is not “Arab villains are bad” or “Ra’s al Ghul can’t be evil.”

My issue is with how the comic constructs him and what representational frameworks it draws from.

Orientalism is not just individual prejudice. It is a system of representation that frames the “East” as irrational, excessive, mystical, authoritarian, violent, primitive, and fundamentally different.

These patterns shape interpretation before a character even acts.

As Edward Said argues, representation does not simply reflect reality — it constructs meaning. Comics are especially important here because they rely heavily on visual shorthand and immediate recognition.

Characters are rapidly simplified into recognizable types: hero, monster, threat, savior, fanatic, victim.

And Absolute Superman very consciously constructs Ra’s as spectacle.

Look at how he is framed: hypermuscular, towering, looming over Superman. Heavily shadowed. almost inhumanly massive

The nudity matters too.

Ra’s is repeatedly drawn with large exposed areas of skin while Superman remains clothed and visually controlled. The body becomes spectacle.

The proportions push beyond ordinary humanity into something monstrous and mythic: heavy muscles, exaggerated size, animalistic posture, overwhelming physical presence and dominance.

That matters because Orientalist depictions of Arab/Muslim men have historically framed them as barbaric, hyperviolent, sexually excessive, patriarchal and physically threatening. The body itself becomes coded as danger.

This isn’t accidental visual design. It’s part of a long representational history.

Ra’s also isn’t framed as a psychologically grounded person so much as an archetype. He becomes less a psychologically grounded person and more a ritualistic, prophetic archetype; eternal, imposing, almost inhuman. Meanwhile Superman is framed as emotionally readable, illuminated, morally centered, rational and humanized. The contrast is intentional.

Ra's characterization becomes symbolic instead of personal.

That’s why the resurrection imagery matters too Lazarus pits, ritual language, dynastic authority and rebirth imagery. He becomes less a political actor and more an immortal Eastern patriarch archetype.

Another issue is how systemic problems become displaced onto Ra’s specifically. The comic gestures toward environmental collapse, inequality, global instability and authoritarian systems but these issues become condensed into ONE racialized body.

So instead of engaging structurally with those problems, the narrative transforms them into individualized evil. Ra’s becomes a symbolic container for extremism, apocalypse, overpopulation discourse, authoritarianism and irrational violence.

This is especially important because many of the ideas attached to him (population control, eco-authoritarianism, necropolitics) have real historical roots in Western political systems too. But the comic relocates them entirely into an “Eastern” villain figure.

That displacement matters. It obscures structural accountability by making one racialized body carry the weight of multiple global anxieties.

And these portrayals do not exist in isolation.

The American media has a long history of constructing Arabs and Muslims through spectacle, threat, mysticism, and dehumanization, especially post-9/11.

Alright alright I know everyones going crazy over the ending of the comic (I am too) but I don't see this moment talked about enough and how beautifully done it is.

We start with the Administrator: The man who took everything from her is finally dead. She reigns victory. She is now living alone in peace, leaving flowers for each and every gravestone that was left before Zepheniah Mann's passing. The gravestones left before him are carved out beautifully, time and effort put into each and every one of them. The Administrator even lays out the roses so they look like they're grown out around the gravestones.

And here we have Zepheniah Mann's grave. A slab of rock with only his initials carved into it. The other gravestones are large, extravagant, and have their full names carved into them. Zepheniah's remains small; little thought put into it.

The gravestone wasn't even for him in the first place. It was for whichever of his son's died first, whichever one failed him. He himself didn't put much care into the gravestone, so why should he deserve anything better? In the end, he was treated the way he treated others. He was the failed son.

The Administrator leaves the stems of the roses out for him. She just places them there, no thought put into it seemingly. But there is SO much thought in this very moment. She had everything planned out from the very beginning.

Every day, she watched as the man grew older and older. She was there for his passing, and as far as we can tell, she caused his death. She leaves out roses for each and every grave, except for his. She leaves the stems. To her, he doesn't deserve the flower, he deserves the thorns. They aren't placed with care like the other flowers had been, they are simply put down. She gives him exactly what he deserves.

The atmosphere has suddenly lost that beautiful lighting and vibrant colours, the sky has become more gray and dreary. The Administrator is waking up more devastated, putting less time and effort into her daily life. The stems are turning brown, wilting under her eyes. She cares less. She seems relatively unaffected by the things around her. She gets stung by a bee, but doesn't seem to care. However that last panel says everything. She's growing tired of doing the same thing day in and day out. The cycle of depression is a tiring one. Soon enough you realize: is it even worth it? After all of this, after I finally got the one thing I wanted. But what now?

The scene is now almost completely devoid of colour. The weather is gloomy, and the Administrator looks like she has been bedridden for a while. She has taken the gravestone into her bedroom, now having to wake up to the reminder that he's dead and gone, she got what she wanted. But at what cost? There's nothing left to do anymore. She set herself out for one goal and one goal only her entire life. What was the point anymore?

There's so much to unpack in these panels, I doubt I've even scraped the surface of this. She's lost all emotion, the next few panels showing that she doesn't believe there's a point in living anymore. It's a terrifying thought, setting your entire life up to do one specific thing, getting that thing done, and then having nothing else left to live for. It's such a well-done portrayal of how depression can destroy you from the inside out.

The running gag of Cass knocking out Steph is so funny.

She’s like “girl ur in my way” or “girl shits getting serious, don’t want u getting hurt”.

It’s really funny and cute. Poor Steph tho, lol. - legit at one point Steph complains that Cass broke her jaw lmao.

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I liked the idea of putting some more daily strip comics into my rss reader, and gocomics DOES post old strips in sequence every day (keeping archival materials in lively circulation 👍), and there IS a site that generates an rss feed for gocomics (they don't provide rss feeds themselves because they want you to subscribe 👎) so, I added the current Nancy run to my feed, alongside Peanuts and Calvin and Hobbes. a few days later it paid off big time with this strip:

I love this strip, but it's a bit weird, isn't it? I'm sure some people read the way you're "supposed to" move panel to panel in a typical comic: left to right across the top strip, then the middle, then the bottom. Easy. I didn't, though. My eyes darted across the page, circled around the upper left hand panels, before zipping to the big point of interest on the page: that big panel of Calvin's teacher as a great pink alien monster! the second panel in strip two, the view through the spaceship porthole of the alien landscape, got orphaned, turned into something I glanced at after the fact as I pieced the sequence back together.

which might just be how comics reading actually goes, in practice. more recent theories of comics, particularly ones coming out of the Franco-Belgian tradition, suggest we take in the page as a whole first before diving in panel by panel. that bottom left corner is also kind of a privileged position on the page, with a beautifully lumpy and toothy monster filling up almost the whole frame. no wonder my eye was drawn there "ahead of sequence"!

is that a mistake? one of my friends, when I posed the question, thought so, that the strip means to build up to that point but the page composition encourages you to read ahead. She also, intriguingly, suggested to me that even though we enter the strip seeing the whole page, we induce a kind of forgetfulness in ourselves so that we don't get spoiled. when we see the monster, do we already know it's there while experiencing it for the first time? (hypnosis, she suggested to me, is "merely a set of circumstances to help the mind do a set of things that it already does every day".)

others corroborated the weird reading orders but suggested it was deliberate. for Sarah, the whole left side of the page draws your eye down compositionally, from Spaceman Spiff's (Calvin's alter ego) gloved hands on the wheel, down to the Z shaped mesa, to the monster. this cuts out almost two thirds of the comic! but for her and a few other friends, that made sense: Calvin is daydreaming in class, and the point where his teacher pops up in front of him to demand his attention is a moment of concrete interest in a hazy sea of nonlinear sensation. another friend drew a diagram of an even weirder reading pattern:

actually, I think this makes some sense. theorist Thierry Groensteen's notion of "braiding" in comics suggests that we're constantly recomposing comics in our brains, not just panel by panel, but over the whole corpus of panels, looking for rhymes and resonances and ways the story relates to itself. it feels a little like panels 2 and 3 rhyme, to me. the frames are long and thin more than any of the others, they both have this prominent horizon line, and they both sit on top of panels 4 and 5. they relate to each other, to the point where I see how you could jump from one to the other, then back up the page and over! if I understand Groensteen right, he's not suggesting we necessarily jump around the page this way, I don't want to put words in his mouth, but I do think one of the implications of braiding and of taking in the whole page is that we might get off track and start wandering through time and space... which is exactly what Calvin is doing, after all.

I love that the actual joke of the strip hinges on these two little panels buried at the bottom of the page: the only shot not from Calvin's point of view, of him looking frazzled after Mrs Wormwood's dressing down, and then a little panel of him holding the book. that's braiding too: we understand the previous and future panels because we draw an analogy between all the perspectives we've seen elsewhere of hands (or claws) and get that Calvin is drifting into a daydream again, taking on a new role. the scenario shifts, and the color scheme changes to a complimentary one (red to green), but both daydreams are much more powerful, on the page, than the interruption by reality.

how do you read the page?