I see fans of the white guy Robins arguing about how the single Absolute Batman design document and comic page has somehow slighted their fav, but all I can do is sit here in mild awe thinking of what it means for Stephanie Brown to appear in Absolute Batman, the comic that's attracted the most new comic readers I've ever seen, the comic I saw a bunch of teenage girls just causally gushing about to their parents at the local indie bookstore. Stephanie Brown is in this comic, presented as a Robin of equal importance to the other Robins. She's piloting a fucking mech. How far she's come from "she wasn't really Robin", from being literally erased from continuity, from Didio deeming her a "toxic" character and barring creators from using her even when they asked, from never getting to be in any adaptation while every single other Robin gets to...
Stephanie Brown is in Absolute Batman. And unless they somehow fuck her up so completely she's unrecognizeable, that's such an undeniable win for a character that's been so buried, so mistreated, given so little for so long. I've loved this character for over fifteen years and I remember where she was when I started loving her. I can't not be kind of wowed. So many new people are going to learn her name.
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I think the fact that Tim’s childhood was actually fairly normal makes things funnier, actually.
He was raised in boarding schools and a bit of a latchkey kid, but he knew his parents loved him and he was supervised the majority of the year. He has normal interests, like skateboarding and superheroes. He has plenty of friends and meets up with them outside of school and everything. Even when he has to go to a new school, he finds a friend group. He dislikes school and he’s a dork. He has had multiple girlfriends, a homoerotic friendship, and a boyfriend. He’s intended to be the reader-insert, the Everyman, the guy that teenage boy readers identify with. As far as Batman comics go, he’s practically Normal McNormal Face on a surface level.
He also:
Responds to a temporary lack of adult supervision by stalking Batman with a camera to prove that Batman is being reckless. How did Tim know Batman was being reckless in the first place? Who knows! Maybe he just stalked him recreationally first.
Travels to New York City alone to break into Dick Grayson’s apartment.
Tries to clone his dead best friend (the other half of said homoerotic friendship).
Climbs out the window in the middle of a conversation with his guidance counselor.
Fakes an entire uncle and hires an actor to play him because he wants to live independently.
Runs away to a quarantined disaster zone, resulting in a huge manhunt.
Deduces Batman’s identity at age 9 and keeps it a secret (look, 9-year-olds are chatty).
Falls asleep on a rollercoaster, in the middle of a stakeout, and other inopportune places like the freaking dormouse from Alice in Wonderland.
Desperately attempts to keep the family together in Gotham War to a frankly disturbing degree.
Routinely ends up in random countries without adults, but it’s fine because he’s Competent (TM).
Hero worships Dick Grayson so hard he literally steals his identity.
Like, no, Tim’s insanity is not the result of cartoonish childhood neglect. Which means…
Does Ra’s have Tim’s Speen? A Deep Dive into Fandom Racism
The whole ‘Ra’s stole Tim’s spleen!!’ debacle is a very prevalent story in DC/batfam/tim drake fan spaces, with many people assuming its canon and creating even more content surrounding this narrative. This post intends to dive into the following topics:
The inherent orientalist writing of the al Ghuls
The canon events leading to Tim losing his spleen (spoiler alert: Ra’s doesn’t have it)
Why it is racist to parrot the idea of Ra’s having stole it
Common reasons people cite to defend this narrative
The inherent orientalist writing of the al Ghuls
First of all, what is Orientalism? Orientalism is a broad term describing the Western stereotype of Eastern cultures, or the Orient (particularly Asia and North Africa), as backwards and exotic. Coined by Edward Said, it describes the way Western civilization portrays itself as superior and rational, while portraying the Orient as irrational and wrong. Common orientalist stereotypes include the assumptions that Eastern societies are misogynistic, barbaric/violent, sexual/perverted, and inherently behind societally.
When it comes to DC, the way the al Ghuls are portrayed is inherently orientalist. They are of mixed arab/chinese descent - you can find some more details about that in this post by @/daminette-56 (the post is about Damian's Chinese heritage in particulal, but it still applies). They fit into the racist trope of the ‘Asian Assassins’ - elite East Asian ninja assassins which use traditional/ancient combat forms to kill. Ra’s is the controlling man, Talia is the Dragon lady/Femme Fatale, and their overall concept can be attributed to oriental views. This is furthered by the existence of Damian’s character, since it caused Talia to be converted to a 2-dimensional villain to facilitate Damian’s white saviour story when he is sent to live with his white father to ‘learn to live normally’, or to be civilized.
Despite this, the al Ghuls are interesting characters. Ra’s motive as an environmental terrorist and Talia’s inner dilemma over her loyalty to her father make them complex characters. Damian’s love for animals stems from his upbringing with the al Ghuls. The fandom tends to ignore this, however, and keep them as boring background characters without much depth.
When I analyze fandom racism surrounding the al Ghuls, it is important for me to distinguish between what is coming from DC and what is coming from the fandom. As such, it is vital to determine whether or not Ra’s having Tim’s spleen is canon.
2. Does Ra’s have Tim’s spleen?
The short answer is no.
Lets summarize the events which caused Tim to lose his spleen. Tim loses his spleen in his standalone Red Robin series. It happens in the second arc of the series (issues 5-8), called The Council of Spiders. There's a bunch of buildup, but Tim essentially teams up with Ra’s al Ghul to complete his current mission - finding Bruce, who is lost in the time stream. Tim agrees to work with Ra’s (after he kidnaps him and his coworker Tam), however he secretly plans to take down the League Of Assassins from the inside.
During this time, Tim survives an ambush by a group called the Council of Spiders. Later on, Ra’s tasks him with defeating this rival assassin group since he is the only one known to have survived an attack from them. Tim sets up a plan, however it backfires and they are attacked by the Spiders. In this attack, Tim is stabbed and resigns himself to death, however he is saved by White Ghost who stitches him up (presumably with the help of fellow assassins) and removes his spleen due to the damage it has sustained. When this happens, Ra’s is nowhere near.
Tim’s spleen is never mentioned again. The arc concludes with Tim blowing up all LoA bases that currently exist, and Ra’s threatens to blow up Wayne Enterprises in retaliation.
Ra’s is not shown to be nearby when Tim’s spleen is taken. He is not implied to have it. He is never shown in possession of it.
It is safe to conclude that Ra’s al Ghul is not in possession of Tim’s spleen.
3. Why is it racist to parrot the idea that Ra’s has Tim’s spleen?
The reason this fandom narrative is inherently racist is since it feeds into multiple orientalist stereotypes. As defined before, Orientalism is the idea that Western society paints itself as superior to Eastern society. Here are the two most harmful ideas it feeds into:
Creepy Brown Man imagery: Brown men in media are often painted as inherently creepy and dangerous. This is closely linked to the ‘othered foreigner’ trope, where writers focus on the otherness of characters of colour rather than any other trait. Now, I will not deny that Ra’s is dangerous. However, the way he is portrayed by the fandom as borderline obsessed with Tim, going as far as to keep his spleen as a trophy, clearly feeds into the ‘creep’ aspect of this stereotype. It also ignores the fact that Tim was kidnapped by Ra’s for this mission purely due to the tactical advantage - Tim was the only one to have survived a Spider attack, so it was logical to have him be part of the mission. Instead, it shifts the narrative to make Ra’s seem irrationally attached to Tim.
Sacrificing characterization for propping up a white character: Ra’s is never portrayed as anything other than an evil tyrant within the Tim Drake fan space. His characterization as an eco-terrorist whose goal is to save the Earth from ecological destruction is sacrificed, and he is instead characterized as power hungry, obsessed (see above paragraph), or plain evil with no reasoning behind it (all of which contribute to the Evil Brown Character stereotype separately. Together? It's even worse). Once again, it ignores the logic that accompanies Ra’s decision in choosing Tim, and either paints him as a poor victim attacked by Ra’s, or a fighter so powerful that even Ra’s had to acknowledge him. Any logic Ra’s applied to the decision is ignored in favour of propping up the white character.
4. Common justifications given for this narrative/storyline
It's literally canon! → as I've already broken down, it isn’t.
But Ra’s is obsessed with Tim!! He calls him Detective and respects him and his fighting! → Ra’s also refers to both Bruce and Dick as ‘detective’. This title is not exclusive to Tim and does not prove anything. Additionally, respecting someone as a fighter and stealing their body parts as a trophy for beating them are two very different things.
But Ra's wants Tim to be his heir!!! -> what does this have to do with his spleen
But Ra's is a creep!! -> he kills people, but hes not a creep. See above, he cares about Tim purely for his skills and nothing else
It is not out of character for Ra’s to take his spleen! He’s a cult leader and taking trophies from people isn’t uncommon !!! → Ra’s is an ecoterrorist. He has no use for anyone’s spleen. Although he is sometimes depicted taking trophies, they are in the form of land or material items, not body parts. (The assumption that Ra’s takes human body parts as trophies is also orientalist, by the way. Goes back to the original ‘Asian Assassins’ trope, as well as the ‘Barbaric Brown People’ ideal.)
But its a common story in fanon!! -> Commonality does not make something less racist
But I don't mean for it to be racist, I don't write it that way!! -> Intent does not make something less racist
Fun facts about the Five Founding Families of Gotham and Where They Got Their Money:
Arkham Family: helped found Gotham in the colonial era. There's no real information on how they got their money, but there's multiple medical professionals in the family, including psychiatrists (go figure).
Wayne Family: been in Gotham since the colonial era. Money mostly came from real estate/land in the 1700s, then transportation and logistics in the 1800s during industrialization, then tech and construction in the 1900s, but the Waynes have had their fingers in pretty much every industry related to technology and innovation you can think of over the centuries.
Elliot Family: been in Gotham since at least the early 1800s. Money came from founding the Gotham Herald (the city's major newspaper) and becoming a prominent newspaper family.
Kane Family: been in Gotham since at least the early 1800s. Money mostly came from real estate/land ownership (via rent and commercial tenants) with a healthy helping of sin taxes (Kane County, to the north of Gotham City, was known for its gambling, prostitution, and alcohol by the 1880s, so presumably the family was getting quite a lot of financial kickbacks from this via both official taxes and under-the-table payments).
Cobblepot Family: been in Gotham since at least the early 1800s. Money came from founding and running a steel company; by the 1880s they were prominent steel barons and had at least one political figure in the family (Mayor Theodore Cobblepot).
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Never not thinking about Outsiders #37 where Clark shows up because he thinks that Dick is crossing too many lines by hurting people, but Dick says that he's willing to scrape his own knuckles to save a few small corners of the world that Superman can't reach:
Then, just when you, as a reader, are still reeling from how Dick's sense of guilt is so insidious that he's willing to pay any cost to himself to stop bad things from happening, he brings out a lead box to show Clark he's not fucking around:
Clark backs off and the rest of the team are amused by the sheer balls on him, like, "You really bluffed Superman, huh?"
Dick just responds to them vaguely but we immediately cut to a panel of the lead box actually containing kryptonite; Nightwing, shrouded in shadows, only lit up from the glow of the kryptonite.
This is such a fun colouring choice, too, because we move from the bright yellow of the sky (not to mention, Superman's colours) to generally darker colours when Grace & Owen are talking to him, before eventually moving to more and more shadows, until the only source of light is the very thing he threatened Clark with. Clark, who inspired Dick so deeply that Dick wears a part of his heritage as a mantle. (Also, definitely needs to be taken with a grain of salt, but the green is reminiscent of Chemo, too, especially when you consider that before Dick hands off the team to Bruce, his last mission as an Outsider is dealing with Chemo.)
Moreover, Dick walking into the ship all alone, shoulders sagging, big frown and not unmasked — really important that we basically zoom in on his mask, almost voyeuristic in nature — as though he's unhappy with what he did, as though he's trying to convince himself that what he did was necessary.
Anyway, yeah, that's such a key insight into Dick's character. Like, the interplay between his determination, self-loathing and manipulation is perfectly woven.
He lets everyone underestimate him because not one of his teammates thinks he actually has anything in the box, even though just around the Crisis, the Annual had Grace saying Dick has ice water in his veins and is the perfect guy to do the thing that the Outsiders have been trying to do from the beginning: operating from the shadows & hunting instead of reacting.
(Aside: very interesting that Roy disagrees because I do think that if he had stuck around, he would've known Dick isn't bluffing and they would've had an argument about it.)
Dick himself doesn't correct anybody's assumptions. He doesn't let his history with Clark sway him from his belief that whatever he's doing is something he has to do for the common good.
Also, super interesting how he breaks off in the first panel, switching from that personal pronoun and action of "I need..." to the collective plural of "... none of you." He's trying so hard not to make this about his penance, as Roy correctly clocks in the Annual, but he can't help it.
It's not about what he needs to do, about how he needs to make up for his failures but it's about what other people have been failing to do. Dick is just the stopgap. (me when I lie to myself, btw)
The team has made so many public mistakes that all of them except Dick are pretending to be dead, but Dick's drive to do penance for all of it is such a key part of this arc. Like, look at what he says about the President of Mali that the team kidnapped, threatened, ousted and exiled:
Moreover, when you take into account that this is happening after Infinite Crisis, it means Dick is very intimately aware of what it means to have someone, who orchestrated the murder of people in the thousands, not get what they deserve.
100,068 people died in Blüdhaven at the behest of Slade (and the Society) but we know that Dick's sense of responsibility is deeply tied into his guilt and it's all skewed — so the above panel could be taken as an allusion to his perception of himself, too. After all, Dick was the one who failed to save Blüdhaven. Slade may have pulled the trigger but Dick failed to stop it from going off at all.
Isn't his life fun? His childhood friend creates a team to save Dick from getting lost in his grief over his other childhood friend. Then, just when she miraculously comes back from the dead and things are starting to look up, his city is blown up and he nearly dies. You can pick either of his near-deaths, by the way — whether it's Nightwing #116 or Infinite Crisis #7. Just know, he's never catching a break.
Hal Jordan as a character just makes me incredibly sad. He watched his father die in flight jet crash and yet he still wanted to touch the stars and his mother disowned him for it up until her death. His older brother never understood him and his younger brother chased after Hal’s love the same way Hal chased for his father’s love for his entire life. Hal is filled with such love and admiration and adoration for the JLA and Corps and his family and friends that it drips through the page and stains his footsteps and every decision he makes. He’s sick to his stomach with guilt so acidic it dissolves his teeth because he let fear rot him from the inside out and yet he pushes past it because what does his guilt mean in the grand scheme of things? What does his own pain mean in the face of evil when he can be good and push past it and be better and help? Hal is good and is stained forever by what he did and everything he ever does is to make up for it. He’s the man without fear. Fear is his phantom limb. He loves and loves and loves and it’s never enough.
Also I am completely OBSESSED with Kelly Thompson’s explanation of WHY Diana’s narrative position at DC as someone who characters fall in love with but she doesn’t necessarily reciprocate in a romantic way is written into Absolute Wonder Woman.
The way this from Aphrodite in Absolute Wonder Woman #19 engages with the fact that we cannot get a Diana appearance in a Valentine’s anthology that is about anything other than friendship and people crushing on her, that Diana has women obsessed with her in the text in ways she cannot fully return (see Barbara Minerva’s entire history and particularly Rucka’s explanations of how he sees Cheetah’s emotions towards Diana, see main universe Circe, etc etc).
It’s playing with a fundamental Doylist problem with Diana where she’s simultaneously always been an icon of women loving women (all the way back to exactly how the William Marston origins function) and yet she’s also simultaneously expected to be written as almost above the messiness of romantic attachments much of the time, particularly to women.
Diana’s been cursed/blessed to inspire and compel love from others, and like Aphrodite, because that love is induced she cannot fully tell whether it’s something she deserves or is involved in.
Now, she will never know whether someone loves her because they love her, or because they have no choice.
It’s so JUICY! So entangled in the shape of her storytelling! I adore this.
