#determinator

A flag for archetropers whose archetrope/archetype is a determinator.

Saw "determination" and thought "passion." Went "passion" and thought "fire."

I kind of like the colours.

Original under the cut for (potential) eyestrain.

Remember how I said we’d have two cameo issues with Jason to check out? Yeah? Well, the second one would have been Best Of DC Vol 1 52, which happens to be nothing but a reprint of Detective Comics Vol 1 533 and a few other stories Jason does not appear in. I feel cheated. In any case, I’m not gonna rehash an old article, so onwards we march to Detective Comics 542!

We begin with Batman and Robin foiling an attempt on Bullock’s life. Turns out the hitman has been busy and has done his research on Bullock’s living and working situation, his routines, etc. The next day, Julia drops by the manor to tell Alfred & co. of her new job at Picture News, but Jason, the cheeky little devil, goes right to how she’s getting along with Vicki of course. Unfortunately, the conversation is interrupted by Bullock, who is escorting the social worker we’ve seen all the time, Mrs. Groscz, and they are here to take Jason away. Both Jason and Bruce try to protest, but to no avail. Jason has to leave with Mrs. Groscz. Good Batdad: 16 Jason Sass: 5

While Bullock successfully begs Gordon to contact Batman so he can take down that assassin, Bruce has called in Wayne Enterprises legal team. He filled out all the paperwork, but it was never fully approved before Jason started living at the manor and Bruce refuses to use bribery to speed things up. His solution: double every single one of the lawyers’ salaries and throw every penny that is in his bank account at getting custody of Jason as quickly and legally as possible. Goddamn. I want this Bruce to give a lecture to Prime Earth Bruce. He even ignores the Bat Signal to stay with his lawyers and sort out this mess, but guess who’s heading out instead? Jason. Determinator: 8 Good Batdad: 17

Jason successfully saves Bullock from another bullet and tells him to take chase of the assassin. At the same time, Bruce decides that he can’t ignore the signal after all. Jason then saves Bullock from a second bullet as they corner the perp and Batman arrives to kick his ass. Bruce goes into full “you could have died!” mode again, but Jason points out that swinging from the trapeze is equally dangerous and saving a life, even if it was Bullock’s is worth it. He is committed to sticking with Bruce, but also aware that he needs to retreat for now, and so Jason heads back to his temporary new home while Bullock cuffs the assassin. Determinator: 9 Pulling The Reins: 11

Here it is, one of the major retcons that happened after the transition to Post-Crisis for the Batfam. We’re only focusing on Dick’s appearance, the rest will be dealt with over @whothefuckisjasontodd. 

This entire story is a background retcon and is therefore a flashback, so it doesn’t take place in the present day. 

The major thing this is retconning is something that was only recently established in Secret Origins by the Teen Titans people. One thing that happens in DC is that the different departments sometimes…conflict. Dick belongs to the New Teen Titans folk, and the Batwriters, instead of leaving their Nightwing origin intact, shoehorn in some drama and retcon parts of it for more conflict. 

We open with the Joker, because why not. He’s not quite the face peeling guy from modern comics–not yet anyway–but I still hate his face. 

Dick is shot, and this is the point maybe someone should have reconsidered the complete lack of protection the Robin armor offers. 

It takes some amount of skill to tangle yourself up so effectively and not fall to your death, I suppose. 

Determinator - 2

80s Batdad was pretty free about calling him ‘son’. 

And ‘boy’. Honestly, this retcon of how Dick and Bruce separated ways is the weakest part of this origin. The stuff with Jason is fine–far preferable to the Pre-Crisis one, and feels organic for a new Robin. It’s the part with Dick and the fallout from that where gaping plot holes are apparently. It’s a little similar to the ways that Tim’s origin is weak in places and DC just handwaves it. The longer you think about it the more you go ‘hey wait a minute’. 

The first ‘what’ thing is that honestly, we’re really expected to believe that this is the first time Dick Grayson has ever been seriously injured as Robin? That this is the straw that broke Bruce Wayne’s back and he’s like ‘nope this eighteen year old can’t do it, but five minutes from now I’m gonna offer it to this twelve year old street kid under some dubious belief that street kids grow up fast’. 

This is ironic foreshadowing in several ways, really. 

Like…really? The absolute waffling that Bruce is doing here, it’s not surprising Dick is mad at him. One second he’s a child, the next a man, depending on how Bruce wants to spin it. He is literally being the worst kind of ‘do as i say’ father that I’m having actual flashbacks to frustrating arguments with my parents. This is a pure dad move tbh. ‘You’re old enough now to accept my authority’ Bruce pls. 

Anyway, this is pretty clear that Bruce is relating to Dick 100% as his kid and not a friend or little brother. Bruce is also coded quite a bit older here; he’s certainly not coming across as a guy who is close to Dick in age. 

Batdad - 1 

Bruce acts explicitly like a parent towards Dick as opposed to a friendship or partnership. 

Anyway they end on reasonable terms. Dick is basically like ‘whatever you can’t stop me from doing it on my own’ and flounces off to become Nightwing as per the rest of his origin that’s still intact as this point. 

Disclaimer: While this article is founded in scientific fact, it contains hyberbole and conscious exaggerations for the sake of comedy. Do not take my ramblings at face value. You can find the sources at the end of the article and tools for scientific fact-checking under the “Learn more” link on my blog.

For millenia, writers, poets and musicians have stared out at the sea, at its wondrous greatness and the calming sight of its waves. Generations upon generations of artists have drawn inspiration from the haunting songs of whales, the beautifully coordinated dance of fish baitballs, or the ghostlike swarms of jellyfish. Roman poets, medieval artists and Victorian authors…

…so all in all I wouldn’t at all be surprised if some weird death metal band took inspiration from this goblin-looking motherfucker called the longnose lancetfish.

I mean seriously, it looks like the sailfish’s cousin in its “shut up mom” phase, and even its scientific name could pass for the name of a metal band.

*guitar solo complete with growling*

Despite the name, Alepisaurus ferox is not an abhorrent slimy monstrosity, but a- well, it is an abhorrent slimy monstrosity, but what I mean is that the “-saurus” suffix is non-indicative. This thing is not a reptile, in fact, reptiles would kick the bucket with superluminal speeds if they were to take up the lancetfish’s lifestyle. Instead, it is roughly what you would get if you took a sailfish, performed rhinoplasty on it, had it listen to “Crawling In My Skin” on loop for five days, then dump the results into the Indian Ocean.

Observe:

This edgy Naruto AMV in fish form may grow to upwards of 2 meters (7 feet), which means you could probably use it as a sleeping bag, should you want to sleep in a deep-sea carnivorous snake-fish for some fucked-up reason. It belongs to the order of Aulopiformes, sometimes called the grinners. True to this name, it sports the most shit-eating perma-grin in the animal world, and “shit-eating” is not entirely figurative in this case. These guys will eat almost anything they come across - cephalopods are their favorites (in which respect they are closely relatable to yours truly), but they will also eat various fishes, crustaceans, tunicates, salps, and even each other. That’s right, the longnose lancetfish is a habitual cannibal - if no other form of brunch presents itself, it will wolf down its own kind without hesitation. Given that it lives in depths of up to 1400 meters where no algae live and thus the food chain is rather poor, going full Kirby on its fellow lancetfishes’ asses is a quite common occurence in its life.

I don’t have any proof for this, but I like to imagine that they suck each other up like long, slimy spaghetti.

While they primarily terrorize the Indian Ocean with their presence, they are found in every subtropical region in the world. Not that it matters, since they prefer to hang out in the freeze-your-balls-off dusk zone a.k.a. the bathypelagic zone, about 1400-1500 meters deep, which is mostly uniformly cold, dark and boring everywhere in the world, subtropical region or not. That would be fine and dandy, if not for the fact that they migrate - and this is not some walk in the park. Some adult lancetfish haul ass from their subtropical habitat up to the Subantarctic - which is 5000 kilometers at least. They probably don’t have much to eat on these camping trips, either, considering that the waters they cross are warm blue water, which means they are poor as shit in food chains. And the reason they go? Food.They reproduce in the subtropical (they are hermaphrodites, by the way, I forgot to mention this), but feed in the subantarctic, where it’s colder e.g. the water is more oxygen-saturated and therefore can sustain more food chains.

These fuckers, instead of adapting to their food-poor environment like any sane fish would do, decided to take no shits from anybody and cross thousands of kilometers to feed instead. That’s some generic anime protagonist level determination and deserves serious respect. For being edgy bootleg sailfish knockoffs, they are definitely not to be messed with.

FUCK YOU IMMA LANCETFISH

Sources

Encyclopedia of Life (EOL)

FishBase (further references to scientific papers included)

International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN)

World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS)

Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS)

Global Biotic Interactions (GloBI)