Battleaxes for relatives

Like I said before, the biggest trouble with making Black Canary into Tim Drake’s grandaunt and giving Nightwing a businesswoman for a female cousin’s that it risks emasculating them as well as running counter to certain authorial politics. As Dinah Lance’s married to Oliver Queen and Olly’s a liberal, that sort turns Chuck Dixon’s run upside down considering Dixon’s a noted conservative.

Should Dinah retain that Canary Cry, there’s a chance that Tim Drake’s personality would change further into that of a belligerent idiot who has to deal with a really loud grand-aunt and a grand-uncle who could shoot him. Though that’s also implying his stepmum Dana Drake probably wasn’t that strong of a woman the way Dinah is. She endured torture (at least in the older stories) and soldiered on as the fighter she is.

Tim did interact with her but having her as a relative means that rather than Dana, she could’ve raised Tim more often or at least bothered to help her nephew jack along. Though I still think having her as a relative does challenge the narrative the way Dana and Stephanie Brown don’t. A woman who actually runs a humble flower business and can be really loud gives her a big advantage to women who just help their male counterparts a lot.

But that’s also implying that Tim Drake himself doesn’t seem to have interactions with his actual relatives the way Wally West does. (I actually think Bart Allen also has a similar problem where despite being Wally’s nephew and Barry’s grandson, he hung out more with Max Mercury.) I still think emphasising Barry and Dinah more instead of Max and Bruce would mean that Bart and Tim’s personalities would have to change.

Actually so do theirs too. Consider what’ll happen if Barry, rather than Max, had bothered to raise or interact with Bart more often to the point where Bart would’ve ended up as the detective that Tim should be. And when it comes to Dinah Lance, Tim would’ve ended up as a more comical Jason Todd.

Since I said that Barry and Dinah’s personalities would change, I think Barry would’ve ended up realising he’s got more in common with Bart than their original authors would’ve intended to and Dinah would end up scolding Tim a lot for messing up. Instead of being just another superheroine guest star, she’d end up as a strong, if forceful maternal figure.

Practically and essentially the true opposite of Dana Winters. Though that’s also implying that Dana’s rather passive in a way Dinah Lance could never be when you think about it. Even if you downplay Dinah’s superheroine aspect to play up the grandmotherly one, she’d still come off as forceful and tending to suffer gladly considering their respective characterisations.

The same could be said of what would happen if Dick had a businesswoman for a cousin. Well I still suspect should Bart and Tim interact more often with Barry and Dinah (now grandfathered into being Tim’s grand-aunt), Barry would’ve ended up just as silly and comical, even naughty as Bart is and Dinah could’ve been in charge of caring for Tim but more forceful to boot.

A logical possibility

The weird things about making Barry Allen Irish American and Tim Drake a Mexican’s that it wouldn’t change the canon much other than expanding it and that it’s a logical possibility. Tim Drake moreso since if most Mexicans have black hair and some Mexicans are even white-passing then he could have it both ways. Making Barry Allen Irish-American’s not that impossible either.

It could also be coloured by me being into Irish music at some point or another (admittedly I didn’t realise Boyzone and Westlife are Irish until later). I think these two as well as Altan are responsible for me thinking that Barry being Irish’s likely if because some of them, like Barry himself, are blond. Natural blond Irish exists. This makes it all the more possible for him to be this way.

If it’s possible for a Russian like Natalia Romanova to be a natural redhead, logically they shouldn’t have issues with Barry being of Irish descent (Russia even has one of the highest redhead populations, largely located in Udmurtia) or Tim being Mexican. These aren’t even that unlikely.

Tim Drake as a Mexican American

Or why making him Hispanic or Native American shouldn’t cause a fuss as black hair’s the most dominant hair colour on the planet. It also makes good casting sense as there are a lot more of these in Mexico and there’s a substantial enough Latin American population in America to justify this. The only real problem might be that some thinks it doesn’t fit canon.

Even if it’s much subtler than say making him black. (Though making him black would deconstruct some of the problems with Duke Thomas’s inclusion.) There are fair-skinned Mexicans as well as blond and brown-haired ones. Cameron Diaz’s likely a Hispanic American herself and she’s blonde-haired and blue-eyed. Sofia Vergara’s a natural blonde.

This should suggest a strong possibility that wouldn’t change his basic appearance much (as well as that of his father’s). In fact it wouldn’t change the entire canon much either. (It could even expand his father’s ancestry.) The only real problem might be that some aren’t too beholden to it, never mind that there are white-passing Mexicans.

And Mexicans do intermarry Gringos, which makes Tim being of Hispanic descent a logical possibility.

Telling in a way

I suspect whoever said that one character has a certain disposition and the other due to a bad upbringing must’ve been both keen on canon and psychology. In the sense of knowing that Jason Todd’s angry because of having a bad upbringing and possible immaturity whilst Tim Drake’s capable of venting out his feelings but when he does get angry, it gets bad. I could say similar things about Spongebob Squarepants and some perfectionists.

Spongebob does show a temper (especially when getting mad at Gary, Patrick and Squidward) as well as sadness and embarrassment but he’s a genuinely enthusiastic character whilst a good number of perfectionists I know repress their negative emotions a lot and try too hard to appear cheerful as a way to compensate for (repressed) shortcomings. Not necessarily a bad one.

But it makes you wonder whether if some people have problems due to trauma and some people develop perfectionism out of repeated and repressed trauma. Some are like this due to their natural predispositions.

The other thing

Like I said, I suspect that when it comes to female characters they’re only equally strong to their male counterparts. But in the case with making Black Canary into Tim’s grand-aunt as well as giving Dick Grayson a businesswoman for a cousin it risks emasculating them because they’re stronger than they are. Black Canary’s got a screaming power and that hypothetical businesswoman cousin’s potentially richer than he is and may even supplant Batman as his biggest financial supporter.

Never mind it does happen to some real world people. I guess these two provide the biggest non-platonic female relationships they could’ve gotten but not much because of how emasculating they can be to Dick and Tim’s fans. Dinah would’ve spent a lot more time raising him even if they fight a lot with Dinah having to scold Tim every time he screws up and he himself would do anything to not listen to her.

(She risks making Tim look bad and partly why she got depowered before.)

As for Dick Grayson, a businesswoman for a cousin would imply that she’s more financially stable than is he is and about as financially reliable as Batman is. Imagine if she were a multimillionaire heiress to boot but because she’s his cousin she’d end up looking after him too and rather than being a potential love interest, she’s also his platonic rival and supporter.

For Tim and Dick, having these women around as relatives would mean that they’d have much stronger platonic female figures in their lives the way the other Bat-women aren’t and will never be. It also makes you wonder why almost all the female characters created for them show up as love interests (glorified sex toys if you will).

DC has no issue with Superman having Supergirl as his cousin whilst being married to Lois and having had a crush on Lana. JJBA’s got Jotaro Kujo who seemed very platonic and disinterested in sex until he turned out to have a daughter. Marvel’s fine with Scott and Jean being related to Rachel even if it gets convoluted.

But Rao forbid if Dinah Lance shows up as Tim’s loud grand-aunt and Dick Grayson’s got a multimillionaire businesswoman for a cousin because that would mean the former develops any real flaws to play Dinah off (as her belligerent grand-nephew) and Dick would become less cool. Even if it does happen in real life.

Why so few strong female relatives?

It’s not that these are lacking in superhero comics (and anywhere else, see also Disney Comics and Jojo’s Bizarre Adventures), the only example of characters with strong or notable female relatives are in X-Men when it comes to the Summers family. I suspect that a good number of these comics are often written with the intention of appealing to young lads (especially JJBA at some point, given the author may’ve wisened up over time).

As for JJBA, Jolene Kujo may’ve been a good example of a strong female relative (admittedly I haven’t read up on stories featuring her yet) albeit someone’s daughter to boot whose father’s rather negligent. Not to mention trying to defeat her jailer or so as I know (little of). I’m probably wrong about it but it does show why not so many male characters in comic books have strong female relatives.

The only other characters comparable to this is Rachel Summers who’s even a recurring character in the main X-Men continuity comics (if you exempt how convoluted it gets) and she’s the daugher of Scott and Jean, Siryn (who’s Sean Cassidy’s daughter), X23 and Gabby, She-Hulk and Supergirl, who’s Superman’s cousin. I guess this only happens to some characters even if it risks making the female character still derivative or close to a male character in some manner.

Grand-fathering a character like Black Canary into being Tim Drake’s grand-aunt’s another matter where she evidently had a history of starring in her own adventures and eventually settling as Oliver Queen’s wife. She’s independent in a way the other female relative characters aren’t and having her show up as Tim’s loud, scolding grand-aunt (if/when she’s got the Canary Cry) would seemingly emasculate him.

Not to mention he gets played up as Dinah’s and Oliver’s disobedient, insensitive and rude grand-nephew (where schadenfreude happens in part due to Tim’s misbehaviour and deafness). Like I said, Dinah would be emasculating in a way Tim’s other female relatives and his own girlfriends would never be that’s if she’s got the Canary Cry at all. Same reason why Dick Grayson doesn’t have a businesswoman for a cousin.

Because that’s implying writers don’t have anything better to do with him…as in realising he’s often stuck in dead-end jobs whilst she’s the one with any real financial success and career stability. I guess for these two being audience surrogates, being related to strong and even overbearing female characters risks being really emasculating when you think about it.

Tim Drake as Dinah Lance’s grand-nephew

That may’ve been attempted in fanfiction before and these two certainly interacted but to have it occur very often (if Dinah were to keep her Canary Cry, as my memory’s not good), Tim Drake would have to have a very different personality to play off the interactions well. Rather than being an idealised mini-Batman of sorts, Tim Drake would actually have flaws albeit ones that deviate a lot from even Marv Wolfman’s and Chuck Dixon’s intentions.

In fact, he’d end up as a stubborn, rude and disobedient man as it’s going to be a long, glorified gag between him and his really loud, scolding grand-aunt. Basically everything he’s not supposed to be, that’s being Jason Todd but played for laughs. Hence the inevitable schadenfreude in the storylines should Black Canary be his grandaunt at all. That’s going to be really different in that he’s going to have actual flaws.

Albeit ones that make him unlikable even if it’s realistic given that he’s now stuck with a loud, scolding relative. Plus it does make you wonder why Tim Drake barely had any strong female relatives, given his biggest role model’s Batman and if Black Canary were to be grandfathered in as his grand-aunt she would’ve entirely replaced Dana.

In fact, him living with a loud scolding grand-aunt like Dinah (if she were to retain her Canary Cry at all) would be emasculating in a way Stephanie Brown and Dana Winters would never be.

Almost unbelievable

I still think characters like Kitty Pryde and Tim Drake suffer from a serious sense of cognitive dissonance in how contrived they are. The former’s supposed to be a normal woman yet barely does things most women relate to at times. It’s not that she lacks flaws (she’s got a hot temper) but that they went too far with her. I actually think she’d a doable anti-heroine had they excised the hacking and dragon thing for good.

(Some already did in a way with things like X-Men Evolution, Wolverine and the X-Men and the X-Men movies.)

She actually got properly portrayed as an assassin in the Age of Apocalypse storyline but apparently not much as it’s apocryphal. Missed opportunity since that’s taking where she’d logically go considering her power and training. (Probably because making her into an assassin, though much more realistic, doesn’t seem to sit well with others never mind her training and temper.)

As for Tim Drake, he hardly comes off as a normal lad at times. Not to mention some of the things Tim goes through seem more realistic had he been a girl. More people lose their heads over a woman losing her virginity than if a man did the same. (There’s a reason why slut-shaming’s a big deal.)

But that’s also implying that Tim’s just not that good of a character as some make him out to be. Like he’s really pandering and not to mention hypocritical in that writers paint him as a virgin never mind that he had sex with three women (Ariana, Stephanie, Lynx) whilst there are characters in JJBA who never date or flirt with women and it’s not much made into a big deal (as far as I recall, I could be nitpicking).

At least there’s more evidence for Jotaro Kujo being virginal/celibate (he’s revealed to have a daughter much later on) longer and better than Tim does. Maybe not necessarily clean (Jotaro may’ve wanked) but given he doesn’t date women for a long time, at least Jotaro seems more believable when it comes to his lack of sexual activity with other people.

It’s not so much that comics aren’t real but that there needs more believability and credibility to such portrayals, otherwise it falls flat.

Not necessarily normie but

Like I said in another blog, being a normalfag needn’t to be about being socially adept or whatever but rather being close to mainstream even if someone’s got geeky traits. Something like obsessing over dogs and fashion instead of superheroes. Or perhaps more parsimoniously, having interests that align more closely with the general population regardless if one’s a nerd or not.

Though the intensity and duration of interest can be a deciding one, if modest for some people. Tim Drake’s barely a normie in the sense of his interests being purposely closer to his target audience because if he were a normalfag, he’d be considered unrecognisable if his DCAU incarnation’s any indication. It could be me having much wider interests than before.

Not necessarily completely ‘normie’ but never too involved beyond a few things and even that’s generally fleeing. Maybe I might also be getting older but it does explain things. That and Tim being made for somebody else so.

Normalfag normal

I think I said it before but it bears repeating that whilst not at all unique to superhero comics but that anything pandering to geeks involves a near-exclusion of normalfag characters. That’s understandable when it comes to pandering to said audience but it also lends to insularity and some amount of narrative inbreeding even though some authors and editors are already doing something about it in a way.

But I suspect when it comes to normalfag normal characters, they’re the true straight people. However maybe too normal to be appealing. Normie doesn’t necessarily mean well-adjusted or socially adept but normie might inevitably mean like everybody else: boring and plain. Had Tim been a more normal boy who’s just found by Batman and was more into things like bad music, he’d be booed by readers.

He can’t be a pleb because that would mean he’s boring and annoying. Not that being a pleb makes you dumb but it risks making the character too bland in a way that reminds them too much of real life if the aim’s nerd escapism. Maybe not necessarily always the case but still.