Batman: Pennyworth R.I.P.

[Zaresh]

I think the thing that bothers me the most is Tim wanting to move in and try to help fix Bruce. Bruce has to want to fix himself. No one else can do that for him. But I’m still wondering if we’re not just losing Bruce, we’re losing the entire bat family over this.

Well, maybe that's a reason why Tim steps back in the end: because Bruce doesn't ask for help. Or maybe Tim was just fed up of everything and decided that it was enough. That would be a bit too, I don't know, arrogant? The saviour complex that Godlike mentioned would be here in some degree, even if soft and tamed. But, eh, I don't think being arrogant is in character for Tim.

[Godlike13]

Jason was shooting, but not aiming to kill him. At that distance, do you seriously believe he was shooting at Bruce? Shooting to kill? Jason, who is a very good shoot, who knows how to fight as good if not better than Damian and has a build almost like Bruce? I know this is an old discussion, btu really, Jason wasn't fighting back. What he did was the vigilante equivalent to pushing someone when you want to be alone.

Tim: that's a load of crap, and my point still stands. There were better ways to achieve the same.

Oh, please. Bullets are bullets. Talk about a load of crap. And the punch speak was dumb, but nevertheless it wasn’t malicious but a convoluted way of sending a message so says the story it happened.

[K. Jones]

I did feel like this was a bit of a continuation of Tynion's Detective run. I wish it was "more" of a continuation of that. Also it would have meant a lot more to me if some serious homework had been done and the moments of Alfred helping the rest were actual moments from comics near and far, because plenty, plenty, plenty of those exist. Of course it can still be done!

What else? The Dick part was actually quite nice. Damian is usually a tough write so I'm not sure I mind that it was a little off. I do like his motivation and attitude, just not necessarily how it played in this scene.

[Arctic Cyclist]

What do you think the bat fam would do if Batman washed his hands of them? Would they hang up the capes? I’d really like Damian to go off to boarding school or something- by the way, was duke there?

Thanks to Batman Beyond and other futures shown, we do know this!

-Dick will get married and have a child
-Barbara will become a cop and get married, eventually becoming the Commissioner
-Tim gets married and has children
-Damain seeks out competent mental health professionals, travels the world, and then gets abducted by his grandfather to be brainwashed and indoctrinated into the League of Assassins where he will establish long term relationships and become a calm, even tempered, fairly nice person. No firm evidence of children, but I am 75% sure that Nissa is his daughter, in multiple universes including The Animated Series and its tie-ins it's made clear that Bruce and Talia happily boinked multiple times. Ergo, she could easily be Bruce and Talia's granddaughter, especially considering her skills and sarcasm are very similar to Talia and Damian's


One of those things that has been made clear repeatedly by multiple writers is that the best thing that can happen to everyone is cutting ties with Bruce. He is emotionally, mentally, financially, and physically abusive (in the Millerverse, he's also heavily implied to be sexually abusive to Dick and Jason as well). Outside of The Animated Series, Li'l Gotham, and Teeny Titans we know that he's a terrible person. Even Earth 2 shows Helena is completely messed up mentally by her upbringing.

The only person, except maybe Damian who as a child soldier is going to be retrieved just like real life child soldiers without adult protection, who suffers from the loss of the Batfamily is Bruce. The rest are going to be just fine and start their own families.*

*We don't know that for sure about Jason, but it's a safe bet based on his current situation. Or he might become a priest. Either way, various canons have shown he's better off without Bruce in his life.

[Zaresh]

Oh, please. Bullets are bullets. Talk about a load of crap. And the punch speak was dumb, but nevertheless it wasn’t malicious but a convoluted way of sending a message so says the story it happened.

Bullets are bullets, yes; and Bruce wears* body armour, bat body armour, that apparently has no problems holding bullets. And most of the shoots where missing Bruce but one, as far as I recall, with Jason being, what, two meters from him?

The thing is, Jason would've stop to talk to Bruce. He did talk to Bruce afterwards. Bruce would've achieve more then have he talked with him, instead of launching punches like a madman.

Edit:

I did feel like this was a bit of a continuation of Tynion's Detective run. I wish it was "more" of a continuation of that. Also it would have meant a lot more to me if some serious homework had been done and the moments of Alfred helping the rest were actual moments from comics near and far, because plenty, plenty, plenty of those exist. Of course it can still be done!

What else? The Dick part was actually quite nice. Damian is usually a tough write so I'm not sure I mind that it was a little off. I do like his motivation and attitude, just not necessarily how it played in this scene.

I think this issue, or the part of this issue that deals with their dynamics and their problematic relationships, their fallout as a clan, was better placed in Batman, and not in this special, to be honest.

[Blue22]

Who says Bruce needs his help. He has Selina for support. Rebuilding the city, yes how ridiculous.

Whether or not he needed Tim's help is not the point. The point is that Tim was trying to show his "father" that he was there for him and there's nothing wrong with that.

****, Selina's part of the problem. Whenever King has his way, her presence makes the entire family irrelevant (remember that BS Alfred spat about having never seen Bruce happy until he was about to marry Selina)

Pushing the family away, where is this. He had them help with Bane.

Ignoring them while they are actively trying to reach out to him is pushing them away.

Bruce doesn’t know how to handle Damian, but that has always been a barrier between Bruce and Damian.

That barrier was more or less broken by the time Damian came back from the dead and only started to rear its ugly head again around the time Rebirth rolled around and family stopped being important to Bruce. But that doesn't mean doesn't try to reach out to him anyway. Difficulty be damned, Bruce, your son is hurting. He's been hurting long before this **** with Alfred started. Man up and be a Dad like you used to do.

But now they care? Babs, as big a fan I am, has no relationship with the kid

You don't have to have a relationship with someone to sympathize with them. In that moment, it wasn't about her personal feelings for Damian. It was about a crying child being ignored by the only person who had even the slightest chance of helping him.

and Tim and Jason are actively antagonistic towards him.

I'll give you Jason (who's antagonistic to literally everyone but still cares) but Tim and Damian have been pretty cool since his resurrection. They're not buddies or anything but they're not constantly at each other's throats like they used to be.

[lemonpeace]

Not bad.

But then I see Alfred still alive in Justice League 40.

that was a flashback, you can tell by the colors (although admittedly they should have made it more implicit), in that same issue Superman mentions Alfred's passing

[E.Marie]

Bullets are bullets, yes; and Bruce wear body armour, bat body armour, that apparently has no problems holding bullets. And most of the shoots where missing Bruce but one, as far as I recall, with Jason being, what, two meters from him?

The thing is, Jason would've stop to talk to Bruce. He did talk to Bruce afterwards. Bruce would've achieve more then have he talked with him, instead of launching punches like a madman.

Right. We know Jason is an expert at play acting with a gun. At the beginning of the second RHATO series he shoots around Artemis with his narration confirming that even through he doesn't think he could hit her (she's an Amazon after all) he still makes sure not to kill her. This is during a time he's pretending he works for Black Mask.

Jason has actually been remarkably open to talking to the family. He tried to bond with Dick in the annual, worked with Tim a number of times and attempted to establish a better relationship with Damian. He even forgave Kate for sending them all to Waller.

I'm not saying writers don't overdo it with the bat family fights, because they do. But I'd like to have these issues be worked out not swept under the rug for the next time. Maybe have these problems resolved through the solo titles so the problems don't get twisted around. I don't mind Bruce being wrong, I prefer it over him being beyond blame but at this stage it's getting unbelievable that anyone wants to work with him.

On who should comfort Damian: Bruce is his father and I think it would mean more to him than anyone else except maybe Dick. I never got the impression he had much of a bond with Barbara. He doesn't have the best relationship with Tim and he recently blamed Jason for false crimes twice. Bruce is likely the only one he'd believe.

[Godlike13]

You shoot a barrage of bullets at someone, you don’t get to play the should have just talked card.

[Triniking1234]

that was a flashback, you can tell by the colors (although admittedly they should have made it more implicit), in that same issue Superman mentions Alfred's passing

Yeah. I thought I was losing it but Alfred was brought up later when Clark and John talk.

[E.Marie]

You shoot a barrage of bullets at someone, you don’t get to play the should have just talked card.

Jason was literally leaping off a building with his hands full hoping to land on his crashing HQ when Batman attacked him. Batman attacked first and doesn't ask any important questions when he clearly has the upper hand. Jason literally does nothing to resist him until much later after he loses his friends and Bruce comes up from behind. But at that stage he already let Bruce use him as a punching bag and he was already injured.

[PurpleGlovez]

Not bad.

But then I see Alfred still alive in Justice League 40.

Read it again. The first and third panels depict Batman setting the Batplane on autopilot and leaving an empty cockpit, the middle panel was intended to be a brief cutaway of Bruce on a past case telling Alfred to remote pilot the Batplane back to the cave. It was a flashback, to demonstrate that Alfred is gone.

[Godlike13]

Jason was literally leaping off a building with his hands full hoping to land on his crashing HQ when Batman attacked him. Batman attacked first and doesn't ask any important questions when he clearly has the upper hand. Jason literally does nothing to resist him until much later after he loses his friends and Bruce comes up from behind. But at that stage he already let Bruce use him as a punching bag and he was already injured.

Ya, his hands full of guns shooting bullets. This is silly. There is no argument when Jason immediately dumps both mags at him.

[Korath]

I liked this issue, because the Family got to tell his truths to Bruce, and that's needed more than anything. Ever since Rebirth, and except under Snyder and Tynion's pens, Bruce has been an absolute ******* who doesn't deserve any of his children in his life anyway. And even Tynion, using King's terrible run as a foundation keep showing us how despicable and unworthy of being a hero Bruce is nowadays. He'd better spent some time with his paramour doing the naughty, since he clearly suscribe to the idea that the Batfamily isn't worth his time and he doesn't love anyone but her anyway.

[gregpersons]

Well, maybe that's a reason why Tim steps back in the end: because Bruce doesn't ask for help. Or maybe Tim was just fed up of everything and decided that it was enough. That would be a bit too, I don't know, arrogant? The saviour complex that Godlike mentioned would be here in some degree, even if soft and tamed. But, eh, I don't think being arrogant is in character for Tim.

I thought it was interesting to have Tim bring up his origin — he began by helping Bruce out of a similar place after Jason's death — and in Lonely Place of Dying, the major thing about Tim is he just isn't going to take "no" for an answer from Batman. He's signing up to help, like it or not.

But here, Tim doesn't want to step in unless Bruce will ask him to do it. I guess we're meant to see it as a kind of growth from Tim, maybe, it seems like Tim growing more into Bruce, unfortunately.