You know, now that I think about it, and based only upon my own limited experiences and conversations with others, it does seem to be a trait that genuinely nice male identifying persons do tend to be fairly good about that. Or, well, at least the ones into female type persons do.
You know, for all this comic repeatedly presenting Joe as being a master slut/sleaze/manwhore, do we ever see him with a woman? We know he’s got a black book of sorts and there was that segment where a lot of women hated him for his star ratings. But I don’t recall seeing him with a girl. He’s been in proximity to females like Joyce but he’s never got his arm around one, he never introduces one as his special lady, a girl is never seen exiting his room in a hurry. So is he really the big slut he makes himself out to be or has he been posing as one this whole time?
Well, there’s Roz, and Malaya, and I feel like at least one other in one of the Slipshines maybe… but yeah, I doubt he gets near as much action as he claims to get
He slept with Roz to shoot a porno and then a few times afterwards, Malaya in a slipshine and Penny the now-fired TA. The only thing we know for sure that he’s lying about is that he’s never had a threesome while saying he “talked a big game” but that’s probably less that Joe never scores and more that he just has a normal amount of sex that an attractive and sexually capable college student would have as opposed to an endless string of conquests like he sold it as.
Joe doesn’t date, he just has one night stands since he’s terrified of emotional relationships and think that the best way for him to never hurt anybody is to stay so closed off that any pain he causes can be fixed with apology donuts.
My assumption is that he hasn’t slept with anyone since Malaya and that there are reasons for that.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Roz, Penny and Malaya were it for his college career too.
Even his claims have dropped off since the list came out and his behavior’s been even more performative and his attempts to hit on girls more perfunctory and apparently aimed at driving them away.
Well probably now yeah, though we’ll see. Apparently the Joe/Malaya had some characterization about Joe feeling used and that it was transparent he was into Joyce back then so I wouldn’t be surprised if he hasn’t really had the motivation for sex since Malaya, and once the Do List had come out it probably sank to zero.
Prior to that, though, I do think of him as someone who had frequent hook-ups, just not every single night with a different woman. I don’t think it was ever just Roz, though now that I think about it I think an interesting place to take Joe would be for them to try and have another go at it and he realizes he doesn’t know the first thing about her.
I think in the near term, they’re going to get spotted together in public by Jennifer and Asher and maybe Raidha. Sal will have to mention that Danny is her boyfriend, to which the others will respond with condensation masked by politeness.
And that’ll open up some drama, both with how Sal chooses to respond to the immediate situation, and by prompting her to do some thinking about who she is, now that she’s chosen someone like Danny as a partner instead of someone like Asher.
Long term though, I have no idea. I think they’ll be good for each other.
I’m expecting either Danny or Sal will fuck this up eventually, but hopefully not for a while in-universe so we can get a few real-life years of them being an adorable couple together.
Maybe all kinds of people are attracted to all kinds of different things and Danny just happens to have traits and a personality that is attractive to Sal despite what stereotypes or assumptions based entirely on outward appearances would have you believe?
‘You realize you’re talking about things you did with my sister, right?’
‘Step.’
‘… OK, but I’m not a porn character!’
‘…’
‘…’
‘*cough*’
‘… Not that kind of porn, anyway.’
A) Does Joe even know about the Amber/AG link?
B) Joe absolutely is a porn character. His video with Roz made quite the rounds on the Pornsters sites way back when.
Are you looking at the last panel? The tail comes from outside the right edge of the panel in that one, but in the second panel, which the bejouled blowjob cat is talking about, the tail is very much pointing straight at Danny’s hat and not to the outside of the panel.
Hey when you have positive affection coming your way it’s important not to question TOO MUCH, you just appreciate it coming your way. Like the old saying goes “Don’t look a gifted horse in the mouth”.
I’m a little confused by the dialogue balloons in the second panel. The first two bubbles’ tails both point to Danny, like he’s answering himself? Or did his hat suddenly gain sentience? Because I’m willing believe that could happen.
The word balloon tail is going off panel. Danny being drawn large in the next panel is a coincidence. I can’t think of any other times a character from a later panel has spoken to someone from a previous panel.
I think that is actually a change or I’m going insane. Cause I remember or at least think I remember the tail of that balloon pointing more toward Danny and not off panel??? And now I will never be 100% sure if this was the original layout or a quick change for better readability!
May be too late seeing as you’ve already tapped out, but just thought I’d jump in because I was talking about this on a thread higher up. It’s definitely been updated, somebody said it was going to the right so I scrolled up and refreshed and watched it change.
It’s an entire strip of Danny saying that actually maybe his hobbies are fun and he’s interesting and also pretty good at sex, and has value as a person that the coolest person he knows sees in him and he’s learned to realize in himself and it’s just so gosh-darned swell.
Gotta love the alt text reminding us that four months ago we found out Batman doesn’t perform oral sex because he’s Batman, and this is official DC mandate.
How weird is it that Batman doesn’t do oral is official character lore. Apparently writers can imply whatever they want but that’s a huge blow to the character. Batman is less cool because some executive decided Bruce going downtown would somehow hurt toy sells.
I could understand if they were upset about the whole banging a sometimes villain thing. But I’m seriously confused that it was specifically the muff diving they hung up on.
I think it has more to do with censorship and official depictions of sex for characters. The topic itself was brought up for a sex scene in the adult animated cartoon Harley Quinn. I think the original spirit of DC’s response to the scene was “We can’t allow you to show Batman performing oral sex in animation.” because of a perception it would hurt the character’s brand. Parents won’t let kids buy Batman toys if a cartoon shows him orally satisfying his lady. (Even if that take is probably really out of touch). But it reads more like “No! Batman doesn’t eat puss cause he’s a hero! And hero’s don’t do that!”
And that’s how you character assassinate one of the most popular superhero icons of all time.
Yeah, but even the ‘because kids’ argument doesn’t work very well when
A) it’s an adult animated series only available on a premium streaming service, the odds of kids watching it are not zero but are heavily dependent on some parental supervision/vetting fail. Or parents who are genuinely okay with it, but in that case they’re not going to hold it against Batman.
And B) so many, many years of highly sexualized scenes in Batman comics that went by without editorial saying a word. (First issue of Catwoman in the New 52, anyone? Just to name the first example that comes to mind and ISN’T an infamous case of sexual violence?)
Not just comics, animated features. I know we tried to forget but lest i remind everyone of the killing joke?
Eating his implied long term partner’s pussy is going to damage his brand, but fucking his best friend’s daughter who’s half his age and emotionally vulnerable is A-OK
I purged the TKJ adaptation’s Bruce/Barbara thing from my mind. Bad enough The Killing Joke itself involves what’s pretty clearly sexual assault of both Barbara and Jim. (Remember he spends the torture sequence naked and leashed, and she was stripped naked and photographed after being shot.)
I REFUSE to believe that Bruce Wayne isn’t not only willing to do Cunnilingus but not GREAT at it. For no reason than I refuse to believe he could keep up the act as a billionaire playboy without having ladies talking about how talented he is with a tongue.
Tactical Oral.
I can’t see Batman being a person who fucks. Like, at all.
He’s a sad lonely man who puts all his energy into being really good at beating people to a pulp, this man does not have anything resembling a sex life.
You’d be surprised, how many women, not counting Talia because she raped him, that still find him attractive. It goes to show that people can be miserable 90% of the time and still have a sex drive.
Ugh, that retcon seriously didn’t do anyone any favours, but yeah, there’s lots of women we know Bruce shacked up with. Which is good, because a Bruce with a strong supporting cast and a lot of people in his life is infinitely more interesting.
One of my preferred Batman fanfic authors takes the tack of “Bruce Wayne fucks like he’s solving an engineering problem; Zero emotion, but damn is he effective”.
One of Batman’s most longest running supporting cast members is a dominatrix in a catsuit that Batman has been constantly noted to go easy on in comparison to his other rogues gallery because “she’s just a thief” and so chasing after her is just a fun game between the two, if not how they actually go on dates.
Like one of the cold opens to Brave and the Bold has Batman and Green Arrow tied up and getting lowered into a hole full of panthers and the entire time he and Catwoman are just like five seconds away from hooking up. He says he’s going to collar her for god’s sake.
I mean he’s been fucking cat woman for aeons now, they’re married in some continuities. Wonder Woman was also a major pull. Tbh i think anti-hero esque villains and other heroes are the only ones that make sense for him, he could never fuck a normal person other than to like, keep up Bruce Wayne’s playboy image. And under no circumstances should he ever fuck any member of the bat fam. Seriously can writers stop putting him with Barbara, especially when she’s written as his best friend’s daughter or HIS SON’S FIANCE
Yeah, I can’t see him having a relationship with anyone who’s not a super in some way themselves, but he straight up almost married Selina a couple years back and it didn’t go through only because she called it off because Batman can’t be happy or something. The original Huntress was their Earth-2 counterparts’ daughter.
But also, SERIOUSLY NO ONE WANTS BRUCE/BARBARA TO BE A THING. Stop trying to make it a thing. We reject it.
Look, Sal, his pamphlets have to be safe for work if he wants to set up his stalls in public where little kids can see them. Danny’s not trying to be a douchebag.
The NSFW editions come out after dark. If you didn’t go see them, that’s your own fault.
I’m just picturing this day from Joe’s perspective and it’s kinda hilarious- he’s trying to just go about his day while pretty much everyone comes in at random.
Since I read this comment I have not been able to stop giggling. Joe’s just been standing in the corner of his own room while people come in and do wild shit for no reason he can understand.
I may have wanted to punch him past the end of the buffer when he threw down with Ethan over Mike’s corpse, but Dan is absolutely the Walkverse character who has taken the biggest step up in this incarnation
I feel like “Last few years” may be a time worth googling, so I did it for you. Clark Kent Jr has existed since 1965. Jon Kent (The current name of Superboy) showed up as being Superman in Batman Beyond, back in 1999. In the 2006 movie, Lois and Clark had a kid, Jason, with super powers. Jon LANE Kent showed up in Superboy in 2013 as an alternate timeline. There’s also been a huge number of cameos in other TV shows.
The current Jon Kent got his own series in 2016, which was 5 years ago.
So like… “Pretty recent”, maybe this rendition. But most DC comics get their runs renewed every five years or so, even Superman. “The son of Superman, who also has superpowers” is almost as old as Superman himself. And the name Jon is pretty decently old as well.
That’s kind of a stretch. The current character isn’t the same as various other past “son of Superman” variations, not even to the extent that the current comic Superman is the same as the 1960s one (or the 1930s one, for that matter.) All of the previous ones, as far as I can tell were alternate futures or the like. Not in mainstream continuity (or whatever passes for it before being rewritten.)
If we’re nitpicking, the current series is also Jon Kent’s first of his own, though he did co-star in Super-Sons with Damian Wayne for a few years.
He’s a recent character, despite the concept of Superman having a son not being a new idea.
I can see both ways. I once read a TV Tropes page saying Goof Troop renamed Goofy Jr as Max, and I thought “Did they, though? Or is Max a different chartacter who also fits the description ‘Goofy’s son’?”
I don’t even consider Damian Wayne to be the same character as Ibn al Xu’ffasch from Kingdom Come or Tallant Wayne from Brotherhood of the Bat, even though they’re all not just takes on “Son of Batman”, but specifically on “the child Bruce and Talia conceived in Son of the Demon, but who Denny O’Neill insisted was non-canonical”. They’re just such different characters.
I started this actually meaning to say how I saw it both ways, and then I got more convinced “they’re not the same character” as I wrote, and I forgot to change my first sentence.
Which is fair! But I always feel a little annoyed when people treat “Well, that character is new” as a response to them introducing Queer/Minority characters. 90% of the time, the character is as old as the series itself. Superman himself may as well be considered “New”, if you consider that his current run started in 2018.
Of course the other argument you see just as frequently is “Why did they have to make They should have just made a whole new character!!!” (Think, why did they have to make Thor a Woman? Why did they have to make Ms Marvel Muslim? Why did they have to make Iceman Gay?)
So, you can’t make a brand new character, you can’t have new aspects to old characters. It’s like you’re only allowed the same heroes, forever and ever. It’s weird.
Jane Foster Thor got the usual complaints (and then they were painfully literalized in the comic by the guy who had She-Hulk wear a power limiting bikini and posit that no longer being conventionally feminine in appearance means she’ll never be sexually harassed) but her run of Thor remains acclaimed and popular, and no one ever got on Ms. Marvel’s case because Carol Danvers hadn’t been Ms. Marvel for two years at that point and then Ms. Marvel’s comic sold so well she basically became Marvel’s breakout start of the 10s and is now getting her own show and far eclipses the comic popularity of Captain Marvel, probably the MCU and wider media popularity too in a few years.
Iceman… is actually maybe the worst example, because he was written as gay entirely for a final issue plot twist where Jean Grey goes into his mind and tells him that he’s gay and that bisexuality isn’t real, and since then Iceman, a character who already barely mattered, really only factors into who his newest boyfriend is and they’re always New OC Boyfriend. The new Pyro who’s gone and now Emma Frost’s formerly dead now resurrected thanks to a Mutant-born cure for death gay brother who is basically a New OC Boyfriend because he showed up like twice in the Emma Frost ongoing nobody read.
Oh and he fucked Deadpool once.
I don’t remember too much whining about Alan Scott at DC, for example, because they made it cool and interesting by, like, telling a cool and interesting story where an elderly man comes out to his family after finally being given the chance to be honest, to say nothing of some of the really high profile examples of this like Jason Rusch, Ryan Choi and Jaime Reyes, the latter two having gone on to find some stable popularity, came about when their predecessor were unceremoniously killed off in someone’s else’s story. Anyone who says “they killed Ted Kord for diversity points!” is an asshole, but “they killed Ted Kord for this new guy!” is a pretty fine thing to complain about in a kind of media that runs on iconography. Jaime’s the best Blue Beetle but it’s not like you couldn’t have him without a deceased Ted, and anyone who only cared about Ted dying for the dreaded Political Correctness never really cared about him in the first place if that’s why they’re mad he’s gone.
Plus you totally can introduce a new character. Everyone likes Nadia Van Dyne (and specifically relevant to this conversation, she’s ace), the bio daughter of Hank Pym who becomes the new Wasp, because Janet was A. no one’s favourite Avenger and B. wrote Janet as a main character in the Unstoppable Wasp ongoing where in the history of the entire character she gets to talk about her feelings on That One Hank Pym Moment and not have a male character get angry for her and just generally gets to be a cool and supportive mom to Nadia. Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur technically involves a replacement in that Lunella Lafayette is a replacement of the Moon Boy character from the Devil Dinosaur comics, but, like, those were in the 70s. The concept was rebooted as Calvin and Hobbes but actually Hobbes is a four story tyrannosaurus.
Chuds are gonna chud, but it ain’t always black and white.
The phrase “Superman’s bisexual son” should mean a lot to me the way “Batman’s bisexual Robin” should have too, but wow did that wave of nothing hurt me more than I thought it could.
Like especially Tim Drake what the fuck that was barely my headcanon that was just actually canon to me this whole time, but by the time they’re ready to say it oh of course it’s when he’s broken up with his longtime (as in basically since his own ongoing in the 90s) girlfriend so he can hook up with New OC Boyfriend, the most fascinating and enriching of characters and not, like, Kon-El, that guy Tim cared about so much that when he died he tried cloning hundreds of bodies to bring him back.
Jon Kent’s a bit more of a complicated case because he got rapidly aged up while in space, came back, and now he’s Superman in his own series that’s four issues in. Jon as a teenager has been kinda sorta total trash garbage bad? Actually definitely that, ’cause that initial run of comics and his own series he shared with Damian Wayne created the greatest introduction to the Superman mythos since the original Supergirl, and he was based on the idea of “what if Gohan was Superman’s son?” That rocks, and then it’s gone because Superman being a dad to his 11-year old son is, like, mondo uncool or something, and Jon kissing his own New OC Boyfriend doesn’t really strike me as the thing that justifies his age-up for me because, like, you can actually be queer as an 11-year old. You can have schoolyard crushes on boys and write them Valentine’s days cards and it can be as sugary and completely devoid of depth as the crushes kids have on each other actually are, like the one Jon actually had during his own appearances on a girl in his hometown, and lo, it was sugary and completely devoid of depth, like kid’s crushes are.
But that can’t happen, natch, because being Queer in fiction usually starts with “so which one of you is the… you know” and so if a kid is written as Queer you’re actually exposing them to sex, because being Queer is still innately sexual, and Jon can’t be exist as a Queer character until he’s old enough to fuck.
We’re talking about a company that has flat refused to ever put Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy together in a canon comic (but Harley can sure as hell hook up with Booster fucking Gold of all characters???) and who had the main writer of the Batwoman comic walk out during the New 52 because his plans for her marrying her longtime girlfriend were nixed by editorial on the grounds of superheroes only being allowed to be miserable. I think comic writers who do this are as well intentioned as possible, one time they removed Green Lantern Alan Scott’s kids from continuity in the New 52 reboot, one of whom, Obsidian, is one of DC’s first gay characters, so to make up for that the rebooted Alan was written as a gay man and then come the restoration of all the previous stuff they just kept Alan being gay and said he had been in the closet his entire life, which, like, wow I can’t believe this guy who was active in 1941 felt the need to pretend he was straight, they just enriched his character writing him gay because you don’t get to see pudgy old farts in spandex be queer because you’re only allowed to be queer if you’re hot, but something I’ve come to realize about representation is that being seen is the first step, but being heard, to see characters live and have stories where we learn what being queer means to them, that’s more my alley nowadays and it’s not some place I really think big corporate superhero characters are ever going to be allowed to tackle no matter how hard those well intentioned writers try.
‘Cause you know who’s bi as shit? Catman. Apart from some not at all subtle metaphors pointing knives at Deadshot (a barely moral sociopathic killer who sometimes has to rattle off a list of reasons why he can’t murder everyone around him, who refers to Catman by the pet name “Tomcat” and whenever Catman went over the line violent Deadshot would try to calm him down and reason him back to normal because “that isn’t like you”) by the time the Secret Six got another volume he just straight up got to be depicted on a date with a man and a woman at the same time, and the last series ended with Scandal Savage resolving her love triangle the advanced way by just marrying both of them.
But nobody knows who Catman and Scandal Savage are, so you can actually just write them as Queer and in a way that’ll annoy the person who gets annoyed by the existence of Queer characters and also the existence of real life Queer people. We’re fine as long as we sneak under the radar.
I haven’t been following the Jon Kent books too much, but my read is that they aged him up because they wanted to make him Superman for a bit rather than because they wanted to make him queer. Could be wrong of course.
Specifically, Jon getting aged up was part of a cancelled initiative called 5G, and I don’t know why there are so many things called 5G and which one is the sinister liberal conspiracy, but basically all the main Justice League characters were getting phased out for legacy characters. Luke Fox would become Batman, Jon would be Superman, and I think this is where Yara Flor the new Wonder Woman was made?
So he bounced around a bit, joined the Legion of Super Heroes, came back and now he just kind of exists and the Superman mythos got back to being as boring and lame as it’s been in decades.
I have no doubt Tom Taylor has the best of intentions in this choice, he is in fact writing a comic named Superman where the main character is a bisexual guy, but I’ve been out of the closet enough that “this queer character exists” isn’t really the endpoint for me anymore when I can’t even bring myself to like every part of his existing status quo that came about at the cost of the one I really like, and also this part could still be there for a kid Jon.
Everything else is accurate, but I’m under the impression Harley/Ivy has been canonized in the mainline books lately? (There was definitely a kiss in the Harley Quinn ongoing a while back, and Heroes in Crisis – gag, but in continuity – shows them together to kill off Ivy but she gets better at the end because comics.) So you know. Finally, after WAY too long, they get to be canon in mainline continuity but are still a relationship most explored in spinoffs and elseworlds. Still not great! But better than it was.
‘We don’t know what to do with Jonathan Kent so let’s age him up’ really is a decision that annoys me. ‘Bisexual Superboy, a few months after Tim Drake got to be canonically bisexual, but NOT the Superboy who was subtexty with Tim Drake for decades’ just feels like rubbing salt on the wound. (Steph breakup I don’t mind, but then my introduction to Steph was her run as Batgirl where they were in an off-again phase.)
Harley/Ivy is canon in that there’s no mask about it anymore but they’ve been extremely unwilling to ever just have them actually hook up in any kind of long-term capacity.
That’s fine in the sense that it’s superhero comics, which are soap operas and therefore we will stop caring if we get what we want too soon, but I mostly brought it up in contrast to Alan Scott and Secret Six; it’s fine to be textually, openly Queer (and that does actually manifest in ways beyond “kissing a person of the same gender”, if that’s how I’m coming off and I do need to emphasize there’s a difference between a Queer character who has a casual or background relationship with their sexuality and one who just has it There and it Exists), just as long as you’re not so important that it’ll scare anyone off. Alan Scott is an elderly dude in red and purple spandex who gets to tell a story about how he’s gone most of his life lying to himself to hold onto compulsive heteronormative values, and it took being able to be true to himself in an entire separate reality before he could say it out loud. Scandal Savage has a love triangle with one girlfriend who is a crazy warrior woman and the other is a stripper, and because Secret Six never set the charts on fire and the New 52 is coming to end it all anyway Gail Simone just shrugged and had her marry both of them.
I know this makes me sound like a rabid shipper but yes actually, it should have been Kon because if there was anyone Tim loved other than Steph, it was him and “Tim Drake gets to be queer but with New OC Boyfriend” isn’t really the impactful hook it wants to have.
Cloned him. Like a hundred times. Just to see him again. When there was a joke in Young Justice about how the two of the were basically Impulse’s parents.
I think that was in a Pride Month special of dubious canonicity, since it included a flash forward which obviously won’t happen because they aren’t allowed to age? Eat, Bang, Kill Tour is a Harley Quinn the animated series spinoff, I believe, and Injustice is likewise outside standard continuity.
I’m glad I’m not the only one pissed about the treatment of Jon in the comics, for all of the reasons you listed. Super Sons was a delightful little book, and it’ll be awhile before I forgive DC for cancelling it. After all, it actually made Damian tolerable as a character!
But more than just scrapping a book that seemed designed to get comics back to its kid-friendly roots and help introduce a new generation of fans, it was the way it all went down that bugged me.
So Jon goes out into space with Jor-El, who is alive again for some reason, on a field trip to spend time with grandpa. Except, whoops, they manage to fall into the Crime Syndicate’s reality. Jon is immediately captured by Ultraman and spends the next several years being tortured by an evil Justice League. When he finally escapes and gets back to his own universe, he finds out that it’s only been a few days because timey-wimey business.
Oh, and during all of this it comes out that Jor-El is responsible for Krypton blowing up. Because why not.
So Jon Kent gets his childhood stolen from him and endures years of physical and psychological torture just so that DC can have a teenage Superboy again. Despite Connor Kent being right there.
Jesus Christ, Dan… when they say “nice guys finish last” that’s not necessarily what they’re talking about, but good to know you’re probably taking that advice to heart as well.
Probably not so many as you might suspect. We know that most of his success was posturing and we know that he’s been largely avoiding any real effort since revelations when the list came out.
Roz, Penny and Malaya. That’s all we know about and it might well be all there was.
Danny probably got laid more often, even if he was only dating AG for a few weeks.
The boy’s still getting used to feelings like “maybe I’m interesting and good at things” and “maybe I have an inherent value as a person that other people can see me in based on something other than my slavish subservience to them.”
Heh, all I’ll say is Dan just had his Bull moment, Joe had the Dan moment and things will never be the same. 😉 Only thing is, will dan end up being hired by aliens for some weird job also.
*if you are wondering that is reference to an episode in Night Court.
– Asserted his attraction to Ethan in the most fucked up weird way possible.
– Told Mike to fuck off forever so hard it actually killed him.
– Dropped Ethan like a rock when he told him that he’d stand by and let Mike laugh at him were the one in the coma, and we know he would.
And now the coolest person let him know she likes him a whole lot and Danny finally has the ability to not only believe that, but that he’s good enough to be liked.
I didn’t know how to deal with a Danny who had fashion sense (a deep betrayal to the bisexual identity) and was so overwhelmingly wholesome that he proved to Sal that he’s incapable of doing wrong by Sal’s specific traumas, I think Danny doing all that with this level of confidence might drive me to try and actually marry this cartoon character.
Damn it, Willis! What does “Danning it up” even mean anymore? Becoming self-aware and confident in yourself while giving space for other people to be comfortable around you?
Joyce and Becky totally destroying their friendship in the span of ten minutes because it turns out for all their love they never understood each other’s beliefs?
Eh I dunno, or at least not in the traditional sense of Danning it up where he runs wild with his romantic fantasies at the cost of the actual person in front of him.
He’ll obviously still cause some grief, that he’s grown so much is at least in part of the kind of person he used to be, but obliviously causing pain to Sal doesn’t seem like something he would do at the moment considering last chapter with his gifting the bike to Sal he didn’t really react negatively when she turned it into a transaction and used those gift cards she left to buy her flowers that he totally bought for himself, but she can have them if she wants, which led to the first time Sal got to talk about how she feels that people only do good things for her to attain emotional blackmail over her, so Danny declared that if he’s going to do right by Sal then he’s only going to do so in ways she appreciates now that he knows what not to do.
Danny also mentioned. To dorothy about using a grappling hook during sexual relations with Amber/amazigirl (although i do not think he mentioned it was during oral)
Danny looked nice yesterday in his coat and scarf so the Council of Bisexuals ordered he fall in-line with bisexual no fashion sense energy, an inherent fact of our way of life.
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Special Features of the Nice Guy™ Wilcox model
I have to agree with last panel Sal though.
Sal, always thoroughly read their CV before making an offer of boy/girlfriendship!
You know, now that I think about it, and based only upon my own limited experiences and conversations with others, it does seem to be a trait that genuinely nice male identifying persons do tend to be fairly good about that. Or, well, at least the ones into female type persons do.
That makes him basically Selina Kyle
Joe needs to leave
End of the Line, Joe!
*cues up The Traveling Wilburys*
I understood that reference dot gif.
Did you though?
It’s the hat
It’s the rain
It’s the world that’s ugly.
Dan: might he be a god?
Has it been established which floor these guys are on?
I’ll say one thing. It’s not even ground.
**points at comic**
Three stories, right?
Aren’t they all on the same floor?
They are.
Yep, I’d forgotten that Sal said that.
The student becomes the master. I love this I really do.
Except I’m pretty sure Danny has never learned anything from Joe, and he’s all the better for it
Not even from Joes mistakes?
touché
You know, for all this comic repeatedly presenting Joe as being a master slut/sleaze/manwhore, do we ever see him with a woman? We know he’s got a black book of sorts and there was that segment where a lot of women hated him for his star ratings. But I don’t recall seeing him with a girl. He’s been in proximity to females like Joyce but he’s never got his arm around one, he never introduces one as his special lady, a girl is never seen exiting his room in a hurry. So is he really the big slut he makes himself out to be or has he been posing as one this whole time?
Well, there’s Roz, and Malaya, and I feel like at least one other in one of the Slipshines maybe… but yeah, I doubt he gets near as much action as he claims to get
He slept with Roz to shoot a porno and then a few times afterwards, Malaya in a slipshine and Penny the now-fired TA. The only thing we know for sure that he’s lying about is that he’s never had a threesome while saying he “talked a big game” but that’s probably less that Joe never scores and more that he just has a normal amount of sex that an attractive and sexually capable college student would have as opposed to an endless string of conquests like he sold it as.
Joe doesn’t date, he just has one night stands since he’s terrified of emotional relationships and think that the best way for him to never hurt anybody is to stay so closed off that any pain he causes can be fixed with apology donuts.
My assumption is that he hasn’t slept with anyone since Malaya and that there are reasons for that.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Roz, Penny and Malaya were it for his college career too.
Even his claims have dropped off since the list came out and his behavior’s been even more performative and his attempts to hit on girls more perfunctory and apparently aimed at driving them away.
Well probably now yeah, though we’ll see. Apparently the Joe/Malaya had some characterization about Joe feeling used and that it was transparent he was into Joyce back then so I wouldn’t be surprised if he hasn’t really had the motivation for sex since Malaya, and once the Do List had come out it probably sank to zero.
Prior to that, though, I do think of him as someone who had frequent hook-ups, just not every single night with a different woman. I don’t think it was ever just Roz, though now that I think about it I think an interesting place to take Joe would be for them to try and have another go at it and he realizes he doesn’t know the first thing about her.
Careful Danny, don’t let it go to your head. That will not end well for anyone.
So what are the actual odds he fucks this up?
Well it’s either gonna be him or Sal, 50/50 shot.
I think I’ll go for the long shot that neither of them fucks this up.
I give them at least two weeks which should put us into 2025 or so.
Yeah, like if/when anything bad happens with them, I don’t think it’s going to be as simple as good guy/bad guy.
Some how, some way, Walky is going to fuck this up.
Put me down for running out the clock.
I think in the near term, they’re going to get spotted together in public by Jennifer and Asher and maybe Raidha. Sal will have to mention that Danny is her boyfriend, to which the others will respond with condensation masked by politeness.
And that’ll open up some drama, both with how Sal chooses to respond to the immediate situation, and by prompting her to do some thinking about who she is, now that she’s chosen someone like Danny as a partner instead of someone like Asher.
Long term though, I have no idea. I think they’ll be good for each other.
Their “mature and grown-up” masks will start to crack.
don’t you mean “condescension” …?
Probably. I certainly have no expectations of Jennifer not being a gasbag.
I’m visualizing condensation as a physical part of a conversation. Maybe an intimidation tactic of some kind.
I think he’s fine. He deserves to have a little pride that someone likes him just because he’s a nice guy.
Agreed. Self-worth/esteem is not a bad thing.
Also his humblebrag flex is pretty damn good. Like, that’s a tinder profile winner if I ever heard one
It’s not Danny’s head that I’m worried about. It’s the head that Danny will —
**is firmly shown out**
I thought that the whole point of-
…. oh, wait, Rose already got ejected for that bit of wordplay. And here I thought I was an original and cunning lingui- *vaudeville hook*
Nono the phrase you are looking for is “until he Dannys this up?”
Even though he is a little lucky this time, he is still Danny.
Dapper hat Danny is an evolved being.
To Dan things up now means being really wholesome and packing sandwiches on biking trips.
I have a suspicion they’ll soon attempt to redefine what it means to ‘Danny {someone} up’ as mindshatteringly good oral.
Will it succeed, though, remains to be seen. Probably in a pornagraphique titled “Dannying up Sal” or something.
I’m expecting either Danny or Sal will fuck this up eventually, but hopefully not for a while in-universe so we can get a few real-life years of them being an adorable couple together.
If he’s hanging upside down for this maneuver then he can’t help it all rushing to his head…
I’m betting on this being a healthy relationship with ups and downs but the two returning to each other after figuring out each hurdle along the way
Because dammit we need at least ONE healthy relationship in this comic!
So that’s why Becky’s crashing with her sexual hangups and fears she’s not attractive enough to Dina.
Danny and Sal stole all the healthy relationship energy for themselves.
So Danny and Sal are relationship vampires?
Sarah: “Why is everyone stealing my schtick!?”
No, Sarah’s a happiness vampire, there’s a subtle difference.
This is gonna be one crazy game of Mario Kart.
The last one’s going to be a tough act to follow.
Sal’s gotta climb out the window and play the last lap while suspended in midair, or it just doesn’t feel authentic for her.
Bet now Joe wishes he’d listened a little more in the Zippy the pinhead phase.
Maybe all kinds of people are attracted to all kinds of different things and Danny just happens to have traits and a personality that is attractive to Sal despite what stereotypes or assumptions based entirely on outward appearances would have you believe?
‘You realize you’re talking about things you did with my sister, right?’
‘Step.’
‘… OK, but I’m not a porn character!’
‘…’
‘…’
‘*cough*’
‘… Not that kind of porn, anyway.’
“Oh my god, you can’t just walk in on me. You’re my (looks into camera) STEP-sister.”
“Oh come on, I just your (looks into camera) STEP-sister.”
You know what maybe Danny should be wearing the shirt and Joe should be standing to the left of him.
Matter of fact if Joe and Danny ever get into an argument about this I can see the conversation going like this-> https://youtu.be/pur1N6Ogxe0
A) Does Joe even know about the Amber/AG link?
B) Joe absolutely is a porn character. His video with Roz made quite the rounds on the Pornsters sites way back when.
I don’t think so, he wasn’t one of the kidnapped ones, though I think Amber would probably be fine with him knowing about it.
For a moment there, I assumed you were answering part B of Dr. T’s question, and I was extremely confused.
A) Fair enough.
B) That is LITERALLY the punchline.
I feel like especially because Amber is his step-sister rather than his actual sister, he’d probably be happy she’s being satisfied sexually.
There were roughly thirty seconds of continuous laughter between reading the penultimate and final panels.
I think it’s the face he makes when he says it.
I’m just wondering why that was the first thing to come to mind.
wasn’t that literally a thing he did
It was, indeed.
Huh, I guess I completely forgot about that.
It’s one of the slipshine comics
It’s one of the slipshines with Dan and Amazi-Girl.
Is Sal saying the “Gotcha” word bubble in the second panel? It looks like it’s coming from Danny but I can’t figure out a way for that to make sense.
I think so, I’m a little confused too but that seems like the only way it works?
Yeah, I’m also confused by that bubble.
It’s Sal.
It’s Sal. The bubble’s tail is clearly coming from outside the right edge of the panel.
Are you looking at the last panel? The tail comes from outside the right edge of the panel in that one, but in the second panel, which the bejouled blowjob cat is talking about, the tail is very much pointing straight at Danny’s hat and not to the outside of the panel.
On my screen, the gotcha comment has a tail that points to the right which is offscreen and so Sal would be saying it.
I don’t know what’s on your screen.
Comic’s been edited, refreshed and it’s going to the right now 🙂
Looks like it’s been edited to be more clearly coming from off panel.
Hey when you have positive affection coming your way it’s important not to question TOO MUCH, you just appreciate it coming your way. Like the old saying goes “Don’t look a gifted horse in the mouth”.
I prefer the wise man’s version of that.
“You ever hear the phrase ‘don’t look a gift horse in the mouth’? Don’t look a ham sandwich without the… ham– You can’t appreciate nothing.”
Weeks ago I joked about Batman being not only a nice guy, but the nicest guy.
Because the arrow pointed towards Him.
And then, BAM!, today’s alt text.
You have to leave that as an aura.
I mean, I want to use that as a pick up line, but there really is no lead in to it.
Joe gave him the opening he needed though… And you only get so many times in your life to brag about something like that!
I’m a little confused by the dialogue balloons in the second panel. The first two bubbles’ tails both point to Danny, like he’s answering himself? Or did his hat suddenly gain sentience? Because I’m willing believe that could happen.
It’s Sal, who is off screen.
I get that it’s SUPPOSED to be Sal, but the word balloon tail say otherwise.
I get what you’re saying. It took me a couple reads to realize that was Sal. It kind of read like Danny was talking to himself.
The word balloon tail is going off panel. Danny being drawn large in the next panel is a coincidence. I can’t think of any other times a character from a later panel has spoken to someone from a previous panel.
I think that is actually a change or I’m going insane. Cause I remember or at least think I remember the tail of that balloon pointing more toward Danny and not off panel??? And now I will never be 100% sure if this was the original layout or a quick change for better readability!
Actually I have really poor vision so I’m not sure what to believe anymore. I’m tapping out on this.
May be too late seeing as you’ve already tapped out, but just thought I’d jump in because I was talking about this on a thread higher up. It’s definitely been updated, somebody said it was going to the right so I scrolled up and refreshed and watched it change.
It’s definitely a fix after it went up. I had to refresh just now to get the balloon as it’s supposed to be.
Yeah, it’s been updated.
Welp, looks like it was fixed. That was fast.
Put a necktie on the door on your way out, Joe.
It’s an entire strip of Danny saying that actually maybe his hobbies are fun and he’s interesting and also pretty good at sex, and has value as a person that the coolest person he knows sees in him and he’s learned to realize in himself and it’s just so gosh-darned swell.
Joe’s not even the Danny anymore, he’s the Faz.
What genuinely surprised me this week is that Joe is just hearing of the in-the-air oral for the first time just now.
Danny is looking very Flirty Bisexual here. (It’s a good look.)
Is Joe in awe?
Definitely he is in awe. Joe’s been in awe a lot of this storyline.
Narrator: The majestic scenery left the group in awe!
Group: *endearingly* Awwwwwwwwe!
Narrator: *sigh* No, no, as in impressed and intimidated.
Group: *in comprehension* Ohhhhhhh!
Narrator: That’s better.
Yo, is that a “George of the Jungle” reference? ‘Cuz damn, what a deep cut.
Gotta love the alt text reminding us that four months ago we found out Batman doesn’t perform oral sex because he’s Batman, and this is official DC mandate.
God, how was that four months ago? What is time.
Time is wibbly wobbly… stuff.
Much like another very relevant substance at play here!
Given Willis’ buffer, I wouldn’t be surprised if this comic was written and drawn almost exactly four months ago and the Batman fiasco inspired this.
How weird is it that Batman doesn’t do oral is official character lore. Apparently writers can imply whatever they want but that’s a huge blow to the character. Batman is less cool because some executive decided Bruce going downtown would somehow hurt toy sells.
I could understand if they were upset about the whole banging a sometimes villain thing. But I’m seriously confused that it was specifically the muff diving they hung up on.
I think it has more to do with censorship and official depictions of sex for characters. The topic itself was brought up for a sex scene in the adult animated cartoon Harley Quinn. I think the original spirit of DC’s response to the scene was “We can’t allow you to show Batman performing oral sex in animation.” because of a perception it would hurt the character’s brand. Parents won’t let kids buy Batman toys if a cartoon shows him orally satisfying his lady. (Even if that take is probably really out of touch). But it reads more like “No! Batman doesn’t eat puss cause he’s a hero! And hero’s don’t do that!”
And that’s how you character assassinate one of the most popular superhero icons of all time.
Yeah, but even the ‘because kids’ argument doesn’t work very well when
A) it’s an adult animated series only available on a premium streaming service, the odds of kids watching it are not zero but are heavily dependent on some parental supervision/vetting fail. Or parents who are genuinely okay with it, but in that case they’re not going to hold it against Batman.
And B) so many, many years of highly sexualized scenes in Batman comics that went by without editorial saying a word. (First issue of Catwoman in the New 52, anyone? Just to name the first example that comes to mind and ISN’T an infamous case of sexual violence?)
Not just comics, animated features. I know we tried to forget but lest i remind everyone of the killing joke?
Eating his implied long term partner’s pussy is going to damage his brand, but fucking his best friend’s daughter who’s half his age and emotionally vulnerable is A-OK
Rooftop Gargoyle is watching you make this a really weird adaptation of a good but still controversial comic.
I purged the TKJ adaptation’s Bruce/Barbara thing from my mind. Bad enough The Killing Joke itself involves what’s pretty clearly sexual assault of both Barbara and Jim. (Remember he spends the torture sequence naked and leashed, and she was stripped naked and photographed after being shot.)
There was absolutely nothing good about that stupid prologue. I don’t know what they were thinking, honestly.
I REFUSE to believe that Bruce Wayne isn’t not only willing to do Cunnilingus but not GREAT at it. For no reason than I refuse to believe he could keep up the act as a billionaire playboy without having ladies talking about how talented he is with a tongue.
Tactical Oral.
Batman is officially best at everything and oral is part of that superset so…
What do you think the horns on his helmet are for?
I can’t see Batman being a person who fucks. Like, at all.
He’s a sad lonely man who puts all his energy into being really good at beating people to a pulp, this man does not have anything resembling a sex life.
You’d be surprised, how many women, not counting Talia because she raped him, that still find him attractive. It goes to show that people can be miserable 90% of the time and still have a sex drive.
I’m not sure that Thag is implying Batman couldn’t have all the women he wanted. I think they’re implying Batman isn’t interested.
Ugh, that retcon seriously didn’t do anyone any favours, but yeah, there’s lots of women we know Bruce shacked up with. Which is good, because a Bruce with a strong supporting cast and a lot of people in his life is infinitely more interesting.
…finding him attractive doesn’t mean he has a sex drive…??? It means other people do, but doesn’t say anything about him. What have I missed?
Finding them attractive and having sex with them’ll probably do it though.
I can see him fucking but not being super into it. Like tough luck seducing Batman, but if you get him in bed, he’s good at what he does.
Thats because he knows how to drive into the batcave.
One of my preferred Batman fanfic authors takes the tack of “Bruce Wayne fucks like he’s solving an engineering problem; Zero emotion, but damn is he effective”.
Batman Returns very much tanks the idea of Batman not being fucky. That is a Batman who absolutely fucks.
One of Batman’s most longest running supporting cast members is a dominatrix in a catsuit that Batman has been constantly noted to go easy on in comparison to his other rogues gallery because “she’s just a thief” and so chasing after her is just a fun game between the two, if not how they actually go on dates.
Like one of the cold opens to Brave and the Bold has Batman and Green Arrow tied up and getting lowered into a hole full of panthers and the entire time he and Catwoman are just like five seconds away from hooking up. He says he’s going to collar her for god’s sake.
I mean he’s been fucking cat woman for aeons now, they’re married in some continuities. Wonder Woman was also a major pull. Tbh i think anti-hero esque villains and other heroes are the only ones that make sense for him, he could never fuck a normal person other than to like, keep up Bruce Wayne’s playboy image. And under no circumstances should he ever fuck any member of the bat fam. Seriously can writers stop putting him with Barbara, especially when she’s written as his best friend’s daughter or HIS SON’S FIANCE
Yeah, I can’t see him having a relationship with anyone who’s not a super in some way themselves, but he straight up almost married Selina a couple years back and it didn’t go through only because she called it off because Batman can’t be happy or something. The original Huntress was their Earth-2 counterparts’ daughter.
But also, SERIOUSLY NO ONE WANTS BRUCE/BARBARA TO BE A THING. Stop trying to make it a thing. We reject it.
And here I thought Batman trained to the best at everything. I guess everything minus one thing.
Joe asked a question he was not ready to have the answer too.
Oh, Danny Boy! Very nice! You can sit right over HeRE!
That really popped out of the snow! Like DAISIES!!
Sal both does and does not know what to do with that information.
She’s probably wondering where the closest place to buy a grappling hook is.
Why buy one, she knows someone she can borrow one from, probably the same one Danny boy was hanging from.
Look, Sal, his pamphlets have to be safe for work if he wants to set up his stalls in public where little kids can see them. Danny’s not trying to be a douchebag.
The NSFW editions come out after dark. If you didn’t go see them, that’s your own fault.
I’m just picturing this day from Joe’s perspective and it’s kinda hilarious- he’s trying to just go about his day while pretty much everyone comes in at random.
Well, yesterday was the day when he snuck out of Gender Studies and when he barged into Amber’s room.
The Willis used Karma. It’s super effective.
The hijinks are like a boomerang. They always come back your way!
Since I read this comment I have not been able to stop giggling. Joe’s just been standing in the corner of his own room while people come in and do wild shit for no reason he can understand.
Better than Batman? Maybe, but Catwoman isn’t tellin’……
….except that Bruce shaves EV-RY-THING…..
In my fanfiction, Joe wonders if Dan’s skills at oral apply not just to vaginas.
Mentioning something people haven’t yet. Sal making small talk at her window climbing, I find that cute and I like that development for her
Pretty sure it’s an Adam West Batman reference
Running gag in the original Batman TV series.
video on Youtube
Ahaha thanks for linking that, I had a good laugh
Nice
https://imgur.com/wQoWkln
So when are we getting this Slipshine comic?
The one with the grappling hook already exists. It’s just old now.
I may have wanted to punch him past the end of the buffer when he threw down with Ethan over Mike’s corpse, but Dan is absolutely the Walkverse character who has taken the biggest step up in this incarnation
Sal and Danny look so happy… it’s beautiful ♡.
Four months ago, I didn’t know that Superman’s sone was Bi.
So much yu can learn readin’ the comics. Except about the Flash and about Jughead.
Isn’t the Jon Kent Superboy a pretty recent character who was created within the last few years?
Yeah, he’s a new character on the block.
I feel like “Last few years” may be a time worth googling, so I did it for you. Clark Kent Jr has existed since 1965. Jon Kent (The current name of Superboy) showed up as being Superman in Batman Beyond, back in 1999. In the 2006 movie, Lois and Clark had a kid, Jason, with super powers. Jon LANE Kent showed up in Superboy in 2013 as an alternate timeline. There’s also been a huge number of cameos in other TV shows.
The current Jon Kent got his own series in 2016, which was 5 years ago.
So like… “Pretty recent”, maybe this rendition. But most DC comics get their runs renewed every five years or so, even Superman. “The son of Superman, who also has superpowers” is almost as old as Superman himself. And the name Jon is pretty decently old as well.
That’s kind of a stretch. The current character isn’t the same as various other past “son of Superman” variations, not even to the extent that the current comic Superman is the same as the 1960s one (or the 1930s one, for that matter.) All of the previous ones, as far as I can tell were alternate futures or the like. Not in mainstream continuity (or whatever passes for it before being rewritten.)
If we’re nitpicking, the current series is also Jon Kent’s first of his own, though he did co-star in Super-Sons with Damian Wayne for a few years.
He’s a recent character, despite the concept of Superman having a son not being a new idea.
I can see both ways. I once read a TV Tropes page saying Goof Troop renamed Goofy Jr as Max, and I thought “Did they, though? Or is Max a different chartacter who also fits the description ‘Goofy’s son’?”
I don’t even consider Damian Wayne to be the same character as Ibn al Xu’ffasch from Kingdom Come or Tallant Wayne from Brotherhood of the Bat, even though they’re all not just takes on “Son of Batman”, but specifically on “the child Bruce and Talia conceived in Son of the Demon, but who Denny O’Neill insisted was non-canonical”. They’re just such different characters.
I started this actually meaning to say how I saw it both ways, and then I got more convinced “they’re not the same character” as I wrote, and I forgot to change my first sentence.
Which is fair! But I always feel a little annoyed when people treat “Well, that character is new” as a response to them introducing Queer/Minority characters. 90% of the time, the character is as old as the series itself. Superman himself may as well be considered “New”, if you consider that his current run started in 2018.
Of course the other argument you see just as frequently is “Why did they have to make They should have just made a whole new character!!!” (Think, why did they have to make Thor a Woman? Why did they have to make Ms Marvel Muslim? Why did they have to make Iceman Gay?)
So, you can’t make a brand new character, you can’t have new aspects to old characters. It’s like you’re only allowed the same heroes, forever and ever. It’s weird.
I mean, it’s not that black and white.
Jane Foster Thor got the usual complaints (and then they were painfully literalized in the comic by the guy who had She-Hulk wear a power limiting bikini and posit that no longer being conventionally feminine in appearance means she’ll never be sexually harassed) but her run of Thor remains acclaimed and popular, and no one ever got on Ms. Marvel’s case because Carol Danvers hadn’t been Ms. Marvel for two years at that point and then Ms. Marvel’s comic sold so well she basically became Marvel’s breakout start of the 10s and is now getting her own show and far eclipses the comic popularity of Captain Marvel, probably the MCU and wider media popularity too in a few years.
Iceman… is actually maybe the worst example, because he was written as gay entirely for a final issue plot twist where Jean Grey goes into his mind and tells him that he’s gay and that bisexuality isn’t real, and since then Iceman, a character who already barely mattered, really only factors into who his newest boyfriend is and they’re always New OC Boyfriend. The new Pyro who’s gone and now Emma Frost’s formerly dead now resurrected thanks to a Mutant-born cure for death gay brother who is basically a New OC Boyfriend because he showed up like twice in the Emma Frost ongoing nobody read.
Oh and he fucked Deadpool once.
I don’t remember too much whining about Alan Scott at DC, for example, because they made it cool and interesting by, like, telling a cool and interesting story where an elderly man comes out to his family after finally being given the chance to be honest, to say nothing of some of the really high profile examples of this like Jason Rusch, Ryan Choi and Jaime Reyes, the latter two having gone on to find some stable popularity, came about when their predecessor were unceremoniously killed off in someone’s else’s story. Anyone who says “they killed Ted Kord for diversity points!” is an asshole, but “they killed Ted Kord for this new guy!” is a pretty fine thing to complain about in a kind of media that runs on iconography. Jaime’s the best Blue Beetle but it’s not like you couldn’t have him without a deceased Ted, and anyone who only cared about Ted dying for the dreaded Political Correctness never really cared about him in the first place if that’s why they’re mad he’s gone.
Plus you totally can introduce a new character. Everyone likes Nadia Van Dyne (and specifically relevant to this conversation, she’s ace), the bio daughter of Hank Pym who becomes the new Wasp, because Janet was A. no one’s favourite Avenger and B. wrote Janet as a main character in the Unstoppable Wasp ongoing where in the history of the entire character she gets to talk about her feelings on That One Hank Pym Moment and not have a male character get angry for her and just generally gets to be a cool and supportive mom to Nadia. Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur technically involves a replacement in that Lunella Lafayette is a replacement of the Moon Boy character from the Devil Dinosaur comics, but, like, those were in the 70s. The concept was rebooted as Calvin and Hobbes but actually Hobbes is a four story tyrannosaurus.
Chuds are gonna chud, but it ain’t always black and white.
The phrase “Superman’s bisexual son” should mean a lot to me the way “Batman’s bisexual Robin” should have too, but wow did that wave of nothing hurt me more than I thought it could.
Like especially Tim Drake what the fuck that was barely my headcanon that was just actually canon to me this whole time, but by the time they’re ready to say it oh of course it’s when he’s broken up with his longtime (as in basically since his own ongoing in the 90s) girlfriend so he can hook up with New OC Boyfriend, the most fascinating and enriching of characters and not, like, Kon-El, that guy Tim cared about so much that when he died he tried cloning hundreds of bodies to bring him back.
Jon Kent’s a bit more of a complicated case because he got rapidly aged up while in space, came back, and now he’s Superman in his own series that’s four issues in. Jon as a teenager has been kinda sorta total trash garbage bad? Actually definitely that, ’cause that initial run of comics and his own series he shared with Damian Wayne created the greatest introduction to the Superman mythos since the original Supergirl, and he was based on the idea of “what if Gohan was Superman’s son?” That rocks, and then it’s gone because Superman being a dad to his 11-year old son is, like, mondo uncool or something, and Jon kissing his own New OC Boyfriend doesn’t really strike me as the thing that justifies his age-up for me because, like, you can actually be queer as an 11-year old. You can have schoolyard crushes on boys and write them Valentine’s days cards and it can be as sugary and completely devoid of depth as the crushes kids have on each other actually are, like the one Jon actually had during his own appearances on a girl in his hometown, and lo, it was sugary and completely devoid of depth, like kid’s crushes are.
But that can’t happen, natch, because being Queer in fiction usually starts with “so which one of you is the… you know” and so if a kid is written as Queer you’re actually exposing them to sex, because being Queer is still innately sexual, and Jon can’t be exist as a Queer character until he’s old enough to fuck.
We’re talking about a company that has flat refused to ever put Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy together in a canon comic (but Harley can sure as hell hook up with Booster fucking Gold of all characters???) and who had the main writer of the Batwoman comic walk out during the New 52 because his plans for her marrying her longtime girlfriend were nixed by editorial on the grounds of superheroes only being allowed to be miserable. I think comic writers who do this are as well intentioned as possible, one time they removed Green Lantern Alan Scott’s kids from continuity in the New 52 reboot, one of whom, Obsidian, is one of DC’s first gay characters, so to make up for that the rebooted Alan was written as a gay man and then come the restoration of all the previous stuff they just kept Alan being gay and said he had been in the closet his entire life, which, like, wow I can’t believe this guy who was active in 1941 felt the need to pretend he was straight, they just enriched his character writing him gay because you don’t get to see pudgy old farts in spandex be queer because you’re only allowed to be queer if you’re hot, but something I’ve come to realize about representation is that being seen is the first step, but being heard, to see characters live and have stories where we learn what being queer means to them, that’s more my alley nowadays and it’s not some place I really think big corporate superhero characters are ever going to be allowed to tackle no matter how hard those well intentioned writers try.
‘Cause you know who’s bi as shit? Catman. Apart from some not at all subtle metaphors pointing knives at Deadshot (a barely moral sociopathic killer who sometimes has to rattle off a list of reasons why he can’t murder everyone around him, who refers to Catman by the pet name “Tomcat” and whenever Catman went over the line violent Deadshot would try to calm him down and reason him back to normal because “that isn’t like you”) by the time the Secret Six got another volume he just straight up got to be depicted on a date with a man and a woman at the same time, and the last series ended with Scandal Savage resolving her love triangle the advanced way by just marrying both of them.
But nobody knows who Catman and Scandal Savage are, so you can actually just write them as Queer and in a way that’ll annoy the person who gets annoyed by the existence of Queer characters and also the existence of real life Queer people. We’re fine as long as we sneak under the radar.
DOA comments don’t have upvote buttons but this is so valuable. No kid wants to be a political flashpoint.
I haven’t been following the Jon Kent books too much, but my read is that they aged him up because they wanted to make him Superman for a bit rather than because they wanted to make him queer. Could be wrong of course.
Specifically, Jon getting aged up was part of a cancelled initiative called 5G, and I don’t know why there are so many things called 5G and which one is the sinister liberal conspiracy, but basically all the main Justice League characters were getting phased out for legacy characters. Luke Fox would become Batman, Jon would be Superman, and I think this is where Yara Flor the new Wonder Woman was made?
So he bounced around a bit, joined the Legion of Super Heroes, came back and now he just kind of exists and the Superman mythos got back to being as boring and lame as it’s been in decades.
I have no doubt Tom Taylor has the best of intentions in this choice, he is in fact writing a comic named Superman where the main character is a bisexual guy, but I’ve been out of the closet enough that “this queer character exists” isn’t really the endpoint for me anymore when I can’t even bring myself to like every part of his existing status quo that came about at the cost of the one I really like, and also this part could still be there for a kid Jon.
Everything else is accurate, but I’m under the impression Harley/Ivy has been canonized in the mainline books lately? (There was definitely a kiss in the Harley Quinn ongoing a while back, and Heroes in Crisis – gag, but in continuity – shows them together to kill off Ivy but she gets better at the end because comics.) So you know. Finally, after WAY too long, they get to be canon in mainline continuity but are still a relationship most explored in spinoffs and elseworlds. Still not great! But better than it was.
‘We don’t know what to do with Jonathan Kent so let’s age him up’ really is a decision that annoys me. ‘Bisexual Superboy, a few months after Tim Drake got to be canonically bisexual, but NOT the Superboy who was subtexty with Tim Drake for decades’ just feels like rubbing salt on the wound. (Steph breakup I don’t mind, but then my introduction to Steph was her run as Batgirl where they were in an off-again phase.)
Harley/Ivy is canon in that there’s no mask about it anymore but they’ve been extremely unwilling to ever just have them actually hook up in any kind of long-term capacity.
That’s fine in the sense that it’s superhero comics, which are soap operas and therefore we will stop caring if we get what we want too soon, but I mostly brought it up in contrast to Alan Scott and Secret Six; it’s fine to be textually, openly Queer (and that does actually manifest in ways beyond “kissing a person of the same gender”, if that’s how I’m coming off and I do need to emphasize there’s a difference between a Queer character who has a casual or background relationship with their sexuality and one who just has it There and it Exists), just as long as you’re not so important that it’ll scare anyone off. Alan Scott is an elderly dude in red and purple spandex who gets to tell a story about how he’s gone most of his life lying to himself to hold onto compulsive heteronormative values, and it took being able to be true to himself in an entire separate reality before he could say it out loud. Scandal Savage has a love triangle with one girlfriend who is a crazy warrior woman and the other is a stripper, and because Secret Six never set the charts on fire and the New 52 is coming to end it all anyway Gail Simone just shrugged and had her marry both of them.
I know this makes me sound like a rabid shipper but yes actually, it should have been Kon because if there was anyone Tim loved other than Steph, it was him and “Tim Drake gets to be queer but with New OC Boyfriend” isn’t really the impactful hook it wants to have.
Cloned him. Like a hundred times. Just to see him again. When there was a joke in Young Justice about how the two of the were basically Impulse’s parents.
Wait I thought Harley and Ivy got married
That is definitely news to me.
I think that was in a Pride Month special of dubious canonicity, since it included a flash forward which obviously won’t happen because they aren’t allowed to age? Eat, Bang, Kill Tour is a Harley Quinn the animated series spinoff, I believe, and Injustice is likewise outside standard continuity.
I’m glad I’m not the only one pissed about the treatment of Jon in the comics, for all of the reasons you listed. Super Sons was a delightful little book, and it’ll be awhile before I forgive DC for cancelling it. After all, it actually made Damian tolerable as a character!
But more than just scrapping a book that seemed designed to get comics back to its kid-friendly roots and help introduce a new generation of fans, it was the way it all went down that bugged me.
So Jon goes out into space with Jor-El, who is alive again for some reason, on a field trip to spend time with grandpa. Except, whoops, they manage to fall into the Crime Syndicate’s reality. Jon is immediately captured by Ultraman and spends the next several years being tortured by an evil Justice League. When he finally escapes and gets back to his own universe, he finds out that it’s only been a few days because timey-wimey business.
Oh, and during all of this it comes out that Jor-El is responsible for Krypton blowing up. Because why not.
So Jon Kent gets his childhood stolen from him and endures years of physical and psychological torture just so that DC can have a teenage Superboy again. Despite Connor Kent being right there.
Jesus Christ, Dan… when they say “nice guys finish last” that’s not necessarily what they’re talking about, but good to know you’re probably taking that advice to heart as well.
Danny’s brand of ‘Nice’ comes from Bryan Adams.
That’s always what it’s meant.
…what
That one took me a sec
Respect
I snort-laughed so hard coming into the final panel.
Also, Sal making small talk on the way up is nice.
Joe learns his uptight little dork buddy has a wild side.
Ugh, Joe, a huge Chad who got a lot of hot girls last year, is whining over Sal.
Get some rest and leave Danny alone, my dude…
Probably not so many as you might suspect. We know that most of his success was posturing and we know that he’s been largely avoiding any real effort since revelations when the list came out.
Roz, Penny and Malaya. That’s all we know about and it might well be all there was.
Danny probably got laid more often, even if he was only dating AG for a few weeks.
And Penny
hahah, and Dorothy will agree with me, fuck you, Joe.
But, despise everthing, you have a good point.
Hey, I actually got the meta reference in the alt-text too! 😀
I did too, I was so proud of myself. It’s like I am one of the cool kids now.
Damn, Dan.
Alright Icarus, time to dial it back just a few notches.
The boy’s still getting used to feelings like “maybe I’m interesting and good at things” and “maybe I have an inherent value as a person that other people can see me in based on something other than my slavish subservience to them.”
He’s nowhere close to the sun, yet. Just opened a window and leaning outside for a bit on a sunny day. Let him have that a bit longer.
Heh, all I’ll say is Dan just had his Bull moment, Joe had the Dan moment and things will never be the same. 😉 Only thing is, will dan end up being hired by aliens for some weird job also.
*if you are wondering that is reference to an episode in Night Court.
You go Dan!
Dan’s brochure is getting more and more impressive.
I’m liking this more confident in himself Danny.
Same here, he’s so sassy. Now we have to be on our guard for when this comes back to bite him in the butt.
So far Confident Danny has:
– Asserted his attraction to Ethan in the most fucked up weird way possible.
– Told Mike to fuck off forever so hard it actually killed him.
– Dropped Ethan like a rock when he told him that he’d stand by and let Mike laugh at him were the one in the coma, and we know he would.
And now the coolest person let him know she likes him a whole lot and Danny finally has the ability to not only believe that, but that he’s good enough to be liked.
He is a good egg.
Danny bragging about his sexual exploits was actually a clever tactic to keep Sal distracted enough for Danny to beat her at Mario Kart.
At last!
The T-Shirt.
VINDICATED!!!
I got a picture of Blowjob Cat today
It sounds like we’ll be getting a good Slipshine soon…
Nothing can beat that grapple hook
But yes, maybe
You know, is it just me, or is Sal hanging out with Dan boosting his confidence and in turn making him hotter?
It’s doing things for me.
I didn’t know how to deal with a Danny who had fashion sense (a deep betrayal to the bisexual identity) and was so overwhelmingly wholesome that he proved to Sal that he’s incapable of doing wrong by Sal’s specific traumas, I think Danny doing all that with this level of confidence might drive me to try and actually marry this cartoon character.
You’ve done it now. Now we must have grappling-hook cunnilingus.
Damn it, Willis! What does “Danning it up” even mean anymore? Becoming self-aware and confident in yourself while giving space for other people to be comfortable around you?
This comic has lost its way.
Yeah, what’s next?
Joyce and Becky totally destroying their friendship in the span of ten minutes because it turns out for all their love they never understood each other’s beliefs?
Next you’ll tell me that a long-running character and member of the main cast is actually dead and died off-screen during the timeskip, or something.
Nah, this is just the buildup. We tend to forget it’s a step in the process, but Dan needs to have something before he can Dan that thing up.
Eh I dunno, or at least not in the traditional sense of Danning it up where he runs wild with his romantic fantasies at the cost of the actual person in front of him.
He’ll obviously still cause some grief, that he’s grown so much is at least in part of the kind of person he used to be, but obliviously causing pain to Sal doesn’t seem like something he would do at the moment considering last chapter with his gifting the bike to Sal he didn’t really react negatively when she turned it into a transaction and used those gift cards she left to buy her flowers that he totally bought for himself, but she can have them if she wants, which led to the first time Sal got to talk about how she feels that people only do good things for her to attain emotional blackmail over her, so Danny declared that if he’s going to do right by Sal then he’s only going to do so in ways she appreciates now that he knows what not to do.
…would give Dan my number if I’d met him in college, ngl
he’s speaking hypothetically right…right?
Danny has in fact performed oral sex on Amazi-Girl while swinging from a grappling hook.
It had a whole slipshine about it.
Danny also mentioned. To dorothy about using a grappling hook during sexual relations with Amber/amazigirl (although i do not think he mentioned it was during oral)
Really? … neat! 🙂
Still can’t tune a ukulele worth a tinker’s damn, though…
Is that a fishing vest with the collar popped? Over a button up shirt with a necktie?
Danny looked nice yesterday in his coat and scarf so the Council of Bisexuals ordered he fall in-line with bisexual no fashion sense energy, an inherent fact of our way of life.
I remember that one. It was good. Wonder if there will be anything new coming up in slipshine.
Wow, Dan managed to shock Joe on the topic of sex. I’m impressed.
Danny is THRIVING in college
And so Danny has new confidence. We just gotta hope that doesn’t make him Danny things up.
The only thing I was missing about Danny till now was his motive.
Why have You gone this road boy…
I have screen capped Joe’s face from last panel because it brings me much pleasure.
A better man than batman, indeed
But man, anny looks so happy. Sal looked very happy, too. Let’s hope it last
Joe: but the CONSEQUENCES