WHEN WOULD I HAVE TOLD YOU? IN THE MIDDLE OF A TURF WAR (YOU KNOW, WHERE BRUCE WAS LOSING HIS ABSOLUTE GODDAMNED MIND) OR WHEN YOU WERE TURNED INTO A WOLF (AND I HAD TO KICK YOUR ASS, WHICH I ABSOLUTELY DID, BY THE WAY) AND I WAS BATTLING A GIANT NECROSTAR-INFECTED BEAST BOY?
THEIR LIVES ARE SUCH NONSENSE????
Please understand that comics are utterly ridiculous bullshit even in the best of times and it’s awesome.
Just realizing that we were robbed of the funniest possible scene: Dick telling Wolf!Batman everything that’s going wrong with him, so that he can use it as an excuse for EVERYTHING.
“How long has your arm been broken and you never mentioned it??”
“But I DID tell you that I broke my arm in three places. Sure, you were a wolf at the time, but I definitely told you.”
“That was a month ago and that break is maximum two weeks old.”
“No, I definitely told you back when you were a wolf.”
As kids my brother and I had a similar Wanda disagreement where my position was "the moon would Never" and his was "the gods just suck real bad."
Once he pointed that out it seemed obvious. But then a few years ago someone tried to convince me that we had just made that interpretation up to make ourselves feel better. That it wasn't really what you meant. I always like to assume the best of people and I am very pleased to know for certain that I was right to do so in this case. And that one of my favorite characters was written with good intentions without any need for imaginative reinterpretation on my part.
Anyway, thank you for sharing that story about your friend. <3
I mean, it’s not like you don’t meet gods in Sandman. Norse Gods, Greek Gods, Egyptians Gods, local gods (like Boss Smiley) and so many other gods along the way. None of them have a clue, most of them are fairly unpleasant, and even the nicer ones are pretty awful. As your brother pointed out, they suck real bad.
If there is a moral arbiter in the Sandman universe, IMO, she’s the one who was giggling with Wanda during Wanda’s last appearance, and in her presence, Wanda is who she always knew she was, looking how she always looked in her head.
As a lonely queer kid in a rural area in the early 90s who wouldn’t figure out he’s trans much later, I was so distressed at first by the whole moon thing. I loved Wanda so much, and that rejection hurt like all the rejections I was getting at that point in my life. Wasn’t there room for me, even in this imaginary world?
Once I realized that Death sees who Wanda is, I understood, and in a funny way, it helped me reject the mean things I heard about queer and trans people at my parents’ church. Sometimes, gods just suck.
Hey Neil, in your moving tribute to Rachel Pollack, in this year's DC Pride, you mentioned that she'd had some polite disagreements over how Wanda's story ended. I'm curious if you'd be willing to say more about the conversations the two of you had? I'm a genderqueer person who really loved that arc of Sandman fwiw, I'm just v curious what those convos were like.
It wasn’t so much about how the story ended as about Wanda not walking the moon’s road. My attitude was that the Gods and Goddesses of Sandman were all idiots and fallible when they weren’t actually dangerous, and that this was another instance of the Triple Goddess doing the kind of thing that would come to a head in The Kindly Ones; Rachel’s was that the Moon should be infallible and recognise Wanda as a woman anyway. (I am probably not doing justice to either side of a 32 year old conversation.)
She felt I’d got that wrong, so told me she would remedy that by putting her own trans character, Coagula, into Doom Patrol.
[Assorted images of Dick in historic/fantasy Chinese dress. His long hair is partially tied up into a pony-tail. In most of the images he’s Nightwing, obscuring his identity with a half-face veil. His costume has fingerstripes, but no other part of the gloves, so only 2 fingers on each hand are covered. Tim shows up twice, and Batman yells at Dick to cover his face instead of eating in a tree.
[id: Sandman fanart. Rose, Dream, and Jed all sit at a low dining room table, clearly designed for kids. Jed sits normally while Dream has his knees bent to his chin and Rose sits cross-legged. Death approaches the table, pulling out the fourth chair to join in. Jed is talking animatedly with a bit of food on his face while Rose and Death listen to him. Dream shovels food in his face with food also on his cheeks. Matthew perches on his shoulder.]
Bruce, internally: Dick was shot he was mauled he was maimed by the joker he was tortured by scarecrow he was broken in half by bane!!! dick’s DEAD??? what else could be wrong he can’t tell me himself that means he is vulnerable that means he may have been shot in the head is Dick dead what do I do if he’s dead Contingency Number D1492 I need to contact Clark and let him know and tell him to isolate me and I need to contact Jason (Contingency J384) but what do I do if Dick is gone can I go on of course I can I need to but I can’t see his body I can’t do it—
Tim: —limping after he tried to get an ice cream from the soft serve machine and ate shit lmao. His ankle is twisted; might take a couple days to recover.
Bruce, a very normal person who doesn’t suffer from anxiety and ptsd: okay
