DC Pride: Tim Drake Special #1

The Elephant in the Room

Meghan Fitzmartin Writer

Belén Ortega Artist

Luis Guerrero Colors

Pat Brosseau Letters

Ortega & Guerrero Cover

Travis Moore & Tamra Bonvillain Variant Cover

Dave Wielgosz Editor

Our cover shows the newly bisexual Tim Drake standing next to his new boyfriend, Bernard. Behind him, are images of his best friends, Superboy, Batgirl (formerly Spoiler), Batman, Nightwing and our lovable Impulse. It’s not the most impressive image of Impulse I’ve ever seen, but I am glad he was included in this collage of people most important to Tim.

The variant cover is just a cuddly picture of Tim and Bernard, so I’ll skip that and head right into the issue. This comic book is divided into five stories — all by Fitzmartin and four by Ortega. But the stories are really more like chapters of one larger tale, primarily about Tim coming to terms with his sexuality. Bernard is kidnapped, but Robin easily saves him. And it’s all fairly nice and cute, but Bart doesn’t show up until the very end, so that’s where we’ll head.

Conner and Bart just so happen to be in Gotham City for whatever reason and have encountered a mysterious giant glowing elephant. So, they naturally call in their buddy Tim, who can only look on in bewilderment as Conner’s heat vision passes harmlessly through the beast. Superboy can’t even grab hold of the elephant, but the elephant can knock Impulse down and put a huge hole in the wall. Bizarrely, Robin tries using Zatanna’s backward-speaking magic, which has no effect. (Has Tim Drake EVER cast a magic spell?)

As our bumbling heroes chase the elephant out onto the streets, Superboy suggests that Robin should call in his ex-girlfriend, but Tim refuses, saying Stephanie Brown has been avoiding him lately. Conner says he’s heard just the opposite. Meanwhile, Bart is the only one actually doing anything, rescuing bystanders from a stampeding beast that Robin believes isn’t a ghost or magic.

Suddenly, our heroes are joined by Stephanie and Cassandra Cain (who both call themselves Batgirl now just to make things more confusing). Tim’s interaction with Stephanie is just as awkward as you could imagine, but Impulse luckily interrupts them with a couple of clues: an old telegram and a police officer’s badge. Cassandra suggests they split into two teams — one to follow the elephant and one to investigate the clues. And much to Robin’s dismay, everyone insists on pairing him with Stephanie.

The telegram contained an address that led Tim and Stephanie to an abandoned warehouse, where they find an odd silver disk. As soon as they touch the disk, the elephant rematerializes right in front of them. It doesn’t take too long for the others to catch up with them, and when they do, Robin finally has a plan. He has Cassandra distract the elephant, while Conner destroys the disk with his heat vision and Bart throws together an impromptu suit of armor to ram through the beast like a cannonball. Once the elephant is gone, a mysterious voice says, “Finally, I have found a worthy opponent.”

We never do find out who said that, as the story abruptly cuts to Tim and Stephanie finally having a heart-to-heart discussion and Tim introducing her to Bernard.

The last time Impulse appeared in comics, he was in the far future, hanging out with Gold Beetle without any explanation given as to how or why he was there. That was Flash #769, which came out more than a full year before this comic. Seriously, it took over a year before someone at DC dared touch Impulse again after Jeremy Adams unceremoniously banished poor old Bart. It wasn’t until Meghan Fitzmartin sat down to write one of the most important chapters in Tim Drake’s life that we got an opening for Bart’s return. And what was her solution? Simple. Just ignore Jeremy Adams’ story. Hey look, if he wasn’t going to bother with explaining how or why Bart ended up in the future, then she doesn’t need to provide any reasons for his sudden return to the present. Besides, DC gave up on caring about continuity years ago.

I was really happy that Bart was shown here as one of Tim’s best friends. However, he didn’t really do anything as a best friend. He did plenty as a hero — rescuing bystanders, finding clues and delivering the final blow on the monster — but not much beyond that. Granted, the last thing this issue needed was one more heart-to-heart conversation about why it’s OK for Tim to be bisexual. We got plenty of that here, thank you. But I do wish that the elephant was an elaborate prank played on Tim by Bart and Conner as a way to force Tim to finally talk to Stephanie. Instead, the elephant was created by an unseen, unknown villain that nobody seemed to care learning anything about.

As a whole, this was a nice, sweet issue, but maybe a little too nice. Every single person in Tim’s life showered him with unconditional support right from the get-go. And that’s the way it’s supposed to be, but it doesn’t always turn out that way in reality. Even in today’s world, many people have to choose between being open about their sexuality and losing many friends and family members or preserving those relationships by burying their true selves. I’m not advocating for more heartache and drama being thrown at Tim, but maybe having just a couple of people be uncomfortable by this would have made for a more interesting story. And I’m looking specifically at Stephanie. She was dumped by Tim for a boy, but was totally fine with it and instantly overjoyed to meet this boy. Again, that’s the way it’s supposed to be, but not every teenage girl is going to handle a situation like this with so much maturity and class. It would have been perfectly fine for her to be mad at Tim for a few issues.

Funnily enough, I actually found myself feeling jealous on Bart’s behalf. In his complex and sometimes contradictory history in the comics, Bart was always portrayed as heterosexual. He had a steady girlfriend in his solo Impulse series, had another during his brief spell as an adult (even had sex with her), plus various random crushes and flirtations. And yet, when I first heard that Tim Drake was bisexual, my first thought was that it should have been Bart. I guess the only reason I had for this were the strong hints — but no confirmations — given in the Young Justice animated series. Then again, maybe I was just jealous that Tim got a whole special comic book all to himself, while Bart can be completely forgotten for entire years at a time, only to be revived as a mere background character. In the end, gay, straight or whatever, I just want more Impulse stories.

Well, at least I have the CW Flash universe to give me some Impulse content. Next time, we’ll wrap up the Earth Prime miniseries.

Young Justice: Phantoms – “Death and Rebirth”

Director: Vinton Heuck

Writer: Greg Weisman 

We pick up in Metropolis on September 14 at 5:46 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, where General Zod is ordering Superboy to kill Superman in front of the world. We then cut back to the North Pole, just five minutes earlier, where we see Nightwing meeting up with Miss Martian and her team. Dick had faked his death to escape Zod, and Miss Martian created an illusion causing Zod to believe everyone on her ship except for Superman had died. (I’m not sure exactly why this seemed more like a move to fool the audience than anything, but that’s beside the point.) A few heroes on the Bio-Ship were actually wounded, though, and Kid Flash offers to retrieve some medical supplies. He expresses concern for Green Lantern Forager, and Bio-Ship “spits out” the Cosmic Treadmill, indicating that she also is quite injured. Nightwing sadly reports that the Kryptonians destroyed the Fortress of Solitude’s Zeta Tubes, meaning they won’t be able to teleport directly to Metropolis. However, Bio-Ship’s baby suddenly shows up, eager to help our heroes.

Back in Metropolis, Zod tells Conner to prove he’s a member of the Zod family by killing Superman. But at the word “family,” just enough of Conner’s memories return for him to fight the brainwashing and refuse Zod’s order. Frustrated, Zod pulls out the Kryptonite to kill both Superman and Superboy, but Kid Flash zooms in just in the nick of time and yoinks the Kryptonite away. Lor-Zod chases after Bart, but is hit by a magic flying school bus driven by Artemis, Kaldur and Zatanna. (There’s a long, complicated story behind that, but it doesn’t really matter too much. The important thing is all the original Team members are coming back together for one more big fight.)

We cut to the Baby Bio-Ship flying over the Eastern Seaboard at 6:08 a.m. (suggesting Zod was speaking for about 15 minutes straight). The only heroes on board are Miss Martian, Nightwing, Saturn Girl, Chameleon Boy and Phantom Girl. (Convenient how the nonessential heroes were the ones who were injured.) Meanwhile, in Metropolis, Zod finally decides to bring his whole army out of the Phantom Zone, but he’s only able to get two more Kryptonians before Zatanna shuts off the Boom Tube. Lor-Zod almost smashes Tigress with a car, but Kid Flash pulls her away at the last second, cockily saying, “Double yoink!” However, Bart was so excited to go for the “triple yoink,” that he didn’t stop to think that grabbing the Emerald Eye might be a bad idea. Kid Flash is electrocuted with magical green energy, which knocks him out for the rest of the fight. (Remember what I said about nonessential heroes being injured?)

By the time Bart wakes up, all the bad guys have been sent to the Phantom Zone, except for Ursa, who was whisked away to the planet Daxam by the Emerald Eye, and Lor-Zod, who escaped in the Time-Sphere that Rocket inexplicably showed up in. Well, it’s not entirely inexplicable. We eventually find out the Time-Sphere was set up by Metron to have Lor-Zod killed by the bomb he planted on Mars six months earlier. But none of our heroes realize this, and they are left to conclude that they may have won the battle, but lost the war.

We then skip ahead to Happy Harbor on September 16 at 16:16 EDT. (We get it, Greg Weisman! You’re obsessed with the number 16!) Conner and M’gann are finally getting married and everyone’s invited. Black Canary suggests creating a Sanctuary to help heroes with mental health issues, and Superman suggests turning the planet Trombus into a prison planet for the Kryptonians stuck in the Phantom Zone. However, none of our heroes realize that Vandal Savage had Klarion pull all the Kryptonians out of the Phantom Zone and imprisoned in Warworld. Savage gave one Kryptonian to Darkseid as tribute and set Ma’alefa’ak free. Darkseid rewards the White Martian and his followers with the planet Durla.

Bart Allen oddly decided to attend the wedding in his Kid Flash uniform (he’s not the only one, but it still feels strange). Just as he was trying to convince the three Legionnaires to acclimate to life in the 21st century, a Time-Sphere appears in front of them, revealing Brainiac 5 (who doesn’t have a nose for some reason?!). Brainiac 5 tells Saturn Girl, Chameleon Boy and Phantom Girl that he’s here to take them home, as he’s calculated a 99.84% likelihood that the timeline has been substantially restored. Chameleon Boy worries about the other 0.16% (sixteen again!!), but Bart convinces him to relax and the Legionnaires immediately take off, refusing to stay for the wedding or explain to Superboy why he was so important to their timeline.

The wedding finally begins and when I say everybody is there, I literally mean everybody. Every single character we’ve ever seen on this show is in the audience. Bart sits next to Eduardo, but they’re not holding hands or anything. Snapper Carr inexplicably officiates the wedding and Superman’s son, Jon, is the ring bearer. Megan, who chose to be wed in her human form, exchanges vows with Conner and credits roll. During the credits, Snapper comments on how the newlyweds are having their first dance 16 feet in the air. (Seriously, enough already! There are other numbers!) And after the credits, we see that Granny Goodness has recruited Mary Marvel and Supergirl into her Furies.

I didn’t intend to take off five months between reviews. I mostly blame my newborn son for that. However, I will also admit I wasn’t terribly excited to do this episode. Yes, I know a lot of stuff happened here, but most of it was setup for a fifth season that might never happen — especially with all the turmoil surrounding HBO Max and DC right now. The episode kind of felt like a Geoff Johns comic that was overburdened with planting seeds for future ideas that may or may not come to fruition. But unlike Johns, Weisman did remember to wrap up everything he set up in this season, and I do appreciate that. I just felt it was a little contrived to get the original Team back together once more. At least we didn’t have any more awkward visions of Wally.

And as for poor Bart? Well, he was there. And that’s something. I’m glad he wasn’t completely forgotten. But I’m sad no one thought of anything interesting for him to do. Which has been my main complaint across all DC for quite a few years now. Where’s Peter David when you need him? But seriously, if you take Bart Allen away from Young Justice: Phantoms, I don’t think anything would have changed. The closest bit to an essential plot point he provided was being a missing person for Nightwing to investigate. And that’s pretty sad that his role was diminished so much on this show. 

Granted, I don’t completely blame the show for this. Its cast of characters grew exponentially each season, making it all but impossible for satisfying character arcs. All of the Outsiders not named Beast Boy were completely relegated to the background of this season. So, in the end, I actually think it’s good that this show might finally die for good this time. It tried to do too much and turned into an unwieldy, monstrous beast. This is a mercy killing. Of course, this world might find new life in the comics. The story does continue in a six-issue series that does have a tiny bit of Kid Flash, so I will be reviewing that. And maybe, just maybe, if that series is received well, DC will let Weisman and company keep telling these stories in a more suitable format.

Next time (and hopefully it won’t be another five months), I’ll be taking a very quick look at the Tim Drake special that was part of DC’s Pride celebration.