True.
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yes she clearly did
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batman annual 10 is one of my favorites
sadly it isn’t on dcui though
batman loses his money his house and even his adopted son jason todd
another favorite of mine is superman batman annual 1 its a retelling of the cruse ship meeting in superman 76
I was hoping for such a meeting in batman v superman but they were not together much let alone on a ship
lol 
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Well it’s been a week so might as well talk about Second Son.
In this series we follow the big question on who is the Batman of Future State? Where has Tim Fox been in the modern Batman continuity and why does he call himself Jace now? It’s a series that is remarkable for providing the stepping stones of fear state and how Renee Montoya became the commissioner.
My thoughts surrounding each issue of Second Son goes as it follows. This will be Part 1 of a 2 part review covering 1-6 here before discussing 7-12 in a separate post. Hope you all enjoy this.
#1
We begin the journey of Jace in Vietnam. Revealed as a vigilante who seeks to take out a rich powerful elites, he’s going after one named Arkadine who engages in trafficking. Trafficking of what kind, human, drug, guns? We don’t know. The point is that Jace has been allegedly been doing this for a long time and been doing this long enough to be experience in vigilante operations around the world. However even he himself finds this mission directionless on what he’s fighting for and as a result he spectacularly fails.
It’ll comes up again about his self awareness on his short comings but right after failing to get information on the criminal Arkadine, he heads home only to find Grifter in his home. It’s here I’ll mention besides a short appearance in #2, Grifter doesn’t show up again. A shame, I remember watching this video about the next Batman and how our lack of knowledge on his training make his future skills as Batman unbelievable. Considering that Cole Cash was Lucius Fox personal bodyguard at the time I think it would have been perfect opportunity for John Ridley to have this Batman get training from Grifter whose a known scrapper in combat like Jace.
It would explain this Batman unique combat skills but also his approach to recklessly solve problems even if he get questionable solutions from scrupulous figures.
#2
Tim Fox returns home. After he lands at the airport he makes it clear to his family who he hadn’t seen in years to call him Jace now. I hated this moment for a long time and was purposely calling him Tim because he made me mad by being so selfish and rude to his family here.
I stopped doing it when I realized I was essentially dead naming and while it’s mostly use in lgbtq discussions, I felt wrong doing that because I couldn’t really justify the difference between either as they both share the simple notion of someone simply choosing to be identified by a different way other than their birth name. So I just call him Jace nowadays.
If you’re looking at the last panel, yes Luke Fox is here and that’s a strange thing to say in a John Ridley Batman book because for whatever reason Ridley doesn’t like Luke Fox. Well I love him! Here we see him intentionally ignoring Jace and to a degree his family for a while as he is focused on being Batwing and looking for Joker following Joker war. He doesn’t like Jace and currently right now I get it.
In there first meeting in years, Jace just casually walks up to him and was going to jokingly say it’s been a minute, but Luke just walks away from him.
I get it. That’s a pretty stupid thing for Jace to do. It hasn’t been a minute and you can’t just joke about it like nothing changed. After his failure with Luke, the last important person he meets is his sister. It doesn’t really get really reflected a lot in I am Batman but Jace and Tamara were closer as siblings before he went away.
This interaction ends in a sour mood and just goes to show him that nothing stayed exactly the same.
#3
Believe it or not I have quite a lot to say about issue #3.
I might to have details within details here.
Jace Fox meets Lucius who tells about a disposition to formerly resolve what Jace did so long ago that caused him to be sent away. It doesn’t go well.
Jace thinks Lucius is a bad person
Jace says all his father cares about is his reputation, Lucius says he’s trying to protect his family and especially now after they recently acquired Wayne Enterprises fortune who been targeted by people online for being strangers who have Bruce Wayne’s money. Jace says that he cares about what people think especially on social media.
Remember that because I will bring that up 2 issues later.
In the previous issue Renee Montoya was approached to become Commissioner, she is reluctant but after A-Day which saw Bane orchestrate a fake joker bombing in Arkham to cause panic in Gotham for Renee Montoya to decide to become Commissioner.
I like Renee Montoya but I’ve never been disappointed in a fictional character than I have been with her right now.
This next part I’m going to mention is disappointing on so many levels.
Luke sees Tiffany in his room who ask him why he doesn’t want to see their brother. It’s a single with lots of problems for me. For one thing, we last saw in Batwing series that Tiffany shouldn’t be older than 7 years old yet here she’s like 14?
She was a outspoken and well-versed child but nothing like this. Luke is also annoyed by her which is again against the logic from the Batwing series where he cared for her deeply. This is just to make Luke look like a asshole.
Luke confront Jace. Calls him out on his lack of responsibilities and care for the family. Jace says Luke has been living off their father’s money (untrue) and this is when Tamara becomes a cliche and goes into a coma.
#4
Tamara Fox in a coma causes even more tension between the Fox Family. They have different opinions about what is to blame and the solutions. When environmental factors are mentioned, Luke blames Jace for being that contributing factor. Probably not true and yet she did technically get into a coma because of stress from Jace fighting with Luke, so…yeah.
The Fox family matriarch, Tanya Fox blames the superheroes which is so definitely not true. She’s projecting and it doesn’t make sense. Tiffany Fox wonders if the Toxins from ratcatcher can help find a cure and Lucius Fox says they will do whatever it takes to save Tamara no matter the cost. Jace oddly gets mad at that.
Jace. Your family’s rich. Get over it. Accept the obvious benefit to save your sister, you prideful jerk.
We are introduced to partners Detective Chubb and Whitmaker. They aren’t bad characters but they are honestly irrelevant and I could honestly simplify their characteristics. Chubb on the left hates masks, Whitmaker on the right is ambivalent toward them. They become semi-relevant characters to the future I am Batman book.
Jace is pulled away from his brooding to focus on his previous target Arkadine. Apparently Arkadine has a cipher that is important to him that he needs to grab. I read this book multiple times and it never gets clearer of what Arkadine wants and what Jace wants from him.
Luke and Tiff are in the Fox Family garden when they bring up the events of Batwing where Tamara and Tiffany were kidnapped by Russell and Ratcatcher. Bringing up Tiff might have PTSD from that event that was brought back from Tamara being in a coma is honestly great drama to see.
I think it’s only sad than when Tiffany demands her brother do something about it in a angry tone. I don’t hate it, I just feel bad for Luke.
Jace realized he and his hacker friend Vol doesn’t have the tech to steal any of the equipment from Arkadine, so Jace decides to reluctantly work for his father to get access to that Hardware.
#5
This part I love for unrelated reasons to the story. I said around #3 Jace thinks Lucius is caring too much how people think of their family on social media, so when it’s revealed that someone named Ubetz had took a picture of Tamara at the hospital, he plays it off like he doesn’t care, but when Tiffany leaves the room tells his buddy Vol to look him up. Is he a hypocrite, yes. Yes he is.
As Lucius and Tanya prepare whatever they can to help Jace disposition on this civil case involving the crime he did when he was young. We see another member Luke Fox try to make up his promise to Tiffany by finding Ratcatcher for the drug to cure Tamara. This is interesting issue because you see how two different Fox Brothers handle two different ways to help their family.
If we had more issues contrasted Luke and Jace but share that familial love that keeps them together. I think I would have adore this series.
#6
Ratcatcher refuses to help Batwing and instead decides to send a army of kids to go after him. Obviously he can’t fight back. The police arrive and accidentally kill Ratcatcher and nearly would have killed the kids if it weren’t for Batwing destroying a support beam to save their lives.
Besides being this issue focusing on Batwing, it’s important to mention all of this because after telling Tiffany he couldn’t save the cure, he gets probably the most upsetting scene in the whole book.
After everything he’s done, Luke fails his sister and now the rest of the family stand with the brother who abandoned them so long ago.
It’s actually interesting because this goes back to similar events that happened in Batwing. Luke wants to do right as Batwing but it unintentionally causes him to be ostracized by his family because they don’t believe he can’t be count on when he appears neglectful or selfish. Whether it was saving Lucius or Tiff and Tamara. He never truly be seen as nothing but a screw up by his family.
Maybe this is all intentional and it’s going to discuss in the future but I believe this is the real reason why Luke hates Jace so much. He’s angry because he tries so much harder to do right by them but gets seen as someone who Lucius believes does nothing with his life and even by his Tiffany who knows he’s a superhero doesn’t trust him anymore. It’s no wonder he has periods in his life where he isn’t Batwing when his family causes him to doubt his best self.
This is where my review for part one ends for Second Son and I think it’s good way to end it for later. Next 6 issues focus primarily on Jace and his backstory, probably the most interesting parts of the story. The best parts in the previous six issues were Batwing centric.
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this is another one of my favorite batman song Parodies
the batmobile from the 66 show is in it and it also has what I think is the first time female bane was ever used this song is also a real earworm
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lol batmans great
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