I actually found a place to read it!
One thing I really like about this is, there's no joke fear. Usually, when it comes to 'worst fear' episodes, there'll always be someone - usually either the pre-established comic relief, or else the big tough macho character - whose fear is something like fluffy bunnies, or evil candy, or something, and it's almost always disappointing, especially if the show's already gone and hinted at or outright established what that character is anxious about. But here, everyone has a real fear! It's also interesting how they're not exactly nightmares per se, but sources of anxiety, imposter syndrome, reasons why the character thinks they're not living up to what they should be.
Matthew did a good rundown of all the fears, but I want to hone in on the side anxieties, the ones that only get a line or two, because I think they're really telling as nuance. Wally's anxieties over his hunger, for one - I think it's interesting to do with him specifically, because now that I've read the comic it makes total sense that he'd have internal stress over that. I've been reading a bit about diet culture in America lately, and one of the things that pops up is this really harmful idea that the body, and the desires people have - desires that on a fundamental level are there to keep us alive - is an enemy to be conquered and temptations to be fought down. The idea that, even when someone fits into the pretty narrow mold of what an ideal, healthy body is, they'll still be judged for 'overindulging', or for being a glutton - even when (as in Wally's case) they NEED to eat that much to be able to keep going. Even when someone is doing everything else right, they're still bombarded with the idea that it's bad to take care of their own needs. And, on another angle, Wally having that kind of horror hunger, where he can eat and eat and still feel empty, feel like he's starving even when he's had meals that would satisfy anyone else, sounds genuinely pretty disconcerting. Stress over not having enough food is a really basic, primal anxiety, so it's interesting to see that in him.
Dick's anxieties that the others will leave him behind because he's younger is also fascinating to me, because - while it's not something that gets talked about aloud on the show - it's clearly something he's thinking about and trying to avert nearly all the time he's onscreen. I've heard people treat his joking, quipping, messing with people as a sign of immaturity - and to some extent, they're right, in that he IS thirteen and his sense of humor is likewise a thirteen year old's - but the reason he's doing it has always seemed to me to be the opposite. He isn't trying to present himself like he's immature, he's trying to present himself like he's smarter, like he's always on top of the situation, always ready with a line that'll deflate the enemy and make them seem ridiculous, not joking because he doesn't realize how serious the situation is but because he knows EXACTLY how serious it is and still thinks he - and his friends - are above it. Nearly all of how he conducts himself is trying to make the others forget that he's two years or more younger than them, and most of the time I think it works. It's even in his costuming - his cape isn't quite as dramatic as Batman's, but the change it makes to his silhouette makes a big difference. One of the things I always notice in Homefront is how he loses his cape sometime when he and Artemis are swimming around, and how - especially at the end, when he's reporting to Batman - just how much smaller he looks without it.
I already talked a bit about Kaldur's sensory overload issues, so I won't go much into them here, but I do think there's something to be said for how Kaldur considers them a failure of control on his part. It's similar to Wally's hunger - the fear that your body is not under your control, and that your knee-jerk reflexes and aversions and wants will happen with or without your permission, is a very primal one for people.
Of course, M'gann's fear is hindered a bit because they can't make the 'white Martian' reveal this early, but I do think, from a Watsonian perspective, it's interesting that even in her own mind she won't acknowledge it. This is a formative anxiety for her, she's being psychically blasted with fear and insecurity, and even still she's just at "I have things that are... personal. Things I don't necessarily want everyone to know." That's a LOT of repression.
And Superboy... honestly I think that it's explained pretty clearly right there on the page. I do think that his bit about the G-Nomes is interesting, but more from a headcanon/what could have been perspective? Before S3 aired, I remember there was an ask about what everyone would major in in college, and Superboy was down as History. Of course, that seems to have changed - I believe there's one saying he'd be into mechanical engineering now - but I always thought it'd be interesting if he WAS into history academia. Because studying history is less about knowing the exact days everything happened, and in what order, and more digging into the unknown, the cause and effect. I could definitely see Conner entering college, picking history courses because he assumes he'll be able to blow through them with his implanted knowledge (and leave himself more time for missions), and then realizing that the history he got from Cadmus was the lens on history that Lex Luthor wanted him to have. That the reasons he thought everyone was motivated by aren't necessarily correct, and that leading him to want to interrogate everything he thought he knew, to keep on rooting Luthor out of his head.
All in all, for being such a short comic, there's actually quite a lot of character detail to dig into. That it's a comic helps too - I don't know about you, but the internal monologues in the cartoon episodes tend to feel out of place to me. Usually it's not too bad, but it means you can't do a lot of stories where the main emotional thrust hinges on everyone's thought processes. A comic, though, fits them in a lot better. I also hope that this isn't the last we see of Psycho-Pirate - worst fear episodes really are one of my favorite plots to run, because they give you so much character insight, and we could use one for the new kids. Or heck, even for some of the old guard - by now, all their worst fears have certainly changed, so it'd be great to see what their new ones are.
Karrin Blue
posted @ Sun, Jan 17, 2021 8:43:39 pm EST from 68.14.16.66