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Wow.
Once again, a very powerful chapter; Chris, if you keep blowing me away like this, I’ll have to start wearing a diver’s weight belt when reading…

My reactions, blow by blow:

I hope we get to peek in on that dinner with Jason and J’onn; it should be quite an interesting sliver of domestic life.

Ohhhhh, yes, Zatanna is now fully aware of the consequences of her actions. I predict that woman will not come within fifty miles of Gotham for the foreseeable future. Not even if her stage manager says the Gotham Civic Center wants her back and will double her take of the box office receipts. Hell, not for triple…

However, yes, that scene in Zatanna’s apartment WAS about revenge and lashing out, just a little. If it had been just about teaching her a lesson, Batman could have stepped in long enough to let her know what had happened to her, then turned around and left her there to stew for that hour of paralysis. Folks, I haven’t been utterly paralyzed, but I have experienced utter loss of control of my own body for a period of time, and trust me, it is scary as hell. I still get flashbacks sometimes, and to this day I’m deathly afraid of strange drugs and their possible reactions, no matter what reassurances the doctors try to give. Batman has been through enough in his life, been doused with this exotic drug and that enough times, that he’s probably experienced something similar; I have no doubt that he knew how much Zee would be affected by an hour of utter paralysis. Just making her sit there for the prescribed hour, utterly helpless, would have been enough. Instead, he sat down to watch, to drive the point home even further… and relish it, just a little, whether or not he’d ever admit it. All things considered, though, J’onn probably figured he was owed that bit of revenge, in the course of teaching Zatanna that lesson. No doubt Selina thought he had earned it. (I can’t help thinking that if she’d been in the apartment too, she would have spent the hour casually sauntering around, appraising Zee’s valuables and idly speculating how much she could get for them through a fence… and pointing out which ones were cheap imitations, instead of the real thing. Tsk, tsk… )

So Selina has touched evil, in the form of that communion with Etrigan. One does wonder if there are going to be more long-lasting consequences than just a dulling of her natural feelings for a day or so. Sometimes dark shadows seem to linger even once the light is turned on…

No doubt about it, Bruce is still seriously messed up over this whole affair; that was emphasized once more in that meeting down in the cave. He just assumed that Selina would come to the upcoming meeting, because she’s part of his life now, even though he was at virtually the same time giving her the ‘keep your distance’ treatment. He probably wasn’t even aware of the latter as he was doing it.

I think I understand why Selina made a point of saying that she wasn’t part of Bruce’s Bat-Team. Frankly, it was even more understandable considering that just a moment before, he’d been giving her the brush-off. But it still might have been better if she hadn’t done that… better for Bruce, that is. Right now, the man is struggling to find something he can hang onto, something he can still let himself trust. By saying that, Selina established that there’s still some distance between them… that perhaps she’s not to be entirely trusted either. I’m willing to bet that, whatever he’d been thinking and feeling before she said that, he got a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach for a few seconds afterwards.

Of course after that pointed reminder, he couldn’t admit that he at least subconsciously wanted her to be there, she who is part of ‘we’; the couple that they had been before the horrible truth had come out, the ones who were there for each other’s pain. He couldn’t admit that he was still hurt, and now that he’d pretty much finished lashing out, he was ready for a little comforting. So instead, he fumbles around for another reason for her to be there, and comes up with Tim. Oh, Bruce…

Of the little conclave that gathered at the Grayson residence, it’s perfectly understandable that Dick was the angriest. Those JLA’ers messed with his father. Bruce has been a mentor to the others, but he raised Dick to be the man he is; if I found out that someone had violated the mind of one of my parents, even if it had been a long time ago and that person had been a casual friend to me in the intervening years, I would boot that person out of the house too--hard. But after some time to cool down, and a long talk with my spouse, I might reconsider.

Patching this bit in from where I posted it earlier, in the “Something Blue’ thread:
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Ouch. Yeah. Have to wonder what's going to be said between Babs and Dinah about this later on.

But if you read the first dozen or so issues of Birds of Prey (which, admittedly, are all I have; got the first couple TPB), you'll realize that Babs and Dinah are good at arguing, and at finally resolving said arguments. They're both stubborn people, but they're also both people who can acknowledge when they've made mistakes and try to either fix said mistakes or simply move beyond them.
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Not to mention, Huntress was included in this meeting. Huntress, who has KILLED in the past. And while Chris hasn’t firmly established that aspect of Huntress in Cat-Tales, she has established that Helena and Dick once had a one-night stand. I imagine that Babs will point out that if she can handle working with Huntress, and even allow her inside Home Sweet Home, Dick can at least tolerate the presence of Dinah again.

That was quite a talk between Clark and Selina. Others have said it already; Clark showed at least some smarts, when he tried to patch things up between himself and Selina even before going back to Bruce. There might not be a ring on her finger, but Selina is far more than Bruce’s ‘significant other’.

I found it quite interesting that Selina indicated that even if Bruce wanted to get married, she wouldn’t agree to it. Well, now… she believes that ‘People get married to start a family’, eh? And that’s the only reason?

Clark, what the hell’s going on inside that head? Telling Selina that if she didn’t forgive you, you’d make her walk back to civilization?! Oh, that’s showing her a lot of respect there… I dare to mention the whole ethics business again, only to point out that the second version of Kant’s Categorical Imperative said that you should, in all ways, treat people as ends in themselves, not merely the means to an end—in other words, not to use them for your own goals. By saying that, Clark made it plain that he sees Selina as merely another means of getting back into Bruce’s good graces; or at least, an obstacle to that goal that he had to neutralize. After that, I fully expect that Selina would not only invite J’onn and Jason to dinner, she’d invite the Joker to dinner before she’d extend an invitation to the Kent household.

Clark actually balked at having to give up any and all references to the Protocols. Oh yeah, some friend. GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR ALIEN ASS!!!

Whew. Like I said, this was quite the chapter. Looking forward to the conclusion…

Just had a thought, and it’s probably a silly one, but I can’t help thinking it, and I decided I would go ahead and inflict it all on you.

Selina may get that “oh, honey” time after all, the coddling and extra attention that Lois was referring to, in the form of a trip to Paris or Italy in Bruce’s company.

In response to the physical threat from Identity Crisis? No. That threat was dealt with; the killer has been caught. Case solved, threat to Selina’s physical safety eliminated, and Bruce has plenty more criminal cases to keep him occupied.

But it might happen in response to the soul threat as related in Identity Element. Bruce has been torn up inside. Selina has been torn up inside. Even before she ‘touched evil’ in the form of linking with Jason and Etrigan—and BTW, I’m still convinced that revenge was involved to some slight degree, or Etrigan wouldn’t have been quite so thrilled as he was even before Zatanna realized what had happened—Selina was violently affected by what had happened, enough that Bruce worried aloud about it to Alfred.

After Selina pointedly, though verbally, put distance between herself and the ‘Bat-Team,’ and after her leaving that conclave before Batman did and without a word to him, Bruce just might be stressing even more about her. Bruce told Alfred “She’s supposed to be this little corner of the world that’s life and joy,” and suddenly she’s not that anymore. She’s become obsessive and dark, and now she's distant and withdrawing… indeed, like Bruce.

If Bruce still trusts Alfred enough to open up to him—and he’d damn well better, despite what Clark has done—then Alfred just might suggest that what Selina needs is a vacation, with Bruce at her side. Of course it’s what Bruce needs too, but he wouldn’t do it just for his own sake. But if Alfred could convince him that some time in Gay Paree, or lovely Florence--old prowling grounds that helped Selina develop her Cattitude in the first place--could restore that life and joy, Bruce would have the private jet fueled and ready within the hour.

Just a thought… a fond hope, I guess.

??? Who’s Brian Arizallo?

Hey, I actually like Superman. I collected his comics for years. And I definitely agree with the portrayal that John Byrne gave us, when at the end of that post-Crisis six-month run back in the 1980’s that reestablished him, Clark said that even though he knew he was an alien, he thought of himself as an earthman. Because of that, yes, referring to him or his body parts as ‘alien’ is somewhat derogatory. And frankly, right then, it was *meant* to be a slam—notice the context? When someone whom I normally get along with starts calling me names, it usually means I really screwed up...

*From what we readers saw through Selina’s eyes and heard through her ears,* Clark was not treating her, at all times with the sort of respect that he gives other people—people who aren’t hopefully-reformed thieves, at least. First he flies her to a very out-of-the-way place, deliberately speeding up so fast that she can’t determine landmarks and properly orient herself before landing. After landing, he wouldn’t tell her where they were, either, not even when she asked what was so special about it—and I definitely saw that as an indirect query for information about the locale, not just the water’s mineral content.

It’s been established that Selina’s pretty good at reading people. She’s been able to just about see through Clark on numerous occasions; in fact, in virtually every Cat-Tales story in which he’s appeared. And this time, when he made that comment, she didn’t know if he was joking or not. She couldn’t tell. *She thought he might be serious.*

You don’t joke to airport security agents about having a gun in your suitcase. Lives and safety are on the line; they have to take you seriously, as a threat. Considering that only the day before, Clark and Selina had been seriously at odds, and one of the issues was about the use of powers and how those with such powers tend to place themselves above mortal men *just because they can*, even if Clark completely meant that comment as a joke, it was in very, VERY poor taste.

Ditto with trying to entice her to ask for something else; first for diamonds made to order, then for the Eye of Krypton. If that was joking (instead of truly balking at having to forget saying anything about Protocols), it was still the wrong time and place. Selina was deadly serious. When a person is trying to be serious about something, and the other person in the conversation is making jokes, it can be construed as making fun of the first person. Mocking them; as if their issues and needs aren't important. I'm willing to be that at least one time in your life, you've been in that situation; you were worked up about an issue that was *important*, and the person you were talking to--someone who was also involved in that issue--made jokes. I'll bet afterwards he/she said he/she was trying to defuse the tension. Didn't it just piss you off instead?

Clark screwed up yesterday in the Batcave, while talking to Bruce. He made some valid points, but he still screwed up. He screwed up again at the waterfall, talking to Selina. He made some valid points, but he still screwed up.

However, Selina's relationship with the Rogues shows how she is willing to forgive past screwups and offenses, if not entirely forget them. So she'll probably let Clark off the hook, eventually...