Originally Posted by
RedBird
Just read Urban Legends, and a bit mixed on this issue. I've generally been enjoying and liking the story and had high opinions of both issues one and two, but this third issue may be my least favourite so far.
On the positive side, I really really liked Bruce here, this is the most humane he has been depicted in this story thus far and it's so nice to see him come across in a more compassionate way, this is a Batman I want to see more often, and the overall story is still so far enjoyable though it is a touch too forced in the depictions of Bruce and Jasons disagreements and divisions, which takes the issue down for me. But that Robin flashback, oof. That one flashback to Jasons Robins days really soured the experience. There's more of the same, unstable robin, doomed to fail nonsense, which is par for the course nowadays, but it's the final flashback scene that really rubbed me the wrong way. I think the goal of that moment was to display Bruces range for forgiveness towards criminals, which is nice, but it just makes Jason out to be outrageously hypocritical in such an OOC way.
Slightly off topic but, at this point, it's rare to find accurate depictions of Jasons early days of Robin that isn't marred by the continuous years of 'bad robin' retcons, but I think in the realm of revisionist history, Robin Jasons anger being twisted to be more of a 'bloodlust' is by far one of the biggest disappointments in these kinds of stories and a major misinterpretation of his character. Was Robin Jason sometimes angry? Yes. Was it justifiable? Also yes. And that's the element that's unfortunately missing from a lot of the reinterpretations. Jason's anger was always passionate and fuelled by the injustices around him. It was a righteous anger. Did it lead to him making some mistakes, or going to far? Yes. But the anger itself, the motivations, they were always understandable and defensible. In his actual robin days, he was beating pimps, cause they were beating their girls. He was especially brutal towards people who were abusing children. He may or may have not have killed someone for being a serial rapist. And even in the second issue of this same story, Jason may or may not have killed the drug dealer who was taking advantage of his mother.
So what gets his blood boiling in this flashback scene? An ex jewel thief whose gone on the straight and narrow that seemed a little nervous at a crime scene. Jasons gone from feeling righteous anger concerning abhorrent crimes like abuse and rape, to having an unwarranted desire to assault a petty jewel thief. Not even that, an ex thief. This is the hill we're having him die on now? Jasons robin comes off as so belligerent here, he reads more like an 'early days and newly introduced' Damian, more so than Jason. That needless insertion of hypocrisy and unwarranted terrorising from Jason was pretty disappointing to see, in a so far otherwise enjoyable book.