View Poll Results: Should Jason Todd Be A Hero Or A Villain?

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  • A Hero

    14 25.93%
  • A Villain

    7 12.96%
  • Somewhere In Between

    31 57.41%
  • I Wish He Stayed Dead

    2 3.70%
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  1. #16
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    Darker Hero for the main continuity (similar to huntress was for example often handled).

    Potentially Anti-hero in Elseworld's (if he can actually permanently kill of some some bigger villains).

    Villain doesn't make much sense and wouldn't really work on the long run. He knows the secret identities and weaknesses of a lot of DC heros, you would have to massively dumb him down if he should be around as a villain on the long run. (Of course he gets often dumbed down in Batfamily comics as well...)

  2. #17
    Astonishing Member Tzigone's Avatar
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    A hero just because I loathe DC's "bad seed" attitude and victim-blaming. He died a heroic death, trying to save someone. But it wasn't a good story, and the follow up was ghastly.

  3. #18

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    An anti hero (probably should have picked somewhere in between)

    Too many of DC's heroes are straight laced which gets kind of boring. So the more rebels they can put out there the better.

  4. #19
    Astonishing Member Tzigone's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Captain Nostalgia View Post
    Too many of DC's heroes are straight laced which gets kind of boring. So the more rebels they can put out there the better.
    Heh, I think we're overburdened with anti-heroes and there's been way too much "graying" put in to most of the heroes and am irritated there aren't enough really good ones who haven't done morally dubious things (often for shock value, during events, but not nearly always) or treated loved ones liked crap out there. I feel like way too many have been dragged down into the mud. To be fair, though, I do not care for antiheroes, as a general rule.

  5. #20
    Caperucita Roja Zaresh's Avatar
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    I think, in the end, it depends on what one see as hero archetype, and anti-hero; and how we understand that somewhere in between bit. For me, Jason is heroic, but he's definitely an anti-hero, of the byronic, romantic variant. Even if he's sometimes an alright hero who operates inside the widely accepted lines of what a hero is expected to do. But my sense of what a hero is, it's a very old one.

    I mean, Odysseus would be an anti-hero elder archetype who also shows heroic traits, while Hector or Paris would be definitely heroes. Aquilles, too, would border heroism but be mostly an anti-hero, probably. They are often seen as heroes, all of them, by tradition. But I think, what makes a hero antiheroic, is more than his morals about stuff like killing. It has to do with how they're seem by their peers, how they are wiling to act for a bigger ^good^ and how they follow the social norms. Which is not how nowadays people understand antiheroes: it's more like they were seen 30 years ago... maybe.

    (There were heroes in the Homer cicle, just not heroes I mentioned. I liked the troyans better, to be honest)
    Last edited by Zaresh; 07-17-2021 at 05:25 AM.

  6. #21
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    While it wasn't my favorite iteration of the DCU, one of the things that the nu 52 did get write is it's approach to Jason. They depicted him with a pretty big chip on his shoulder, but he was also trying to move past that and not let it define him. He wasn't a stone cold killer, but he also wasn't hesitant to take a life when he thought it was necessary, a character trait very few superheroes can pull off convincingly.
    Keep in mind that you have about as much chance of changing my mind as I do of changing yours.

  7. #22
    Ultimate Member Ascended's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Godlike13 View Post
    Somewhere in between, leaning antagonistic. There is no point to him as a hero, and the more they comprised to make it fit the more the characters themselves become compromised.
    This. Jason as a hero who is welcome in the Cave feels like it cheapens Jason and the other Bats, but Jason as a straight up villain sucks away a lot of what makes him compelling.

    I know Jason has gone through a whole character arc since his return, where he's (mostly) made peace with Bruce and the others, but I think there's plenty of room for him to simply go "Maybe I don't want to shoot you anymore Bruce, but that doesn't mean I like or agree with how you do things and I'm gonna get my hands dirty whether you like it or not."
    "We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another, as if we were one single tribe."

    ~ Black Panther.

  8. #23
    duke's casettetape lemonpeace's Avatar
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    somewhere in-between, a hero with villainous sensibilities. I feel that a hero at heart who will do what needs to be done works great with a Batfamily character due to the fact that the whole schtick with bat-characters is that they are all so physically and mentally competent. so from that perspective, what i feel makes someone like Jason work is that ultimately he's clever enough and aware enough to recognize that there may be a line but sometimes you have to cross that line to get to the heart of the problem. In times like now people are recognizing more and more the value of radical measures to fix large scale issues, which aligns perfectly with Jason post-Lobdell's RHATO run which made a concerted effort to flesh out the development of Jason gaining the necessary emotional and social intelligence. that emotional nuance makes him a character that can better fulfill a truly compelling anti-hero role going forward, rather than falling into the one-note damaged punisher type that anti-heroes typically do.

    however, to best utilize him he needs to stick with the Outlaws and the wider DC universe more than being in Gotham with the Batfamily. he should most definitely have a unique yet amicable relationship with each Batfamily, and he should team up with them where it makes sense, but they have to stop treating him like he is just regular Batfamily because having him serve as a foil to Batman's philosophy is significantly undercut if he's at his beck and call, bending over backwards to suit Bruce's ideology. once we start treating him like any other Batperson the perception of the character starts to look more like he's just the angry screw-up/burnout of the Batfamily.

    in fact, I think the Batfamily needs to be less consolidated in general for a while. they all should be having more adventures doing their own thing, teaming up with each other or other heroes in the DC universe, than they have overarching Batfamily affairs.
    Last edited by lemonpeace; 07-18-2021 at 08:31 AM.
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  9. #24

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tzigone View Post
    Heh, I think we're overburdened with anti-heroes and there's been way too much "graying" put in to most of the heroes and am irritated there aren't enough really good ones who haven't done morally dubious things (often for shock value, during events, but not nearly always) or treated loved ones liked crap out there. I feel like way too many have been dragged down into the mud. To be fair, though, I do not care for antiheroes, as a general rule.
    Well if you want someone straight laced you can choose....

    Anyone from the JLA with maybe the exception of Ollie
    Anyone from the Titans minus Roy
    Anyone from the Outsiders
    Anyone from the JSA minus Sandman (Wesley) and Wildcat (Ted)
    Anyone from the Freedom Fighters

    Anyone from...you get my drift.

  10. #25
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    I like him in the middle. And frankly, wobbling about it. Sometimes villain, sometimes hero and sometimes both at once.

    His sometimes contradictory combination of rage, stubbornness, vulnerability, almost self-absorbed confidence and also intense insecurity, that utter unpredictability, are what make him interesting to me.

    I think Jason should kind of always be his own worst enemy. He has a chip on his shoulder a mile wide, born both of his faith in himself but also his inescapable fear that he's failing the people who matter to him. He can never truly get along with Bruce or Dick in the long haul because in his mind they are either refusing to recognize his capability or making him feel like he'll never live up to them. So he lashes out, either to prove himself to them or prove to himself that he doesn't need to care what they think. And at the end of the day, Jason will always refuse to be led. He will be contradictory, even irrationally so. He's the family member who always thinks you're thinking ill of them, even when you aren't.

    But I also think Jason has some serious rage issues. He'll choose not to kill in the short run. But eventually someone will push his buttons and he'll end them. His combination of hard headed and self-righteous will always end in blood. Sometimes that will be justified, or excusable. Other times it will be straight up murder. Jason should be frustrating to other heroes (even non Bats) because he's a good guy a lot of the time, even if they think he goes too far with the violence, but sometimes he's just a straight up killer. And the question should always be there as to whether you take somebody like that down because he crosses the line at all or too often, or if you excuse his bad behavior because on his best day he'll risk everything to protect those who need it.

  11. #26
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    I’m another “somewhere in-between” voter.

    I think he *should* be a character who lands on the “protagonist vigilante” side of the spectrum, but I don’t think he should just be a bland, run-of-the-mill 90’s anti-hero throwback, or that he should be at all welcomed into the Batfamily in anything but desperate straits.

    I kind of feel like his personal missions should vacillate between “messy enough to justify the more restrained approach of other heroes” and “occasionally correct in using lethal tactics.”

    I’ll be honest and say that while I think some of his Lobdell-penned appearances are good, it was also far-too-often just a bland and boring retread of regular action hero storylines. I feel like Red Hood is best used to actually analyze and hypothesize about what a more lethal Batfamily member would be like in a “actions have consequences” way, rather than as another escapist fantasy.
    Like action, adventure, rogues, and outlaws? Like anti-heroes, femme fatales, mysteries and thrillers?

    I wrote a book with them. Outlaw’s Shadow: A Sherwood Noir. Robin Hood’s evil counterpart, Guy of Gisbourne, is the main character. Feel free to give it a look: https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asi...E2PKBNJFH76GQP

  12. #27
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    I simply don't really see how villain should really work on the long run.

    He doesn't really has a motivation do anything apparat from killing criminals (especially the Joker) and going after the Batfamily.

    The fist is something you can't really do with the major Batman villains, and the second is something you can only do so many times before it becomes repetative. It would also be pretty hard to keep hi to appear threatening and competent when he keeps failing.



    I mean already at the end of pre flashpoint as a villain he kind of only was used to prop up Dick.

    https://www.deviantart.com/jasontodd...urns-884011236

    Last edited by Aahz; 07-18-2021 at 09:32 AM.

  13. #28
    Mighty Member Bat-Meal's Avatar
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    Anti-hero, otherwise he's too similar to the other Robins.

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