Words cannot describe how much I love this character I can't remember how many times i've defended him and Judd Winick from all the haters when he first returned. He's my favorite character from DC and he's the only reason I collect anything from DC. I hope one day he gets a solo I really don't like him doing Space adventures. I would love for Lobdell to write a Jason Todd solo And man he is so dangerous in the new 52 with all the new fighting upgrades and it's so rewarding as a fan to see him have his own universe of characters like the All Caste Essence and Ducra.
ABH's pic upthread made me think of this scene....pixie boots, ciggie butts and the jetty at sunrise....probably the greatest Jason moment of all time!
Which is of course a call back to the original
Such a badarse
It feels like DC has lately been watering down Jason's badassedness. Like him better as a black sheep.
Not really, although I understand why it can seem that way. Neither Jason nor Bruce is the same in the New 52 as in the old continuity. It has taken DC some fits and starts, but we are getting to a Jason that is not nearly so extreme, but is marked more by sardonic demeanor and sometimes dangerous impulsiveness, and sometimes bursts of rage, than by madness. Bruce, for his part, is also less extreme, which is to say less rigid and messianic about his values and more accepting that other people might not see things his way, and might have good reason not to share his point of view. His affection for Jason also runs much closer to the surface, to the point of being openly gentle and even loving with his black sheep (his affection for most people runs closer to the surface in the New 52, he's just a warmer person).
If you want to say that takes the edge off their personalities and makes their relationship more similar to others we know of, fair enough, but that scarcely turns Jason into Dick Grayson. Also, I agree with others upthread that some kind of shift along these lines was necessary and probably inevitable. Under the Red Hood was a powerful story, no doubt, but some aspects of the the story's presentation, together with the lack of a quick and effective follow-up, turned it into a strategic mistake, leaving the characters stuck in a web of difficult and divisive issues with no way forward. It is a sign of how big a mess things had become that it's taken nearly ten years, one formal reboot, and quite a bit of hand-waving and retconning to get this far.
I actually enjoy this version of both characters more than the previous ones who I felt were stuck in a rut that they could never escape because DC and writers would never allow them to escape from it.
I think it's a fair assessment to make given what was happening in the previous continuity but I also have to wonder if DC was going to make an attempt at changing things within that continuity. The last time Jason was seen prior to the reboot he was going off to somewhere unknown with Scarlett and that somewhere was obviously far away from Gotham. There is also Morrison's Batman, Inc. to take into consideration. If I'm not much mistaken Morrison intended to redeem Jason in the story and that's why he was given the Wingman ID. (If I've somehow made a mistake in this let me know. I'm not a big Morrison fan but I thought I read that somewhere or other. No idea where now.)
In any case, the "pycho and angry" Jason Todd introduced in UtRH overstayed his welcome because no one wanted to try to do anything with him and no writer wanted to try to have him deal with his issues because they needed a reason to continue having him fume and rage at Bruce. Add to that the fact that DC would never allow Joker to be killed by anyone, not even Jason and thus a seemingly unending cycle began for Jason.
There was no direct follow-up to the UtRH story, no clear direction for the character in it's aftermath, and in a way he has spent all of his second life in the shadow of the Bat in much the same way people say Dick Grayson has. Before the reboot he'd never been given a chance to grow as a character, never had any friends to call his own at least until Scarlett became his partner, never done anything away from Gotham nor anything not tied to his anger and PTSD over his death and resurrection. He's been running in circles for years. If toning down on some previous aspects of his character is what it takes to move the character beyond this nonsense and into a position that gives him a chance at some real character growth then I'm all for it.
That doesn't, however, mean that I wouldn't have been just as happy to see more of Red Hood and Scarlett only that I'd grown tired of writer's telling the same exact story with Jason every single time they used him.
Last edited by JasonTodd428; 05-06-2014 at 02:41 PM.
The issues involved could not continue on forever for all the reasons that you posit. However, it isn't surprising that no one was particularly interested in dealing with the fallout from Under the Red Hood. The issues placed on the table were messy, had little in the way of a clear action based payoff, and held the danger if not handled with a very sensitive touch of making Bruce look anywhere from bad to horrible in any number of ways - in fact the dangers are so clear in retrospect that it's surprising alarm bells weren't going off all over the place. It's a textbook case of plotting for an immediate story but paying almost no attention to deeper and longer-term implications for character and world. Or perhaps its an even clearer case of assuming that everyone sees characters and situations the way you do. One suspects many at DC had bought into the image, that had grown over the years, of Jason as the "bad Robin" who was brutal and murderous and got himself killed by not listening to Bruce -- an image that was first propagated, in no small part, out of fear that people would blame Bruce for being neglectful and incompetent in getting Jason killed. When things turned out to be quite a bit more divisive than that, it was easier just to use Jason's anger and Bruce's emotional incapacity as a set of narrative crutches for stories that just hobbled around in circles. And of course, as is often the case with avoidance, they tended to fall into the very traps they were trying to evade, as they never really found a stable characterization for Jason and Bruce often came out looking bad anyway.
It's interesting to speculate what might have happened with Morrison. The Wingman arc did seem to be leading in the way of a reconciliation, and Lobdell partially picked up on that. But in any case, as you say, if it takes hand waving and character retcons to get out of the trap, then so be it. Jason is probably a better character without all of his rage and bitterness, Bruce a better character without all of his emotional paralysis and self-righteousness, and the haziness surrounding Jason's death and return in the New 52, particularly as regards the specific details and sequences of events, is probably all for the best. Both characters gain badly needed growth potential, and the mist drawn over specific events allows for maneuvering room as every interaction does not have to be referenced back to or overshadowed by some past milestone - and even when it is, the references can be flexible. Which, of course, is part of what a reboot is supposed to do for you.
It's just more of the same crap at DC. It's a shame these characters are entrusted to such incompetence.