Jason Todd: Robin, Arkham Knight, Red Hood Appreciation 2018

[G-Potion]

He also felt drawn to the Gotham by Gaslight Batman which always amused me. :P

Oh I didn't get to hear all the dialogs in the trailer. What did he say that makes you feel that way?

[G-Potion]

If you really read the Dixon run, he is actually not so different. He is (opposed to what his fans claim) also quite reckless from time to time and has anger problems.



And Dixion definitely didn't wrote him as a classical nerd. Stuff like Tim playing role playing and video games, actually appeared quite rarely (and iirc only in really early stories), and it was iirc more often shown that Tim was into "cool" stuff (girls, cars, sport, rock music ...), and his civilain cloth were usually also way more "rebellious" than anything Jason and Dick would usually wear.

You're right of course. And it's more baffling that not only fans but most writers wouldn't acknowledge this.

[RedBird]

Oh I didn't get to hear all the dialogs in the trailer. What did he say that makes you feel that way?

I was referring to Countdown, in 'The search for Ray Palmer". The images speak for themselves, though along with these there are plenty of moments where Bruce and Jason work together, or 'silently stare at each other' clearly having a moment. The inner dialogue boxes are all Jasons.
Countdown1.jpg

Countdown2.jpg

Countdown3.JPG

[G-Potion]

Dammn that's a nice moment that I completely forgot about. Countdown is a huge resource to mine for Jason. Hopefully Lobdell gets to it someday.

[RedBird]

Dammn that's a nice moment that I completely forgot about. Countdown is a huge resource to mine for Jason. Hopefully Lobdell gets to it someday.

Despite it being destroyed by Superboy prime, I can never thank DCs Countdown enough for not only a lot of nice Jason centered moments like this, but also the fact that within the DC canon that the most "Perfect DC Universe" a "near utopia" would feature Jason as Batman. (in a scenario where Bruce in his place in death). Most people think of BFTC JayBats when Jason in a Batman role is brought up, but earth 15 is the version I always think of. Basically we know now that a more mentally stable Jason would be a perfect Batman, and to me, that helps to make up for a lot of the victim blaming and unfair 'failure' stigma that the character has received over the years.

[Aioros22]

If you really read the Dixon run, he is actually not so different. He is (opposed to what his fans claim) also quite reckless from time to time and has anger problems.



And Dixion definitely didn't wrote him as a classical nerd. Stuff like Tim playing role playing and video games, actually appeared quite rarely (and iirc only in really early stories), and it was iirc more often shown that Tim was into "cool" stuff (girls, cars, sport, rock music ...), and his civilain cloth were usually also way more "rebellious" than anything Jason and Dick would usually wear.

This is what fandom doesn`t want to get sometimes. Early Tim had alot of Jason in him but with Dick Grayson`s blessing and actual sibling relationship. That was the thumb up for the readers to quickly warm to him , including the ones who prefered stories where Jason was left out. He was never the opposite of him.

The nerd Tim only came around after when the character was getting to be safe.

[Aioros22]

Although this also implies this is a Batman who collects various robin Jays and trained them into his collar and chains set up which is admittedly not what I was expecting from Metal.
I at first thought they were meant to be counterparts to the four Robin boys, a joke about how they are all clones of each other. But THIS reference to crowbar, coupled with the fact that there a fifth different looking zombie robin in teen titans, (which ruins the so called, one on one counterpart theory), led me to that theory as well, that they are all Robin Jays that JokerBats collected, it also explains why their uniform is similar and of the original robin suit.

Theres even a polygon article that suggests the same theory. [X]
AND Scott Snyder commented on the article on twitter stating: "Had couple people ask why the evil Robins say what they do in Metal 2 - this is a good primer thanks @Polygon"
And to people asking if they were counter part Robins (zombie versions of dick/jay/tim/dami) he said, "You'll have to wait and see".

The second answer feels much more vague, if you ask me. I'm guessing this is him trying to go all Morrison meta on us to point out that no matter the universe Joker will always be a tormentor to Robin Jay. I guess we'll find out when the one shot origin story for the Joker Bats is released.

Nice article but yeah, that panel is really on the nose about it. They all look the same and only "the son" looks radically different in TT. Then again, they keep it vague because in the same comic the Robin outfits are a slightly different from each other. To me it feels like Snyder wanting the cake and the cheery at the same time. There`s also this post Soy did recently about an upcoming cover in Metal:



It`s obviously not original, both the cover and Soy`s take are taken from that controversial Joker and Barbara cover where he makes her smile the same way. Again, very in the nose.

[Aioros22]

Despite it being destroyed by Superboy prime, I can never thank DCs Countdown enough for not only a lot of nice Jason centered moments like this, but also the fact that within the DC canon that the most "Perfect DC Universe" a "near utopia" would feature Jason as Batman. (in a scenario where Bruce in his place in death). Most people think of BFTC JayBats when Jason in a Batman role is brought up, but earth 15 is the version I always think of. Basically we know now that a more mentally stable Jason would be a perfect Batman, and to me, that helps to make up for a lot of the victim blaming and unfair 'failure' stigma that the character has received over the years.

I think balanced readers such as us can take both. I don`t disregard angry Jason. That was an arc that led to his death. It`s part of the character. What other fandoms needs to get before they speak about the character is that the "angry-fvck-you-Batman) issues are actually the vast minority of his publication reportoire in the role.

Same thing with Under The Red Hood. Nothing of that is status-quo but part of his journey and both his ups and downs. Do they hit harder on him than the others? Yes and while I detest the backstages and editorial sheeningans, the character has endured despite of it and thus keep turning iconic all the same.

We Hoodlers don`t stay dead or take crap, DC. And sometimes, sometimesss even TPTB have to aknowledges the fact.



Clearly

[okiedokiewo]

It is just a little wired that he does something like that without Jason being really a part of the event ...

Sounds about right for DC, which loves using Jason's death as manpain for Batman and other characters without involving the living Jason.

[Aioros22]

They love using Jason centric lore and characteristics, period. No matter what they say. Batman Beyond not long ago had a whole sequence scene running on someone like the Joker in the wharehouse because Jurgens asked the artista to especifically make it disturbing and that clics with readers right away. Even the Batman Forever Dick Grayson only has his origin because the character is pretty much Jason.

Not Batman and Robin, that`s clearly more Dick in and more 66` centric.

[Aahz]

This is also the reason why I hate the weird 'angry robin' image Jason has, because its not true. You can't be painted as an angry person forever if the anger comes from deep seated ptsd or more to the point a moment where its justified. Labeling a character as this or that 'emotion' seems so damn simplified, and really just shows that peoples only understanding of Jason comes from either UTRH(which I would argue Jason was more sad than angry) or DCs implications and victim blaming robin narrative that tries to paint the character as out of control.

I think that there is still a real lack of an convenient explanation why Jason chaged like that in the end of his career. I mean you could quite easily explain why Jason got more and more frustrated with Batmans moral code and his methods since they failed quite often in that time (Killing Joke, Dumpster Slasher, Diplomats Son), and even Batman himself became darker in that area (letting KGB starve, letting Blackfire get killed by his own man, leaving the JLA to found the Outsiders). But that was never properly done (probably since Batman wouldn't that great in such a story).

If there was a Robin that I would describe not just as angry (thats too simple) but having a dangerous temper, it would be Dick. The guy has alienated life long friends and family over his anger issues and over much less impactful things than say, 'dying'. This is not to discredit Dick btw, in fact its one of the aspects that attracted me to the character, that he could go off the handle and lose himself in moments is interesting, and an engaging part of him considering how much the other dc characters depend of him and how much he tries to keep up the facade of being in control, even when he isnt, similar to Bruce.

I don't remember him being angry as Robin, only as Nightwing, and that was usually the consequence of him beeing in a bad mood because of some kind of tragedy (Dicks big flaw is that he is not good in cooping with failure, that was actually already established in Bronze age Teen Titans issue).

[Aioros22]

Not much room for convenient explanations when the main writer and editor plot to get rid of Robin from the books. As soon the Stunt was greenlit, that`s all it took. Thought to be a little fair to Starlin, he did use a convenient excuse for Jason`s sudden shift and upping manneirisms since it took place after Jason finds out that Batman kept from him any info about what happened to his father after he figures it out. This, coupled with the increasing frustation about how the Law would (not) work and hormones, it`s feesible.

It`s less feesible when you look at how Batman was written, with training Jason in the use of handguns, beating down someone he believe was the Slasher without confirmation to a bloody pulp if not for Gordon, locking KGBeast to starve himself, he was every bit as edgy as Jason was if not more sometimes. But that can turn into a convenient plot as well in Jason rebelling on Bruce`s hipocrasy.

[TheCape]

As a Tim fan, i had to agreed, the whole catuious Robin is a lie, althougt if i had to said what is his biggest flaw, is that he has a very "i know better than you" kind of mentality.

Jason is always more difficult to point for me, but i thougth that his issue was that he cared too much and has problems dealing with some of the stuff that he has found in his crimefighing carreer.

[Aioros22]

That`s basically how Frank Miller approached him in TLC. Jason`s flaw is that he is too emotionally attached.

[Aahz]

Not much room for convenient explanations when the main writer and editor plot to get rid of Robin from the books. As soon the Stunt was greenlit, that`s all it took. Thought to be a little fair to Starlin, he did use a convenient excuse for Jason`s sudden shift and upping manneirisms since it took place after Jason finds out that Batman kept from him any info about what happened to his father after he figures it out. This, coupled with the increasing frustation about how the Law would (not) work and hormones, it`s feesible.

Stralin's explanation was iirc that Jason hadn't over come the death of his parents, which is imo not really convenient, since happened (in Universe) years earlier. I kind of missed a trigger for that, already something like that the victim of the Diplomat's Son reminded him of his mother could have worked.

But that's not only a problem I have with Stralin's run, that could have also been done by an other writer in later retelling of Jason's origin, but there they usually go with Jason being angry from the beginning.