DC doesn’t hate Jason, my dear. You need to learn the history of Jason creation as Robin and Red Hood to understand what actually happened with him because it’s really not a matter of DC hating him and man, Jason has a very interesting history that worth knowing.
Jason was first created in 1983 because of argument between the bat writers and the titans writers over Robin because the former wanted to use him again in Batman books and the latter were like “too bad because we aren’t giving him up” so bat writers were like “you know what? Freak it, we are going to create our own Robin!” and titans writers were like “Wait, what?”. So, DC give the green light to bat writers to create another Robin while told to titan writers to give Dick another identity (which is kind of funny if you think about it because Jason’s creation was the reason behind the birth of Nightwing). Years went by and fans reactions were ranging from “CHANGE IS BAD! REEEEEEEEE” and “I like the new Robin, but his background isn’t very original” (also, I want to tell you two facts here about pre crisis Jason because I really do like him and many unfortunately dismiss him because they think he was just a “copy”. First, it’s not true that pre crisis Jason and post crisis Jason are completely different characters because many things fans like about Jason was influenced by his pre crisis version and the biggest difference between the two versions was the background. Second, Tim road to become Robin was hugely inspired by pre crisis Jason’s and follow the exact pattern. Like discovering that Batman is Bruce Wayne, trying to convince Batman to make him Robin….etc) until the reboot happened which DC decided it was the prefect opportunity to change Jason’s background and Batman become slowly darker thanks to the big success of Miller TDKR which played a big role in what made DC decide to get rid of Robin. You ask why? That’s because some writers and fans liked the idea of dark solo batman stories and Starlin (Batman’s writer at that time and one who wrote Death in the family) in particular felt that Batman is better off without Robin (I want to explain here that he hated the concept of Robin and not Jason himself because he felt that it was stupid how Batman is making child soldiers). Starlin spent months trying to convince the editors to get rid of Robin and was pretty much pushing him at the background until O’Neil “finally” decided to kill Robin by making a poll and let the fans decide “Brilliant, O’Neil!”. So, they were given the green light to make “A Death in the Family” storyline and opened the poll which got them a big response with 10k votes in just three days. Things seemed fine at the beginning and everyone was congratulating O’Neil over his “brilliant” idea until things went south. The story got a big media coverage and people were really pissed off. There were people who liked Jason and were angry that they killed him off (because yeah, it’s not true that “everyone” hated Jason and he actually had fans), people who felt that it was such a coward way to kill a character and the ones who absolutely hated how they killed a child friendly character. So things weren’t going well for DC and the “suites” weren’t happy so Starlin was shown the door and O’Neil tried to control the situation by blaming it on Jason. Yes, he actually was the one started the whole “Everyone hated Jason Todd which is why fans voted to kill him!” and “Jason is very bad Robin who deserved death!”. Not only that, but he also revealed years later that the poll wasn’t legit and Jason wasn’t actually supposed to die. What make it worse that they not only refused to own up to their mistake, but they also decided to destroy Jason’s repetition completely while propping up the “new” Robin.
And this how the first part of Jason’s history end and I hopefully will continue with the second part “soon”.
And here’s the second part of Jason’s history.
Years passed, Jason became the costume behind the glass and no one imagined that he will ever come back. Well, until Hush storyline happened. Many people are convinced that Hush was supposed to be Jason and there were rumors running around that the writer got mad that people figure it out which is why he changed it, others think that DC chicken out last minute. What’s the truth? Nobody knows. The interesting thing though is that the issue where Jason appeared sold so well that even some of hardcore Marvel fans picked it up “IT’S JASON TODD” which made DC (and Marvel) go “hmmm…”. Another years passed by and Batman sales weren’t doing well (yeah, Batman wasn’t always a big seller) so someone was like “huh, what do you think about bringing back Jason Todd? Just for one story to boost sales and then kill him off” and Winick started working on setting up Jason’s return and then UTRH happened. What DC totally didn’t expect was Jason’s popularity and not only that, but fans actually siding with him over Batman. So DC decided to freak out “oh God, how did this happen??” and then they decided to keep him alive with them having no idea what to do except letting their writers playing with him until something stick. Didio though come up with the idea of making Jason the new Nightwing since Dick wasn’t doing well and his popularity was going down fast. So, they were setting up things for him to take over Nightwing book and the Outsiders book until the plan changed last minute and they decided to keep Dick. They were lost again about what do with Jason (and just have appear here and there randomly in some of their books) until Didio pushed for Jason to be in Countdown (Didio was actually pretty concerned about finding a place for Jason). Interestingly, there was a rumor that DC was planning to give the Red Robin mantle permanently and have him starring in a book with Tim called Robin and Red Robin, but the plan was axed because Morrison was planning to make Damian a Robin so Tim was left with no identity which is why they decided to give him the Red Robin mantle instead (it actually explain Jason’s sudden behavior in the end of Countdown). Things weren’t going well for Jason and Daniel made things worse with BFTC where he tried to make him irredeemable villain which of course didn’t work out. After the fiasco with BFTC, Jason completely despaired for a year which made fans extermly frustrated and literally asking for him in every DC panel “Where Jason Todd? Why he doesn’t have a book yet? What the heck is going on?” until DC made the big announcement that “Jason Todd is coming with Morrison’s new story as villain!! Yay?” Fans “………………”. Morrison: “so, I decided to makes Jason a balding red headed loser with no goals or motivation except making the Batfamily’s lives miserable. Cool, right?” Fans: “DCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC!!” DC: “……Winick, please come back” and he did where tried to do some damage control (it was said that he was really not happy over what happened). Then, things started to get better when WB decided to make an animated adaption of UTRH and DC finally realizing that Jason is here to stay with Didio declaring in one of the retailers meeting that Jason is one of the most requested characters to get a book. He get a mini series with Winick and N52 has given DC the chance to start fresh with Jason by giving him his own book and team. While DC can do more with Jason by actually bothering to push him and promote him, he still in better place than he ever was before with growing fanbase and presence in the media.
And this how the second part of Jason’s history end where he survived DC’s incompetence, being Nightwing or Red Robin (thank God that it didn’t happen) and moved from being the character who some voted to kill off to one of most requested.
Great post!!! More people need to see this. I’ve come across so many ignorant airheads who claimed Jason was the least favorite, was the terrible Robin, etc. despite never once picked up a comic that had the actual Jason Todd in it.
the panels are antagonistic, and they don’t get along; for most of steph’s existence, bruce is an immeasurable asshole to her. he uses her to lure tim back as robin, leads her directly into the trap that gets her killed, and at every turn in the road tells her that he doesn’t think she’s capable, and that she should turn back now. why? because war games and the associated storylines were written by infinite monkeys with infinite bananas throwing the peels at a single typewriter, is why. the peels are symbolic of sexism in writing and how no one could dare think for a minute that steph could be more important in batman comics than penis-having tim drake, even though steph had much more promise and would generate much more interesting stories. it fucking sucks to suck, right. now, steph and bruce have had nice moments. in gotham knights, there’s a panel where bruce tells steph he doesn’t mind her chatter, and there’s a bit where steph goes, “mock me at your peril, masked man,” which is very dear to me.
from what i can extrapolate from there, she would’ve been much like dick was as a robin, filled with chatter and cheesy commentary; which i think is an interesting idea, because her background is much more similar to jason’s. i think bruce and steph together as batman and robin could’ve created a powerful story about healing; tim kept batman alive, but steph would be the one to teach batman to live again. because steph’s will to survive, to keep going, to adapt and thrive even when no one wants her to is inspiring. that’s something that people look at and say, wow, maybe i want to be like that. and in that time steph becomes robin, batman’s been through a whole fucking lot – i’d love to see a burnt out batman get inspired again by looking at this spitfire little girl who refuses to stop. i think having a robin who inspires batman is a whole new sort of thing altogether.
heget's WordPress 