Something that makes me sad is that of all the Wayne kids, Jason could have been the golden child if he hadn’t died.
What I mean to say, is that his siblings are…
Dick “I flunked out of business school because I hated it so much and ran off to be a cop in the one place on earth where people consider Gotham a reasonable vacation destination” Grayson
Tim “I dropped out of high school because I’m a genius with no motivation” Drake-Wayne
Cassandra “What are people skills” Cain-Wayne
Damian “can schmooze but is also stabby” Wayne
And then you have Jason “Robin is cool but I get to go to school and learn” Todd
If he hadn’t died you can bet he would have gone on, finished his undergrad (an double major English and Theater degree) and gone straight into a graduate degree.
And also would have been the face and director of the Martha Wayne Foundation. (The branch of the foundation focused on helping local communities and championing the arts.)
Bruce would always be so happy to introduce him like “Yes, this is my child that actually bothered to finish school and is an actual functioning adult and productive member of society. He spends his trust fund on youth centers in Park Row and out of print first edition books.”
There are so many misconceptions about why Jason Todd was killed off, and I’m here to correct them to the best of my ability.
First of all, I recommend you read this, as it’s very thorough and informative and I’ll be referencing it frequently.
The vote was very close–5,343 for Jason’s death, 5,271 for Jason’s survival. That’s 72 votes, less than 0.68% of the total votes. Let’s not pretend Jason was killed off by a landslide. “Everybody hated him” is just…literally not true, and those votes aren’t all related to Jason himself.
There might have been one guy who really hated Robin (not necessarily Jason Todd) who voted more than enough times to sway the vote on his own. Alternatively, DC might have said that to cover their asses because this publicity stunt was not received well in the media or by fans. O’Neil later went on to rethink his entire career due to the backlash.
One guy even wrote a eulogy for Jason after his death! It’s actually a bit heartbreaking.
A lot of people really hated Pre-Crisis Jason for being a Dick Grayson clone, and didn’t realize that Post-Crisis Jason was a different character or still resented him for that. Some people, however, realized how much he’d changed after the Crisis and respected the new version.
Some voters assumed that they were voting to kill Jason and the Joker, which is kind of different than voting to kill off Jason just for kicks.
Some voted just to see if DC would actually go through with it even if they sympathized with Jason and liked him as Robin.
Most of the voters were adults, not children, because voting on the phone cost money and it was a number similar to some not-so-appropriate phone lines or it was forbidden altogether. A little girl cried all day because Jason died, and DC consoled her by saying that Jason deserved it for disobeying Batman, as if that warranted a teenager’s brutal death. The vote was not representative of the readers, particularly the children.
Some adult readers at the time weren’t keen on the concept of Robin, and I’m sure a lot of them also hated Jason Todd specifically, but that wasn’t the main issue. They were ushering in the grimdark era of Miller and really long pointy eared-cowls, where they saw no place for a Robin.
Even then, Frank Miller called the stunt one of the “ugliest” and “most cynical” things in comics. FRANK. MILLER.
Jim Starlin’s particular issue was with Robin, and while I don’t think his viewpoint matches up with DC’s world, I do see his point. He doesn’t understand why Batman would allow a brightly-dressed child join him in a war on crime, in a city that was only becoming more dangerous each year. If this were the real world, everyone would be crying child abuse and endangerment, and they’d be right, but this is a world where child sidekicks are the norm.
O’Neil said that he tried to make Jason less likable because the fans weren’t responding well to him. What I find disturbing is that it worked and Jason’s “unlikable” behavior was based on him using excessive force against those who raped women and children and on acting like, y’know, a traumatized kid rescued from the streets.
I can’t figure out if I hallucinated this or not, but I recall reading a letter from an employee of a group home saying that the kids weren’t surprised that Jason had died. These were kids who related to someone like Jason, and were probably ecstatic that even he could be Robin, only to get shot down in the worst way possible. Everyone deserves a hero.
Classist bullshit. The next Robin was well-spoken, mild-mannered, and from a wealthy family, unlike Jason, whose speech was rough and attitude was harsh and defensive from living on the streets. I highly doubt that was a coincidence.
No but honestly who votes for a 15-year old kid who is obviously traumatized by his parents’ deaths and living on the streets and overreacts to violence against women and children to be murdered? Even if people didn’t like Jason, that’s just…so unnecessary.
If you want to be an asshole, you can go on saying that a lot of people hated Jason–but for good reasons? No. It’s nothing worth gloating about when many reasons are founded on prejudice and ignorance.
Batman Ninja comes out to the public this month so I can finally start making a print series! I really wanted to do something based on hanafuda cards; my family has some sets, yet I never learned to play…but I’ve always loved the designs of each suit! To start, here’s Dick and Jason 🙂 Dick’s is based on the March suit which is designed with sakura and flower viewing curtain. Jay’s is centered on the August suit and, because I’m a sucker for patterns and symbolism, the design on his robe is based on the ayakashi Noh mask: these characters are vengeful spirits, usually warriors.
Will probably adapt these to shirt designs once all of them are done, too.
Okay so Batman Ninja, it starts exactly like the trailer: everyone gets sent back in time to feudal Japan where Joker rules. Then they encounter a talking monkey in the forest who gives them power to turn into magical boys and they use the power of love and friendship to bring balance back to Japan and the timeline.
I’M KIDDING. But the movie has even better stuff and I can’t wait for it to come out next week because I think everyone will really enjoy it!
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.
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