yknow i hate that knightfight or whatever panel where its like. bruce envisioning jasons happy future as being married to rose with a kid so much BUT i will say as an enjoyer of aroace jason it does give me something very interesting to chew on. just another way that bruce fundamentally misunderstands jason and what he wants for his life
Question for the chat, for no particular reason at all, which is angstier.
Post resurrection Jason with scars? Or Without?
With scars
Without scars
Remaining time: 4 days 8 hours
With scars feel obvious. The reminders of what the Joker did to him, all the trauma he went though both before and after. The thought that Jason was so badly injured not even the Lazarus pit could heal him. (Not how that works I know, but I think it's an interesting thought for Jason to struggle with.)
As for without scars, I'm talking no scars period. Not just the ones caused by the Joker, but even the small ones. Like one he may have had on his knees from kneeling on a piece of glass. One he got on his chin falling off his bike. Ton's of tiny scars on his hands that he got learning to strip cars. All the things that tell a story that remind you of how far you've come. Only to look into the mirror and see none of it?
There’s an interesting thing that happens when you try to discuss Jason Todd’s death in the Batman fandom. It’s an art form, really. Perfected by Bruce glazers in taking something horrifyingly devastating about Jason’s storyline and completely de-centering him from it.
You talk about how a child never received closure for his murder because of one man actively standing between him and his justice. (Something verifiable through his actions.) You’ll be hit with: “But look at how SAD Bruce is. This is such a TRAGIC thing that happened to him. It BROKE him entirely.” (Immediate pivot to Bruce and HIS emotions.)
The problem isn’t that these statements are false. Bruce IS sad. It DID break him. The problem is that this is the only framing of the event acceptable to glazers. 1. A framing that centers Bruce. 2. A framing that shoves Bruce’s concrete actions aside and focuses on his feelings instead. As if the two hold equal weight.
Bruce’s grief and guilt is presented as charity for Jason’s justice. His sadness is pushed as the closure Jason never received. “Look how much he suffers”. A tormented conscience for a dead child. A fair trade.
And it’s not just Jason. They do this with every victim. Bruce’s intent is always weighed heavier than his actions. But the same grace is never extended to anyone else. Jason’s anger at being failed is irrational. It’s over the top. It’s too much. It’s repetitive. Move on. Bruce loved him, didn’t he? He cried, didn’t he? Isn’t that enough? That promise of a feeling that you can’t measure?
But grief isn’t justice. it doesn’t override justice. it’s not placeholder for justice. using it to excuse inaction and lack of accountability is pathetic <3
also when Bruce covered up the presence of Batman and Robin in Ethiopia---i don't necessarily think Jason would have wanted to out who Batman was, that's a separate discussion entirely---but it prevented him from having legal justice, and that meant that Bruce was going to get justice for Jason by himself. And then it never really happens. Not in the way Jason needs and not in the way he deserves. Jason never really gets closure for what happens to him, and the fandom nearly always acts like Jason uses his death against the bats when really I don't think he does. There's been multiple instances, in the comics, of Batfam members making his death seem unimportant or as if it doesn't matter and shouldn't have so much of an affect on him when he died. They actively weaponise it against him in fights to draw a reaction out of him and---and Jason clocks that shit and he doesn't let himself react, he lets them spout bullshit and I don't even know what he'd be thinking because DC writers take away his ability to narrate whenever it's not convenient for them. Jason's out here, and he wants justice, and he's tried for justice, and it never works. And they're out here, and they're treating Jason just like most of the fandom treats him.
i don't think i'll ever stop telling people to read moench's pre-Crisis work, like i really just cannot recommend it enough.
moench wrote most of 90s batman and made references to his 80s run all the time, so—even if you're not interested in 80s shenanigans, extra jaybin stories, bronze age characterization, etc—i truly believe the experience of reading his 90s run is substantially improved by being able to recognize and understand those references. at the very least, you get to catch a throwback, which is always fun, but sometimes moench used his callbacks to enhance the narrative in this really cool, subtle way that just adds so much weight to his writing.
it's actually one of my favorite parts of his work in knightsaga because in prelude, while bruce is spiraling, moench repeatedly references parts of his 80s run that were specifically related to jason, but avoids ever directly mentioning or referencing jason until that famous scene with the joker right before knightfall's climax.
one of the best examples of moench doing this was the way bruce was repeatedly forced by the narrative to recount old cases in which jason played a significant role—most notably the story that introduced black mask, a character who, iirc, had not been used since—which bruce did in unusually perfect detail, except for the parts jason was in.
bruce completely skipped over any parts of cases that could not be retold without mentioning jason—and not in a "jason was retconned out of this" kind of way, but in a "bruce was retelling the story totally linearly until this specific part, and it is very clear he is leaving things out" kind of way.
it's genuinely so interesting to me because, as a reader, you can tell bruce's escalating self-destructiveness is related to jason, and you can also tell bruce is attempting to avoid going anywhere near that subject.
jason's name is never once uttered, not even in thought. he is never truly referenced in any way because bruce cannot withstand it. he refuses to take cognizance of jason because any acknowledgement—who jason was, what jason did—is reflexively identified as past tense. it forces bruce to confront a reality in which jason is dead, and bruce cannot take it; he cannot bear it, and so he doesn't.
thus, neither does the narrative—jason is denied any presence within it. yet somehow, as the reader, you can still tell! you can still tell that bruce's "obsession" is really avoidance. you can still tell that his inability to tolerate his grief is what's fueling this endless spiral. moench manages to make all of this clear without ever making any actual references to jason himself.
jason is effectively excluded; he's not present within the story, and moench uses that. the narrative emphasizes the presence of things that were related to jason, which, in turn, draws the reader's attention to his blatant lack of presence. you can tell because there is nothing where you know jason should be, and you can feel the edges of that nothing, and they're sharp and jagged and undeniably something. jason's absence is made tangible, and he is everywhere.
by the time knightfall approaches it's climax, your palms are raw from feeling along the jagged edges of every jason-shaped hole moench has led you to. every one of moench's callbacks becomes a reminder of not just jason, but the distinct life jason lived: the cases he solved, the people he helped, the rogues he fought. moench doesn't incessantly press us against the edge of jason's absence to remind us of how he died, he does it to remind us of how jason lived.
everything is reminiscent of jason's life, which makes that moment when bruce is pummeling the joker—when all he can think to himself is that jason will never "breathe, speak, or move again", that jason will never live again—pack an even bigger punch because we've continually been confronted with the proof that he once did.
in my opinion, it is one of the best depictions of bruce's grief. moench lets bruce be an unreliable narrator which makes him really great at writing bruce's avoidance of vulnerability. this is a strength of moench's writing in general, but is particularly well-executed in knightsaga. i imagine this may be partly because he essentially created jason, and knightfall seems to reflect some of his personal thoughts on the death of a character he invested so much time into.
there's just this, like, raw pathos in moench's issues of prelude and knightfall that builds up and up and up, and regardless of whether you've read his 80s run, you will feel that tension, and it will pay off. it's not like moench's subtle references are the only things that contribute to that. i just think understanding those references makes that eventual culmination hit that much harder, and the fact he manages to add so much depth through his use of negative space is really cool to me, especially for a character like bruce.
anyway, everyone should go read moench's 80s run because being pre-Crisis doesn't automatically mean it's irrelevant, and even if it was, it's a fun read; who cares whether it's perfectly aligned with modern canon?
I will never get behind Jason leaving behind the mask to be a civilian. That boy was risking himself to stop Ma Gunn's museum heist BEFORE he was Robin! He runs into a burning building when his body should be paralyzed by the fear lobotomy Batman did to him! All because he heard a kid screaming. He was meant to be a hero! It's in his bones! In his blood! In his marrow! I will never buy into him giving up Red Hood (unless it's for a different persona) OR weird time shenanigans where he goes back and decides to quit being or never become Robin! I don't buy it! I refuse! He was built to be a hero! To save people! And I don't think he should have to stop.
if jason had been allowed to grow up as normal - if he, one day, had told bruce “hey, i don’t want to be robin anymore. i just want to be me” and bruce was preternaturally cool about that and okayed it and that was that - if he’d been allowed to just be a teenage theater kid and a HUGE book nerd - he would have absolutely, without a doubt, been so so soo involved in online fandom culture. he’d be writing fanfiction. take allllllllll the intensity-of-soul needed to become red hood, and then take away the red hood persona in which that intensity could’ve been channeled into. you KNOW he had opinions about everything. he’d be the kind of kid doing warrior cats rp. tina belcher levels of autistic swag. you just know he’d be goddamn unwell with it. phd in fandomology. he’d be ranting about Whatever Latest Book he’d read while bruce, underslept and overwhelmed, would be sitting there both hands on the wheel thinking if i make him be robin again maybe he’ll stop talking to me about thilbo
like i just think being killed, crawling out of your own grave, immediately getting a tbi, being comatose, being in the league of fucking assassins while in an altered state of consciousness, getting dunked into a lazarus pit, and immediately finding out about timothy drake once lucid, would make anybody a little unhinged, let alone a teenager. i just think his reality broke a lil bit cuz of the Everything. u know. genuinely the most valid crashout. we’re all lucky he didn’t get hooked to cocaine cuz can you imagine
Hi! I have a question, if you have the time and/or want to. Does Jason talk about his death/dying as much as people joke that he does? Thank you!
I depends on era a little bit. And how you might define talking about it (ex: bringing it up, responding to a prompt about it, mentioning it in a related situation, joking about it)
To go about the easy answer so i actually remember to answer this ask, Jason canonically says he doesn't want to remember his death, this is rhato 2011/new 52 era. Its a very notable instance of Jason's feelings on the matter considering that after the events of Batman and Red Hood #20, aka, Bruce taking Jason to place he died to yell at him to remember, Jason goes to have all his memories magically removed, and his memories in fact burden so greatly that everyone believes he'll do better in the upcoming major fight without the memories of even how to summon his swords and that if he had his memories he'd most certainly die
Its, pretty clear in this little arc going on that Jason does not like to think about his death, and not to talk about it.
How that goes with his other comics?
Well. Hmm.
I do very much think theres merit in whats been said by others before, in that Jason doesn't usually bring it up himself and that its others joking about it. But i dont feel it can be outright stated that Jason never talks about it ever at all. I do definitely want to say that he doesn't talk about it as much as people joke. This is a bit of a case of personal interpretation and opinions of his writing in comics
Under the Hood is a fun one to chew on. Because while the final confrontation is a reenactment of death. And Jason literally sends someone previously to die dressed as him just to upset Bruce for a moment. Theres someone so interesting, in how when Jason says "...I thought... I thought killing me-- that I'd be the last person you'd ever let him hurt" he stutters while speaking of his past death. Its the only time he stutters in the whole speech, and when he mentions his death again, he says "... he took me away from you" instead.
Jason has no issue speaking of killing him when telling Bruce the ultimatum, to say to kill Jason or kill the Joker. You can argue his crying is having an issue. BUT! While playing the lens of Jason doesn't like talking about his death, this is the climax of the recreation, a parent, to choose between Jason or the Joker. It is a very big very emotional moment with many many angles.
Might be of note that Joker likes to dig into it, depends on your Joker interpretations. Though Jason is obviously unenthused
Honestly, i dont know how to really explain it, but if you placed the Jason people joke about in uth itd change alot of the dialogue?
His reunion with Bruce. He doesn't mention death, just is, doesn't dig into resurrection. Doesn't say so much that a different type of Jason would. I mean Bruce is on a whole mini quest of bothering resurrected heroes ore reveal and Jason doesn't even as so much say the word.
The hush story is a different matter entirely. This comes down heavy to interpretation. Is this even Jason? It was retconned into being and then unretconned. So it depends. If Jason, mentioning his death alot in this graveyard could very well be just to dig deep into Bruce while he himself doesn't like to speak of it. Quite alot of this era you have to also include the idea of Jason doing or saying something he doesn't like just to claw into Bruce.
Lost days is a fun one. Thats when we establish that Jason cant kill the Joker without Bruce there. Having a flashback to his death and we're told he decided to leave to make his plan with Bruce, Joker, and Jason all there. Though im getting off topic. Obviously Jason's death was bad so he isnt gonna like it. This is about talking, joking, mentioning.
Ideally i think Jason shouldnt. That he doesn't want to think or talk about his death most of the time. This is what's canon of Jason To Me. But it always varies and authors always vary and theres always evidence for every side. You can say Jason doesn't like thinking about it while still talking about it anyway. You could say anything at all
Bruce taking Jason to the place he died and yelling at him to remember is bad enough. But then you remember he did it as a trick and Jason just thought it was going to be a normal mission though one near an uncomfortable place for him. And you remember that Death of the Family wasn't long before this, specifically, Jason has just recently recovered from getting his face covered in acid that Joker put in his helmet. And you remember that basically immediately after Bruce tricks Jason there is when Jason goes on and asks to have all of his memories removed via magic
I imagine Cass often gets herself in trouble for being caught staring and eavesdropping in public but she can't help herself. People are so fun and complicated and vibrant and imperfect and just so very... alive. She could spend forever watching them go about their days, eating sandwiches, texting their moms, paying bills, telling bad jokes, making out, whatever. They are all beautiful. Cass just loves people. She loves life and all that it entails. Now if only she could learn to recognize that in herself.
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