I want Jason to be an anti-villain. I think it’s more striking and significant than an anti-hero or a villain—and far better than a hero—for Jason to be an anti-villain after his resurrection. Jason, in his days as Robin, was a hero who kept his beliefs to himself, but still firmly believed in doing good and actually did so. He wasn’t the troublesome or evil Robin that people try to portray him as today. He was a boy who struggled to escape the life he’d known and succeeded; he devoted himself to giving his all as a person to his new family and to the innocent people he believed deserved salvation.
Then he died, died and went to heaven in the canonical sense, only to be torn from it months later. Jason became a fallen angel and began to learn chemistry, strategy, hand-to-hand combat, magic and much more. All for one reason: anger. He then returned to Gotham and began to build his criminal empire, committing atrocious crimes to prove a point. Crimes that were committed in the name of the greater good, but which nevertheless benefited him and harmed other innocent people. He harmed innocent people to prove a point. He didn’t do it all for himself, but because he had something to prove to himself and to others. He didn’t do it all to please himself; rather, he genuinely believed that his way of doing things was the right one. However, he didn’t do it all for them either; Jason also did what he did for himself and because of his feelings towards Batman and his own family. His own emotions.
Now this is something we see time and again, even in his resurrection, where the aim is to portray him as an anti-hero rather than a villain, and less of a hero. Jason has often believed he was doing the right thing, and has harmed innocent people on numerous occasions. As a result, his actions have also steadily eroded his relationship with his family. Because, once again, he does things for his own benefit. He claims to be doing it for other people, but there’s always that nagging doubt about his feelings towards his family and his beliefs, which lead him to become an extremist without seeing beyond what is happening.
In some comics, you can see how he achieves great victories through immoral methods, but in others he achieves the opposite. Even so, he firmly believes he is doing the right thing. Jason is prepared to attack villains, heroes, adults, young people and even children to prove a point to them. At present, there are several comics in which Batman and Red Hood work together or get on better, but it never lasts long because we return to Jason’s trauma and his emotions and beliefs regarding it, pitted against Batman’s trauma and his beliefs.
And, quite honestly, I think that would be for the best, as the writers clearly don’t know what to do with Jason since UTRH: his characterisation is inconsistent and, more often than not, he doesn’t come across as an anti-hero, but rather as someone fixated on his own trauma who believes that everything he does is right, even if it hurts others. But Jason is self-aware. I like that he’s self-aware in various comics. He’s not an anti-villain willing to sacrifice everyone for his own sake or for the greater good, but someone who knows that 10 x 2 is a good way to go if necessary, as otherwise there would be none.
I don’t think his trauma should be erased, but it would be great to weave it in and place him in a more consistent dilemma about who he was as Robin and who he is now as Red Hood. The boy who wanted to escape crime to do good, and the boy who threw himself headlong into it to do good. I’d like Jason to carry on with his nonsense. I’d like Jason to make sacrifices for what he believes in – whether that means sacrificing two innocent people or not – for the sake of others, in stark contrast to Batman, who sacrifices no one and ends up losing everyone, even as Nightwing. I’d like him to team up with his family for his own benefit every now and then, even though he genuinely cares about them more than he’s willing to admit. Jason is a bad brother, a bad son and a bad person, and he has both the reasons and the capacity to be so.
Let him be as he is. Also, help him find friends who understand him and bring the magic back to his hands. Because, when it comes to Jason and what he learnt during his time with the All Caste, he learnt to immerse himself in his darkness and navigate through it, not to run away from it or fear it.
