How did half the fandom arrive at the conclusion that Jason can't go 5 minutes without bringing up his death when canonically, he's stated he wants to forget about his death and has flashbacks when he's in a situation that reminds him of his death? That doesn't add up...
I’m so tired of “Jason makes constant death jokes!!1!1 most people have died and came back fine! He needs to get over it!1”
When A: he really only brings it up in his internal monologue and usually only in his intro bc it’s comics and every character suffers from that trope
And B: everyone else around him are the ones who constantly bring up the fact he died to either make fun of him, show he less than(even though everyone’s died, right? Oh wait there wasn’t any actual impact on the character or they were actually only dead on the Operation table for like 5 minutes….hmmmm) or to devalue his character
For example: when Jason in one of the wedding issues was like ‘robin’s supposed to be the light to Batman’ and duke goes ‘you died on job. You’re literally the one who ruined the light of Robin’ (yes duke, that’s why he’s used as the ‘bad example’)
Or 2: how Damian refers to him as different variations of the “beat into the ground Robin”
Or how like when dick told Tim that Jason “took Robin as a joke” or Tim “I won’t let my anger get in my way like Jason did”
Lots of people in fandom like to equivalent or disvalue Jason’s death to match their favs death but when that character isn’t even fully dead for an entire comic book, you can’t compare the two. Especially when you try to simultaneously get “Jason’s death destroyed Bruce” and “all character have died/will die therefore his isn’t actually important(it only changed comic story telling forever)”
It’s especially awful when it’s actually JASON who’s constantly saying everyone’s died and pushing off his own feelings. In UtRH, Jason didn’t blame himself for his murder, nor did he blame Bruce, he blamed his actual murderer bc Obviously the joker’s the one at fault. Skip forward to rebirth (after he’s spent more time around the other bats, mind you) when he’s telling his PTSD hallucination of little beaten him saying “it’s our fault”
Not only does this show his feelings over his murder have been downplayed and brushed off, it emphasizes “see Jason Was in the wrong about his feelings over his murder. Look at everyone else who came back fine” completely missing the emotional payoff of everything
But again Jason telling Damian in TT rebirth that they’ve both died already. To Bruce over Damian death saying “vigilantism was always dangerous how are you just realizing that”. Jason about Roy’s death to Bruce “this business is dangerous. Death for us is as much as a revolving door as Arkham. He’ll be back”
Just the fact that Jason told Bruce specifically that “not everyone wants to be you, Bruce! Not everyone wants to live in the shadows of our tragedies! Some of us want to move on!” And he still gets categorized as never moving on is so frustrating and I stand by my belief that it further proves Jason is one of the only white male characters to be fridged (but that’s a whole different post).
It comes across so manipulative and gaslight-y that the more time Jason spends around bats, the more he starts blaming himself for his death, pushing of that trauma as no big deal, and prioritizing other people’s feelings of his death rather than healing from his own will also getting beat down on by fandom by the fact “he’s always whining about his murder” when again 1. he’s one of the only character to show actually signs of dying affecting his character and 2. He just flat out doesn’t, it’s incorrect, that statement is canonically wrong.
Not only that, other non bats also think of him as “the one who died, Batman’s greatest failure, the one who got himself killed”. Like, my god, your constantly having people referring to Jason as the zombie, as the corpse, as the one who came back wrong then having all those, frankly, disgusting, probably triggering, and hurtful statements pushed onto Jason saying them himself!? My god, just say you don’t like him, or don’t know his character, or just not include his character at all
God this got away from me but I have so much to say on this (and adjacent) topic. Full stop, I find it incredibly disgusting how badly his character has been misinterpreted just so he can be squeezed back into uwu batfamily only then to be constantly ridiculed by said “”””family””””
absolutely fascinated by jim starlins hatred of robin like… hes not real, jim. and even if he was, hes a 12 yr old boy. he cant hurt you. stop trying to kill him
and he seemingly still hates him years later like. he shared the story about trying to give Robin AIDS years later, out of his own mouth. jim. jim no. jim he can’t hurt you jim ppl will stilll think your batman is cool jim. even if hes a dad.
@robiinjason Yes! Starlin did everything with the intent to make Robin’s popularity die, we all know this, but he really was the first to (unintentionally) explore the negative effects of Jason’s life so far. Even Bruce (and Alfred, which so many people forget) deciding that Jason was becoming too reckless was explicitly stated as being something the two if them believed to be caused by Jason finally having the security to grieve his parents, especially his mother. Starlin wrote that. All of Jason’s previous writers thus far clearly liked him a lot more, but they were too busy setting him up as a near perfect Robin (as they should, it was fantastic writing that I’m oversimplifying for the purposes this addition) to actually write any unpalatable reactions from Jason as a result of his *gestures to all of his life*. Starlin, very accidentally, wrote about Jason’s anger, bitterness and rough defence mechanisms better than any writer so far (…that’s not saying much, I know).
I’m always saying Starlin’s writing never ruined Jason, he couldn’t get away with making him a different character at the time. It’s always people taking panels and events out of context to prove that Jason’s always been “excessively violent” or “bloodthirsty” or whatever. Starlin’s actual writing of Jason is important actually, to who we know him as today. Example: Jason’s sensitivity over violence against women and children, even when compared to other characters, came from Starlin. Albeit because he knew it would make people hate him, but he wrote it and we agree nonetheless.
No but like everything Starlin wrote has become super crucial to certain, important aspects we subscribe to Jason’s character today:
protector of women, children, and sex workers
hatred of men abusing their power against others(specifically those who can’t fight back due to a myriad of reasons)
anti-authority/police/facism due to the systematic abuse they enforce
an overwhelming, vitriol, disgust towards those who commit SA crimes
how he gets so emotionally involved in cases and that’s what drives him because he feels so deeply for victims and their situations because That Was Him! He Knows What’s That’s like. Intimately. More Than Any Of The Others Could Ever Understand
etc. etc.
But all these things Starlin wrote with the intention to make readers hate Jason? These acts and opinions were like…pretty progressive for this time, at least I feel, especially in this area of circle-jerking Regan. Like Robin number two is out here beating a pimp for abusing a worker in broad daylight whereas Robin number three is telling his gf she belongs in the kitchen. Why is the Robin we’re supposed to be glad got killed off the one that supports and likes the camaraderie women? We’re supposed to hate Jason for that! For standing up for women getting hurt by men because “Why should a boy get so angry over that! He should control himself! How dare he have an emotional bond towards these people! Women none the less!”
This really gives insight to Starlin, the readers, and their beliefs. Like why is that supposed to make us hate Jason? Why did Starlin chose these events specifically to write with the intention to make people hate Jason? why is Jason showing his emotions a bad thing? And why did the audience emphasize more with these people who were predominantly (sexually) abusing women and children? We’re supposed to go “I think he was too rough on the child p*rn*graphy ring. Why is he so angry at the rapist? Why did he (maybe) kill him? It’s only a rapists :/!”
Why is Jason written off as the angry one when he’s the one who want to focus on the most forgotten groups of Gotham?
The fact that this says SO much about our beliefs, society for thinking that we should hate Jason for caring about victims, the readers who hated Jason and emphasized with the abusers more than the victims, and about Starlin is so important
Totally forgot to mention, why have I never seen anyone bring up that Jason was there when Roy found out about Lian??? I feel like that's pretty important hello
Thinking about this post by @romanticizingmurder and…one of the things I really miss from pre-Flashpoint Jason Todd characterization, both in comics and in fandom, is his relentless ability to bullshit.
Even Morrison (into the bin, mate) kept that part of his character! (Pretty much the only thing that ties Morrison Jason to any previous post-UtH characterization.)
Pre-Flashpoint Jason would just…talk. He would just…say things. He would chirp and prod and mock and jeer and sometimes just start waxing poetic or start blasting his obvious issues OUT LOUD! For everyone to hear!
Which was kind of a breath of fresh air when it came to the bats? Especially at the time, when the bats would mostly convey emotion by gritting their teeth while their internal monologues went on (until finally someone started yelling—usually Dick or Babs).
Post-Flashpoint sort of shuffled him into the “sad, stoic dude” role, but Jason was very much not that guy! I mean, obviously he was sad, and he could be stoic, but in action he essentially weaponized his words and his emotions.
It was, IMO, it was a pretty essential element of his role as a narrative foil to Bruce.
"Batman being abusive to his kids is so fundamentally wrong and makes him a one dimensional character"
So, fun fact about abusers, they often view their actions as coming from a place of love. Of knowing what's best. What's right. And, most applicable to Bruce and Jason specifically, control. Being abusive doesn't mean that Bruce doesn't love his kids. In fact most abusers do love their victims, but that doesn't make their actions any less harmful.
Bruce is a lot of things. He's a man who loves his kids, yes, but he's also abusive. He's great when interacting with other people's kids, yet terrible with his own.
And again, he does have his moments...
...but he's also the same man who did this.
Loving someone and abusing them aren't mutually exclusive things. Bruce being a vigilante and him being an abuser aren't mutually exclusive, nor does it make him a one dimensional character. If anything it adds dimension to his character, no matter how dark that may be.
Sources: Batman: Turning Points #5, Batman (2025) #6, Batman (2016) #138, RHATO (2016) #25.
What I personally love is Jason’s fight or flight being*flight* most times. Back of my mind is wallpapered will all the times Jason just gtfo. But it is a red hood response more than a jaybin one
Yeah I barely even thought about flight but it makes sense... When I say "stress response is context dependent" the important part is that not one person has one stress response, even without going through major changes or learning anything. I'm not intense enough to do exhaustive descriptive statistics about which one is more frequent, so I'm gonna believe you, that's also very interesting!! And it makes sense with Jason's background as a street urchin
Tbf (and I say this as someone who likes Jason as a member of the batfam and wishes for a reconciled batfam) the sanest thing for Jason's mental health right now would be to gtfo. That's why the outlaws as a concept (aka when not written by Scott Lobdell) make sense, Jason in a group of traumatized characters going on adventures away from the places where they were hurt and getting to be happy (even if not all the time) and being weird at intimacy makes so much sense, c'mon. With that being said, Gotham is Jason's home, and also if that kid called Sheila "mom" while he shielded that mf's body with his own to try and save her he's not gonna stop considering the bats his family anytime soon so, no gtfo too far from the path for Jason I guess.
anyone else up relating to Jason Todd in a distinctly trans kinda way? like. i died and came back to life, i walked through hell to get here, i took life by the throat and made it what it needed to be when it wanted nothing more than to kill me, and my father can’t even look at me. when he looks at me he looks through me, he looks past me, he sees a ghost of something he loves—or loved—in a stranger’s body, in my body. i am little but a husk for him to stuff his grief inside.
he remembers a child, he mourns a child, the child is standing right in front of him but the child is Wrong. the thing in front of my father murdered his child. the thing in front of my father is his child. in some ways, i was never was what he thinks he remembers. in every other way, i never can be again. i claim this was always inside me somewhere. if he lets himself believe that, everything will crumble around him. instead, he claims he does not recognize what i have become.
he cannot allow a murderer to sleep under his roof. i cannot allow him to take away what i have fought and suffered and died for. i cannot repent, and he cannot forgive.
he can’t be happy i’m alive, not all the way, not really. he is too busy grieving what i’m not anymore. i defied nature herself to be standing here, but he would rather not see me. he visits my grave but it is empty. he gave me the name etched on my headstone, and i came back with a new one. he doesn’t even try to speak it. he’s sure it would taste like ashes in his mouth.
my father stands at my grave. it is empty to me, but not to him. he still leaves flowers there in memory of his child. the child is alive, but not in any way he can stomach.
i know this isnt what people mean when they talk about the second Robin's death, but how unbearably cruel to make the murder of a child about the father who buried his son and a piece of himself with him. the tragedy does not lie in the grief of those left behind, but in every possible future that's been taken from the one who's gone. the grief that is left behind is love left behind. the child should be considered worth that love and that grief, to say the father should not have to suffer grief is to say the father should not suffer love. the child is worth every second of grief. the child did not choose to die, he did his best to be a hero and was betrayed. the father chose to bury every good, warm, soft feeling to become a better soldier abandoning the title of father, he chose that for and by himself. nothing is the child's fault, but the father's for abdicating his responsibilities.
“Red Hood is a pimp-“ yeah, I sure hope he is!! If Mr ‘Controlling Crime’ isn’t also keeping things cool for sex workers then that’d be pretty scummy of him wouldn’t it?
Sorry OP for hopping on your post hope that's okay I need to develop my thoughts on this topic because it's been eating at me hear me out hear me out!!!!
My opinion on Jason being a crime lord is mitigated in the sense that it changes depending on the day, BUT. But.
I find there's a very strange attitude wrt sex work in this conversation where people seem ready to accept Jason's attitude towards drugs trafficking and general crime and gang operations as a form of harm reduction approach, and yet when it comes to sex work? It goes in the general direction of something I've noticed: we, as people, myself included, get weird about sex crimes. And I don't mean kinky or creepy, I mean weird.
I'm gonna mention tangentially that pimp!Jason is written by Winick in the story where Winick implies Jason was a victim of csa because of underage prostitution, because I think it's important context, but also I understand that this is a wildly, and virulently, debated text and I would rather you just ignore this paragraph than distract from the topic of the post by arguing about how, actually, it didn't happen, because my point still stands regardless of it.
Yes, pimps in real life thrive off the exploitation of sex workers and are extorting them by profiting off the dangerous nature of illegal sex work. The same way drug dealers thrive off the exploitation of people with substance abuse disorder. I'm very doubtful that the idea of a crime-lord enforcing a harm-reduction approach would work irl, because that's rarely how power works- but what a great time to remember we are in a comic! And as a rule of thumb, it's super important to remember: superhero comics generally work on an agency fantasy + inherent good nature fantasy. Power, left unchecked, corrupts. This is how it works irl. And systemic problems need systemic solutions. But heroes like Superman give us a fantasy where one person can 1) withstand having a lot of power without being corrupted by it and 2) use this power to, as individuals, fix or at least make systemic issues better on their own. It's a fantasy. The whole genre crumbles without it! That's why the vast majority of vigilantes have a saviour complex. And honestly the fantasy can be enjoyable: yes, I should would love a world where it was that easy! Escapism is fine and fun!
And Jason also, clear as day, has this bat-issued saviour complex! It's just that Jason aligns himself against the law. This specific saviour outlaw fantasy is nothing new: it's called the noble gangster archetype. Jason does crime, he's a gang leader, he kills people. But he has a noble intention, saving Gotham. Does he manage to stay noble? Debatable, Jason is still the villain in this story. But note that, in this story, Batman also clearly fails at his own saviour fantasy, that's the whole topic of UTH (because UTH is a stalemate!!! that's the point!!!).
One could argue that Batman, with his completely illegal unofficial surveillance state and vigilantism is also a noble gangster type, but due to his alignment with the police, I find him closer to the "good cop" type. And that brings me to my next point: yeah, organized crime sucks, but the police also sucks. Because, again, power left unchecked corrupts. The institution of the police isn't corrupted, it's a corruptive force in itself. But Batman comics demand that you imagine, that you picture yourself in a reality in which the issue with the police isn't static/systemic violence, but the fact that there is a gangrenous element in the force that the "good cops" like Jim Gordon or Dick Grayson can root out surgically. This is the expectation of the story you are reading. I feel like if you don't like cop!Dick, decide it was Chuck Dixon being a weirdo as usual and wish it died out, good on you, I get it; vigilantes may often work alongside the police but them actually joining the force, to me, kinda shatters the separation between cops and the vigilante type that makes the fantasy enjoyable. But what weirds me out is when people are totally fine with cop!Dick but criticize crime lord Jason for doing the exact same thing. I feel like that's the position the narrative expects me to take in both cases and I feel like it's a narrative that sucks: why am i expected to believe in a universe where the good cop archetype is real, but this suspension of disbelief doesn't extend to the noble gangster archetype?
So.
All of this wasn't much about sex work, I'm aware. It was about being a crime lord as a whole. But I think it's important to establish why so many Jason fans actively enjoy Jason's crime-lording as a harm-reduction approach, when talking about Jason being a pimp. We don't actually know anything about Jason's actions as a pimp, just his general posture on ethics and organised crime, and his rules wrt harm reduction : sex-work being another form of crime that falls under his crime-lording, the logical way to make inferences about what Jason's stance on pimping is is to transfer what Jason said about crime in general to pimping in particular: harm reduction. Oh wait, one second, my bad! Because Winick's Jason is in direct conversation with Starlin's Jason all the time, we can add an important part of the puzzle to the equation: how Starlin's Jaybin felt about people who abuse sex workers.
There you go.
So: Jason is a pimp, yes, but a noble gangster, which implies a noble pimp. So the only question that remains would be "why would the idea of a noble pimp make us more uncomfortable than the idea of a noble drug dealer?"
Because Jason knows first-hand how deadly drug abuse can be. He watched his mother die, and he still decided to handle drugs via a deadly harm-reduction approach. Why would he act like sex-work is any weirder? The basic concept of a pimp is someone who offers sex workers protection in exchange for a cut in their earnings. The idea of the noble VS corrupt gangsters leads to noble VS corrupt pimp. The corrupt pimp treats the sex workers like shit, abuses them, exploits them; this is literally the guy in the picture above. Meanwhile the noble pimp protects them, and just so happens to get paid for his service (very much like a cop).
I'm gonna end this by mentioning a fanfic of which I regretfully can't remember the name (if someone has it please tell me!) In that fic, Jason had been a victim of csa. There's context to it, but basically it shocked me because Jason got very angry at the batfam for assuming that this was the worst thing that happened to him, when it wasn't (i think Jason references dying and waking up in his grave as worse events specifically). And it got me thinking, yeah, why do we act like sexual trauma is inherently the worse thing in the world? Like, don't get me wrong, rape is extremely traumagenic, but in terms of consequences, of impact, why should we get to assume it's inherently worse than other kinds of highly traumagenic violence?
I have had patients for whom their sexual trauma was far from their biggest issue/the things causing them the most intense psychological suffering. Fuck, I don't even rank my own fucking experience with sexual violence in my top seven biggest issues (at least) and it still took me four years of college and a fucking fanfiction to deconstruct that conception I had of sexual violence.
Why does it feel like the crime being sexual somehow makes it worse? Almost like it makes the crime dirty?
Anyway, Jason being a pimp isn't any worse than him being a gangster. I'm still not sold on it, but it's important to be coherent and I feel like the emotions this idea induces deserve to be handled with introspection and gazing a little deeper than just "pimps are bad, therefore Jason abuses women".
That's a brilliant breakdown of comparisons here and I'd like to, I think, clear up a few things wrt people's perception of what a "pimp" is, and more specifically what the concept of a "noble pimp" trope would correlate to.
Now, "Noble pimp" isn't a concept that I think I come across as often in fiction, but when I do I think part of people's disconnect here is that it goes by a different name (and implicit gender):
A Madam.
The Madam is usually both one of the prostitutes as well as the one in charge of the safety and well-being of their "employees." Make no mistake, the only difference between a pimp and a madam is whether or not they're also getting fucked by clients. Sometimes it's not even that because sometimes the Madam is a... "elevated" prostitute that no longer has to do the work except maybe for a select few "special" clients. Typically, the "Madam" exists in forms of media where the prostitutes are often more "high class" and often have more escort/companion trainings. Something of a Geisha stereotype.
I need everyone to understand with me: a pimp fundamentally needs their girls to operate. A NOBLE pimp even cares about them. They're likely to take a smaller cut or nearly no cut at all. Maybe they take a cut but it's applied exclusively towards "operating costs" of things like a building rented out or owned for them to take clients in, the utilities for it, contraceptives, money paid towards some extra muscle to keep them safe, babysitting services for workers who have kids, possibly healthcare, and so on and so forth.
Say it with me: The difference between a Noble Pimp/Madam trope and a union leader is the legality of their role and our collective connotations for what the terminology implies.
A "pimp" is separate from his workers and might not care that much for his girls, might abuse them, might "sample the wares" might have trafficked workers, might exploit underaged girls, might any number of horrible things because that's what comes to mind when we perceive that word, that is the image that's been provided to us especially via media. He also probably has flashy clothes and is implicitly male.
A "Madam" is "one of them". She is a lofty status within the ranks, a teacher, a guide, a victim and a protector all in one. When underaged girls are part of the Madam's brothel it's because there is no other choice. The "girls" are short on options, but not technically coerced.
(Unless she is a Wicked Madam, in which case she's halfway between the pimp and a Wicked Stepmother.)
A union leader is a trained neutral third party OR someone from within the ranks who has the skills and the motivation and the charisma to band everyone together for a shared purpose, and protect the rights of their fellow workers & esp negotiate/fight on their behalf.
(A union leader can be corrupt, and not actually push forward the collective agenda, but surely this is just an outlier? It's not like power corrupts or anything, and they are GIVEN their power and sometimes the people who did so forget they can take it away.)
tl;dr the role of "pimp" Jason is, or at least should be, literally fundamentally no different than what people say/imply he should do to protect sex workers anyways "but not be their pimp because that's bad." <- the complaint is more rooted in the phrasing, not the actual intended/implied actions.
question about jason todd (sorry to all my moots if you have to see this but i was in the cassandra cain tag and soemthing pissed me off) but has it like ever been canon that jason is an 'expert marksman'? because i'm not a fan of him but as far as i know he just. uses Gun. he's never been specifically called out for his expert shooting or anything, he just has decent enough aim. is this true or has there been mentions in canon of crazy accuracy or some shit? because i'm pissed off
He definitely IS an expert marksman! Jason spent an undetermined amount of time training in a variety of fields with the world's deadliest teachers on Talia Al Ghuls dime. Including but not limited to poisons, martial arts, swords fighting, marksmanship, and explosives. His goal was to be good enough to rival Bruce, but unlike Bruce, he's willing to use lethal force.
^ from Red Hood: Lost Days
One of my favorite moments from Under the Red Hood (I would highly recommend reading the comic over watching the movie because they characterize Jason two very different ways).
I would like to add that most characters who use guns or arrows and the like as their main weapons are considered expert marksmen because. Why would you use a weapon you're not proficient in? As a general rule in comics, unless the story goes out of it's way to tell you otherwise, characters are always going to be insanely competent with their signature weapon because it adds stakes and makes the character more of a threat to be taken seriously.
I'd like to add that marksmanship is not a new skill for Jason Todd. In Batman: The Cult written by Starlin in 1988, Jason as Robin is written to have near perfect aim trained by Thee Perfectionist, Bruce Wayne himself.
So even if you're of the mind that Bat training trumps all including League of Assassins affiliates, he’s got that in spades as well!
A while ago I got under someone's skin for referencing Joker's surprising delayed reaction to killing Jason Todd, and since then I've been thinking it's worth digging into as an interesting element of Joker's characterization.
Of course, first thing's first: Jason's murder in Batman (1940) #427, as originally presented in 1988.
Jason has just reconnected with his biological mother, Sheila Haywood, at a famine relief camp in Ethiopia— and he's discovered that Joker is blackmailing her with information about her criminal past. She gets him truckloads of medical supplies to sell on the black market, and Joker restocks the trucks with toxin. While Bruce races to stop a tampered truck, Jason decides to help his mother on his own. When he discloses he's Robin, however, Sheila betrays him to Joker, not only to stay on Joker's good side but because she's actually been embezzling money from the organization she works for this whole time. She's afraid an investigation prompted by Batman and Robin's appearance would expose this fact.
So Sheila stands by as Jason is felled by Joker and his goons, and then the crowbarring starts.
It's bad! When we return later, Jason is presumably dead.
While Joker isn't shocked that he's murdered a child, he does have an unexpected reaction to Sheila's point. He hadn't really been thinking about what he was doing, implying that he hadn't intended to kill Jason. He just got carried away, whoopsie! He didn't do this to get at Batman; he wasn't thinking about Batman at all. Now, however, he's concerned about how Batman will react.
Joker thinks Jason is already dead. The purpose of the bomb is to get rid of the evidence of his involvement, including Sheila. Joker is not broken up about what he did, but he does have a sense that he's gone a step too far and he doesn't want Batman to know about it. At least for now!
In the end, while Jason wakes and he and his mother try to save each other, they're trapped in the warehouse when the bomb goes off. Bruce makes it back only in time to find a dying Sheila, who tells him it was Joker. When Bruce finds Jason, Jason gets no last words. He's already dead, and Bruce is devastated.
A clue from Joker leads Bruce to the United Nations in New York, and there, infamously, Bruce learns that Joker has been made the ambassador from Iran. Joker is now protected from prosecution, and Batman going after him risks an international incident. Bruce still very much wants to, but Superman stops him.
Well, mostly Superman. I recommend reading Batman #429 to see Bruce's full thought process on this. He is furious and constantly thinking about finally ending Joker— but he also questions his mental state. He still wonders if he can hold Joker responsible if he believes Joker is insane. He uses phrases like "what happened to Jason" like it was a natural disaster, not murder. He even confronts Joker to give him one last chance to turn himself in to Arkham Asylum. Bruce is in a kind of denial, still grabbing at how things usually go.
But back to Joker. Evidently, he's no longer worried that Batman will find out he killed Robin. Joker admits to it immediately.
I assume Joker realized there was no point in denying it. Is Batman going to think it's a coincidence that Robin got blown up when Joker was around? Though Bruce does say it's Joker's taunts that 100% confirm for him that the clown was responsible, pointing again to Bruce still grasping for reasons to not break his rule in his grief.
By the end of the issue, Joker has naturally tried to kill the entire United Nations assembly, which instantly made him free game. So Bruce pursues him to a helicopter, and an in-air scuffle ensues in which Bruce explicitly prevents Joker from being killed by friendly fire, evidently so he can decide how Joker will die. Bruce jumps out of the helicopter, abandoning Joker to a fiery crash. However, despite Bruce's (supposed) intentions, Joker's body is nowhere to be found. The clown lives!
So that's it, right? Joker felt some unease about killing Jason initially, but in a short time, he was happy to gloat about it to Batman's face.
But when Joker reappears in Batman #450, in 1990, he is not triumphant. He's holed up in a dilapidated building, where he learns someone is impersonating him.
How often do we see Joker upset by murders? When the story returns to him, we learn more about his mental state.
With all of Joker's cackling glee at the things he's done, coming close to actual death in the helicopter crash has jarred him— and not just the crash, but the murder that led to it. He recoils from the memory of what he did to Jason. It's why he can't see the joke anymore. It's set apart from his previous crimes. It's too far.
Which is not at all to say that Joker is completely broken up about Jason. By the end of #450, he rallies and sets out to go after his copycat and restore his reputation to his liking.
In Batman #451, though, Joker is still plagued by doubts along the way.
Even when he overcomes those doubts, claiming the mantle as the one and only Joker when his copycat dies by falling into acid, Joker challenges Gordon to finally kill him. It's reminiscent of The Killing Joke, the first time Joker went too far. But like TKJ, Gordon and Batman decide to get Joker back to Arkham against their more vengeful instincts.
Joker's also decided Arkham is just what he needs. Outside, he's plagued by the reality of what he's done; in Arkham, he can settle back into his insanity and stop caring about it again.
So after that, Joker has no second thoughts about killing Jason, right? After all, he largely references the murder in callous terms. In-universe this makes sense as Joker revising history in his own head, particularly as more stories portray his effort to be more monster than man. Monsters don't have qualms about murder! But this is comics, so we can also presume that not all Joker writers know or remember #450/451, which I think is a shame. I find stories in which Joker expresses even just a degree of vulnerability to be more interesting than those where he's just mwahaha evil.
I have seen a few other bat stories bring some nuance into Joker's perception of Jason's death, though.
First up is the particularly nuanced "Fool's Errand" in Detective Comics (1937) #726, published in 1998. Bruce visits Joker in Arkham to get information on how to find a kidnapped girl who's running out of time. It just so happens Joker arranged this kidnapping for a particular day.
I strongly recommend this issue for batjokes fans, as it revolves around Joker talking the case through with Batman in his cell to help him figure out more clues to a crime Joker himself planned. Even with Bruce beating Joker up, the conversational tone feels almost friendly. They're just doing their usual thing.
Well, sort of. Bruce has already said he's not in the mood, and he interrupts their conversation to say so again.
Joker could insist that Batman stay and keep playing the game, and needle him for being unwilling to merely talk to Joker to rescue this child. Instead, Joker gives up her location.
And Bruce does come back as predicted.
So that was Joker's nefarious plan. He wanted to restore some hope to Bruce's cynical soul to be sure that his future failures would hurt even more. But it sure seems the middle didn't go the way Joker expected, when he recognized Batman just wasn't going to play the game as usual.
Joker doesn't jump into taunting. He doesn't answer Bruce at first. He's withdrawn and reflective. He's got something else on his mind on this anniversary of the second Robin's death, and he knows that Bruce does, too. Perhaps not forcing Batman to play was a small gesture, acknowledging the difficulty of the day, remembering how things changed. And what does that gesture cost Joker when he still gets the outcome he wants?
Second example is actually also called "Fool's Errand," this one from Robin (1993) #85, published in 2001. This is a fun one in which Joker discusses his interactions and frustrations with the Robins.
But while Joker indicates more than once that he wants to fight Batsy alone, after he talks about killing Jason, this is the next page:
Joker does not then say he was relieved when another Robin showed up, but still. He's acknowledged again that when he murdered Jason, things were not right. As angry as the birdies make him, they're a key component in the game.
Then we come back to "Once More, With Feeling!" in Harley Quinn (2000) #25, from 2002. Harley's been playing double-agent against Batman with Joker, and she and Joker have this exchange.
Joker typically makes light of murdering Robin, but it seems that when he's with just about his only confidante, he lets other feelings about it burst out.
There's also a flashback to DitF in Batman: Gotham Knights #44 in 2003. We get an exchange between Bruce and Joker before Bruce jumps out of the helicopter.
Joker laughs as the helicopter dives, ready to die, but before that, he seems resigned. He doesn't throw in a real dig about murdering Jason, and he doesn't gloat that he's finally gotten Batman to kill him. He acknowledges he crossed a line.
Lastly, there's a 2006 exchange between, well, Joker and Jason himself in "All They Do is Watch Us Kill, Part 2" as part of Under the Red Hood in Batman (1940) #649. Jason has kidnapped Joker as batbait, and when Joker needles him, Jason needles him back.
Joker regularly extolls his own crimes, but suddenly one of his victims mockingly accuses him of putting up a front, of not being as coldhearted and untouchable as he wants to seem. Maybe Joker does doubt what he's doing and retreats under the cover of madness so he doesn't have to think about it— just as he did in Batman #451.
I'm not sure if there are other examples of Joker expressing anything but mocking glee about Jason's death. I do know of times he's shown a sort of fondness for Jason (such as in The Man Who Stopped Laughing #4, Gotham War: Red Hood #2, Suicide Squad: Get Joker #3), but that's not really the same thing. Joker could've seen Red Hood as his and Batman's Frankenstein child without feeling any squeamishness about killing him in the first place.
But if anyone knows of any other moments where Joker does not act like killing Jason is absolutely his most favorite thing he ever did, do share!
First of all, Jason’s memorial first appears in Frank Miller’s 1986 Dark Knight #2 - The Dark Knight Triumphant. So, it’s actually one of those instances where apocrypha retroactively enters canon - Jason’s memorial predates Jason’s death in 1988.
This memorial, interestingly, is shown not to have an epitaph at all, and we’ll off and on see versions of the memorial that continue not to have a plaque.
However, the phrase “a good soldier” still comes from The Dark Knight Returns series.
I think this is important to consider, because this Bruce Wayne and New Earth’s Bruce Wayne were not the same people. Miller’s 1986 series doesn’t just predate Jason’s death, it predates Jason’s life - Jason Todd as we know him today was not revamped until 1987. Miller’s Dark Knight’s Jason Todd is an alternate universe version of pre-crisis Jason Todd.
So I went looking for the first instance of Jason’s memorial in New Earth.
(Side bar, this panel from Batman 432 of Bruce looking at Jason’s photo in his pocket, I’m gonna cry)
There’s no sign of Jason’s memorial in Batman 436 when Dick goes to visit the cave. What we do see is that Bruce has removed every memento of the last two years with Jason.
I find it interesting that Dick goes to Bruce’s room, but not Jason’s. We don’t get to see what Bruce has done with Jason’s bedroom during this stage in his grief. If I were to assume, I would guess it was locked, but I find it a weird choice not to demonstrate that.
Now, there is a case in A Lonely Place of Dying…
But this is pretty clearly Dick’s uniform, so there’s still no indication that there’s a memorial in the Batcave.
Then we suddenly see this case in the background during the Penguin Affair, Batman 449.
Now, we don’t know for sure this is Jason’s memorial. It seems really odd that we wouldn’t get a scene of Bruce putting the suit up, or even the other characters reacting to it. This could very well be Dick’s suit in the regular suit lineup, there is no plaque and we can’t tell for sure if it’s a stand-alone case or one of many without seeing its left side, but it could also be the first depiction of the memorial.
The monument is for sure installed by Batman 451 in May of 1990. It is a stand alone case and it’s obvious from the dialog that it’s Jason’s. This is, to my knowledge, the OFFICIAL first depiction of Jason’s memorial in New Earth.
But there’s still no plaque.
So where’s the first appearance of the plaque?
Rite of Passage immediately opens on it, a nice big close up of In Memory of Jason Todd - Robin - A Good Soldier.
The memorial plays a big part in Tim’s arc. It’s a heavy reminder why he’s there, what he has to live up to, and what he has to surpass. Jason wasn’t Tim’s brother at this point, he’s a stranger, an idol, a hero… a good soldier in Batman’s crusade, fallen in battle.
I - oh?
It’s gone. Oh - ?
It’s back.
It’s weird? Because the epitaph is almost entirely for Tim’s benefit. It’s a symbol for Tim, almost what Tim would have imagined it would say, rather than what Bruce would write.
And the comics Do Not show us Bruce putting up the monument - which you would think they would have at some point, given the number of times the thing’s been smashed.
We, the audience, are left wondering when exactly Bruce set up the memorial, why he set up the memorial, why he wrote the plaque the way he did, because none of this is shown to us. It’s this weird set piece that just got stuck in there one day and created this strange void in the narrative - how we got from Bruce unable to bear the sight of Jason’s trophies to erecting an extremely morbid monument to him.
I can think of three potential triggers:
Lady Clayface taking Jason’s form
Bruce accidentally injuring Lonnie Machin
And Bruce failing to save this random civilian child.
But that’s just me trying to retroactively make sense of it. I don’t even know what to do with “a good soldier.” Because this IS NOT Miller’s Bruce, and NOT Miller’s Jason.
Jason isn’t a good soldier. He’s a terrible soldier. He was a good son. Bruce’s youngest child. His baby.
I can maybe twist it into Bruce trying to distance himself emotionally from the whole thing, but… it just doesn’t… work. What headspace was Bruce in when he chose that? Was he punishing himself? Was he trying to honor Jason? Was he trying to make peace with it? How does “a good soldier” fit into his mental narrative of events almost a year after Jason died? Jason died in APRIL. We see the memorial for the first time not long before Tim’s mother dies, and her funeral is on CHRISTMAS EVE.
I am out of thoughts on the matter. But I felt like sharing.
If being in a fandom makes you unhappy/upset... you don't have to be in it. its okay to leave for your own comfort
Is this my first genuine hate ask? I can't tell
I'm gonna answer genuinely because in any case this is an argument I see a lot with people who call out bigotry in fandom, so it's useful to answer this I think.
First, for me personally this fandom makes me very happy. I've met a lot of awesome people I'm proud to call my friends, some of which I have forged very special bonds with. I love fandom because collaborative storytelling is at the core of it and that's my favourite form of storytelling, because writing and reading fic and playing with the possibilities from a starting story with people who love that story is amazing. I also love talking about psychology with people and writing meta in fandom has allowed for me to create a space where I can talk about two things that I love (psychology and comics). When I talk about this irl, I almost always get rolling eyes and disinterested stares, but here I can ramble as much as I want and people get excited and start rambling back. This is very precious to me and it makes me very happy.
Today I have woken up at 11 am and haven't had any conversation longer than two minutes. Here's a non-exhaustive list of things that made me very upset/downright angry:
-the heat
-having woken up late
-my brother (he didn't give me his vegetable lasagna recipe when I asked because he doesn't really follow a recipe)
-the amount I have to do
-the sun
-my headphones dying because I forgot to charge them
-my mom (she didn't do anything I just thought about something she did years ago and it made me mad)
-the way despite the fact my brother and I were both good at maths and me liking maths more our education was gendered in a way that had a direct impact on our career choices and our respective current wages
-kids playing around in my way at the swimming pool
-the rise of fascism
-an argument I had with friends yesterday
-this ask right here
...
I could go on but my point is, I don't get extremely angry about fandom stuff because fandom makes me miserable. I get extremely upset about fandom stuff because I have "extremely upset disorder" that dials all my emotions up to eleven. If I weren't in fandom, I wouldn't be happier: I would be sad to not be able to participate in something fun, and I would find something else to get mad about. It's the way my brain works, I understand and know how to deal with it.
But here's the thing though: just because I get very angry doesn't mean that anger is not legitimate. I have enough critical thinking metacognition and therapy to be able to tell when my anger is irrational (like getting mad because a kid playing happens to be in my way) or not. And when I get angry about stuff I know to be silly, I shut up and I make my way. In contrast, I think it's very appropriate to be pissed off about the rise of fascism. Most people have emotional regulation skills that allow them to not have to live with how uncomfortable/downright painful it is to live with that anger, but sometimes I wish they did, because our countries could use angrier people. Anger can be a drive to action.
And that's the thing when people tell people "fandom is for fun! If you get mad you should leave" they act like this anger is unreasonable. Like black fans should shut up and deal with the racism. Like women should shut up and apologize for bringing up sexism. I could go on because fandom isn't separate from society and therefore reproduces all of its bias. This anger is legitimate!! When I see a fandom take that makes me very angry but it's something like "ship I don't like being popular" I shut up, because that's irrational. When I see people vehiculating dangerous ideas through fandom like "depictions of victim-blaming are not actually depictions of victim-blaming because it's rational to blame the victim", I don't shut down my anger, because it's legitimate, and even though it's very uncomfortable to lean into it instead of taking a xanax, it helps me channel that massive amount of energy and motivation into fighting those narratives and misinformation and dismantling social narratives in domains in which I feel legitimate to do so.
I love fandom. I don't want to leave. I deal with psychophobia, transphobia, misogyny, ableism and victim-blaming directly every day! My work has me dealing with all kinds of bigotry, with some of what humanity has that's ugliest, on the daily- just because this shit follows into fandom spaces as to any space doesn't mean that leaving fandom will save me from having to deal with that shit and I don't want to. I want to fight that shit. I want to make the world better and if I'm not healthy enough to use my hope for it, I don't care, I'll use my anger to make up for my lack of optimism, because I might not be able to imagine a better world but I'm too angry to accept the current one.
You guys can't go around telling people to leave fandom the second we start addressing real issues. People who call these issues out have to deal with them irl all the time, they have every right to be mad and their right to a safe space is more important than your right for comfort. I belong in this fandom and I love it. You don't get to push me out because my unhappiness makes you uncomfortable -why not try and work with me to make it a better place instead? Why is what I do with my anger your business?
If this is an ill-intent ask from someone who's pissed off at my ranting and wants me to shut up: go fuck yourself. I'm not going anywhere
If this is a well-meaning person trying to give me mental health advice: thank you, but I am a grown adult and I can make my own decisions. Obviously I know that I could leave. If I need that kind of advice, I'll discuss it with my friends and therapist. In the meantime, I'm exactly where I want to be. I don't appreciate being patronised.
I just had a realization of how I’ve been constantly being in a state where I was really mad at many things recently. and surprisingly, having that realization knowing how mad I was helped me calm down a little bit, so now I’m able to talk through some of my thoughts about it. which, like all of my other recent thoughts, they just lead back to jason, really.
basically, I was really mad at some things in comics and some things that happened in the fandom. and this is not a thing that just happened recently, but it’s something that I’ve always had since the very start. something about the unfairness in it all. and I’m not just talking about the situation with jason in particular, but the overall unfairness that I’ve also seen that happened with other characters, whether if it wad steph, damian or duke. and it was really bad with Jason that it kept me in that state for a long time.
I’m mad at what happened with him in the story. I’m so mad at how the characters treat him. how dc treats him, the victim blaming, the way people talk about him, the labels, the mischaracterization? I’m fucking livid. and this happens everyday, not because I hold grudges, but because all of the stuffs that I just listed above also happened everyday. it’s a repetitive cycle.
I’m not an "angry person", but the thing is I was put in this position where when I want to interact with the fandom, I have to interact with this side of them, and it just means that I have to react with the situation that I was facing. I actually had moments where i just enjoyed myself and happy go lucky with the things, but I know that as long as I still engage in this fandom and know and read about all the stuff, I’ll feel mad again because the problems is still there, the unrighteousness is still there, the unfairness is still there, the mischaracterization is still there the victim blaming is still the people is still talking nothing seems like it's going to change in the near future. maybe not in the slightest. therefore there’s no way for me to get rid of this anger because it’s not possible at all. so no, you can’t just simply tell me to “stop being angry” and “get over it.” I have the right to be angry. and does that make me a bad person for being angry? I don’t think so.
thinking about how Jason and people like him was failed by the system, the unrighteousness of it all that has always been an constant aspect of his life that accompany him in his childhood. thinking about how he thought he forget about that after bruce adopted him, when he can go to school and learn and study and try so hard, when life seemed to be so bright and hopeful and meaningful. thinking about how he thought he forget but it was still there. not the anger. the unfairness. the broken system the people, the victim that left unavenged, because nothing ever changed since then. and nothing will ever change. thinking about how jason was forced into constantly facing the situations where he just have to react with that, where he ought to feel angry and neglected and betrayed. thinking about how he was placed in a position that required him to react to the situation, yet was expected not to react. thinking about how he was told to put his feelings aside and not letting them interrupt their crimefighting. thinking about how his emotions were fair and reasonable and valid yet was treated like some of his bad traits. thinking thinking about how jaybin must have looked at all the victim that the system had failed, suffering and dead and unavenged. thinking thinking about how all of his feelings added up to when he saw gloria… and then knew that garzonas was acquitted. thinking thinking about how he would feel when he came back from the dead, to know that the joker was still alive and nothing had ever changed and there was a new robin. thinking about it…
I still have no fucking idea how Jason pulled off the duffle bag of heads. Like morality or whatever I really don't care, I just want to know how??? Boy are you teleporting around the city or something? He's got some mad logistical prowess
