Jason Todd's story will always be The Story to me.
On the surface he's a buff and gruff guy with guns, a comic-book character from the world of Batman, popularly associated with dudebros and their macho view on said characters.
Underneath that is one of the most potential-filled stories I've ever encountered.
First came Batman, Bruce Wayne, a man of wealth, reputation, resilience, innovation. Practically synonymous with vigilantism. Next was Nightwing, Dick Grayson, the Boy Wonder, the original Robin. Batman's greatest success. All that Batman is, and should be, and then some. Wide smile, bright eyes, a star since childhood.
A scrawny boy from the streets, caught stealing a tire from the Batmobile, in the very street where Batman's parents were killed, on the very anniversary of the event. Batman laughed.
That little boy in a yellow cape, heart-shaped strands of hair on his forehead, believed being Robin gives him magic. He liked school, liked learning, liked homework. He liked reading. He was a theatre kid. For all the anger Dick carried when he was Robin, Jason was bright.
The last thing Jason did was try to save the life of someone who never cared about him.
He found his biological mother, who walked away and never looked back. She watched Joker beat him with a crowbar nearly to death. She watched a lunatic strike a boy, even smaller than his age would have it, with steel, again and again and again. She smoked a cigarette.
As the warehouse was about to explode, Jason, in pain as he was, shielded the woman who happened to be his mother. A vixen watched her cub thrash and bleed, caught in a trap, and still the little one yanked its mangled leg free and limped to cover its mother from a hunter's gun.
Jason Todd died that night.
Bruce was a mentor more than a father, Jason a sidekick more than a child. Dick would come to regret not giving more attention to someone who could've been his younger brother.
Jason, from this point on, would be known as Batman's greatest failure. A cautionary tale, a fallen soldier, a bloodied yellow cape bigger than the body which had worn it.
To wake up in a pool of overwhelmingly glowing green, wrapped in bandages head to toe, surrounded by cloaked strangers, when the last thing you remember is pain, fear, fire. His death wasn't merciful and neither was his resurrection.
He saw a stranger in the mirror. He died a malnourished child and awoke thrice his size, a white streak in his hair, eyes gone from blue to green, an autopsy scar on his chest. A discarded child, to a short-lived sidekick, to a walking corpse. As Robin he wore a mask, he would do so later on as well, and with the mask off he would see himself no clearer.
Robin's suit worn by a new kid, regardless of the last one's tragic end. The maniac responsible for his death still alive and free to walk the streets.
You are a cautionary tale and yet no caution was taken to prevent your tale from being repeated. You were neither avenged, nor was justice carried out. You are young, feeling aged in a way you shouldn't be. You are alone, life went on without you. Your death changed nothing. The world lost you and yet there's no empty space in sight, not even a dusty one.
Driven by rage and desperation, dressed in a costume of muscle and bullets when still a boy lie underneath, he faced the one he wanted to be his father. He got his throat slit.
He came back from the dead, did the unthinkable, appeared when it was believed he would never be seen outside of hallucinations and memories. He bared his belly, as he had the tendency to do.
He asked if his death meant anything. A batarang was thrown at his neck. Canines dug in when that mouth should've been licking wounds.
It seems a son couldn't get a father's love even after digging himself out of his own grave. It seems a victim couldn't ask for justice from the one who claims to be justice in a suit.
Still, he does as he always did. Protects, fights, prevents, avenges.
For all his intelligence, patience, calculation, resilience, vulnerability - only his rage is seen. A walking, seething, irrational failure filled with violence is what he's presented as. Just as he reached a warm hand after sleeping on a cold ground, his arm was broken for thinking comfort is lasting. Any attempt to voice his gut sinking in remembrance is heard as senseless shouting.
Bruce will always be right, Dick will always be better, Damien can call himself a son.
Joker shot Barbara and left her immobile, took pictures of her in the most vulnerable and petrified state one can be in, and still Jason is mad for wanting him gone. Still, Bruce would cling to his twisted morals rather than prevent future victimhood.
It's a story of solitude, potential, vulnerability, justice, endurance.
It's a story of a brightness overlooked under the shadow of tragedy.
It's a story of one most human, so ultimately and beautifully human, in a world of magic, mutants, superheroes. He can't lift a house with his bear hands, he won't put on a dazzling smile and performance. Though a billionaire's past sidekick, though beyond capable in thought and action, he is firstly a person in the highest and more honest way. Palpable among ones otherworldly.
It's a story of one who's lived through countless losses, and still he gives. He couldn't be a child, a pupil, a son. Bruce did what he thought was best and offered training and danger to lost and hurting kids he deemed would go down the wrong path unless guided by vigilantism's hand. Jason couldn't be an adolescent, make stupid mistakes, have an innocent crush. His path was paved with violence and survival very early on.
It's a story of becoming the person who would've saved you when you needed it most.
