Disclaimer: I have not read all of Jason's Robin tenure! If there is any information from 1987-1988 that I missed, I would love to hear it! This part of the timeline is meant as more of a prequel for the Red Hood part, which I got maybe carried away with.
Jason's mom dies in February - Batman (1940) #409: Bruce learns from the records of a clinic of some kind that Catherine Todd died of an overdose "last February". Bruce suggests in the previous panel that she may have died within the past six months.
context for later - Dick moves on from Robin around May/June - Batman (1940) #408: the narration states a number of weeks pass between Dick leaving and the later events of this issue.
Jason is caught stealing the Batmobile's tires on June 26 - Batman (1940) #408: the narration states Batman is in Crime Alley for the anniversary of his parents death, which has been generally established as June 26. This also aligns with the six month span Bruce suggests in #409 (it's unclear to me where he got this number from but he's Batman and I'm trusting him with this).
bonus - Batman (1940) #409: Bruce originally sends Jason to Ma Gunn's School for Boys after reclaiming his tires. Jason stays for about 24 hours before running away. I'm not going to summarize the whole issue here, but I think it's worth noting that Bruce did try a more typical approach before taking Jason in himself.
Jason becomes Robin around late December - Batman (1940) #410: the narration states Bruce has been training Jason for six months since taking him in. This is also the issue where Jason finds out Two-Face is believed to have killed his dad (but I won't clutter this post with my thoughts about Willis Todd).
Jason was 12 when he died - walk with me. Batman (1940) Annual #12: this issue takes place during Jason's 7th grade year. I'm choosing to believe that Jason did not repeat his 5th grade year, and his birthday is in August, so he would have been 12 years old here. This issue was published a year after #410 (note: publishing dates are different than the dates on covers, yes, it's confusing) and another four IRL months pass between Annual #12 and #426 when A Death in the Family begins. Although comic time never lines up with IRL time, it can help narrow it down. Given only four IRL months, I think it's reasonable to assume that Jason is still in 7th grade and 12 years old when ADitF takes place.
The popular belief that Jason was 15 at his death is from The Batman Files, published in 2011. I like to prioritize information given during or close to the original continuity (especially in this case, because DC really likes to age Jason up in order to make his murder and subsequent murdering less tragic). Ultimately, I was converted by this post arguing a younger death date. arcade-confetti makes many of the same points I'm making here much more concisely.
Jason was Robin for a year and a half - keep walking with me, friends. Batman (1940) #436: after Jason's death and funeral, when Dick gets back to the Manor from his space adventures with the Titans, he mentions that it's been two years since he left. As I mentioned earlier, he left in May/June immediately before Jason met Bruce. This means Jason had been living at the Manor for about two years and, allotting for his six months of training, was Robin for a year and a half of that time. Assuming he's 12 after those two years, he would have been 10 when he met Bruce. Also, Batman (1940) #410: the narration states Jason is a fifth-grade dropout. He would have been 10 in 5th grade, having dropped out to care for Catherine before she died, and the subsequent lack of care/food/shelter making it difficult to return.
Jason dies on April 27 - Batman (1940) Annual #25: this was published directly after Under the Red Hood in 2006. Again, I prefer to follow the information given closest to original continuity, but given that it's such a widely accepted date with nothing from ADitF contradicting it, I'll include it here.
A simplified timeline:
February, age 10 - Catherine dies of an overdose
June 26, age 10 - Jason meets Batman
June 27, age 10 - Bruce takes Jason in
August 16 - Jason's 11th birthday
Training for six months
late December, age 11 - Jason becomes Robin
Robin for year and a half
April 27, age 12 - Jason is murdered
I would have included panels but the next part is super super long already. Click here for the post covering Jason's revival and early stories as Red Hood!
I need to answer that ask about the parts of Jason's philosophy I actually disagree with but one flaw I actually enjoy in his characterization+ see as a worthwhile avenue for character growth is when he dehumanizes the violent criminals he kills. I don't know how often he does this nor do I think it's systematic but the way he justifies killing Egon to Talia is a core moment for how many of us view his character and as a jaybin fan, this is something that makes sense for him imo.
I don't think #408 Jason would have necessarily have had this thought process on his own, but I do think this is a line of thinking he would have learnt during his tenure as Robin. I believe this because both Starlin's Bat.man (who was Jason's mentor and i will argue Red Hood hasn't unlearnt all of his philosophy) and Judy Koslovsky (who Jason indirectly quotes in the Egon conversation) dehumanize people as part of their justification for stuff.
I think this would make for a far more interesting story about Jason confronting the limits of his ideology than the boring old "deontology good utilitarianism bad" and one of the lines for character growth that could most easily be fair to Jason while also not completely dragging Ba.tman through the dirt like the deconstruction of some of Jason's other flaws would require (because cows would fly or whatever before DC would allow that.)
Also in general I am tired of stories where "people like that/people who do that aren't human" is used as a justification for killing (especially with how often it intersects with psychophobia and classism in dc. Much as I hate the joker, I will always defend that he is human and hate when dc pretends otherwise. In general, never forget that dehumanization is the easiest entry point for internalized bigotry to morph into violence). I think it's far more interesting to have a story where Jason's justifications fall apart, to have to make a call when he's brutally confronted with the humanity of a person he wants to kill. And I'm not saying that person has to be innocent, I think the point is much better made if the person he's going to kill is an absolute shitstain, but I want that to coexist with the undeniable confrontation with the person's humanity. Maybe the guy who kidnaps children to steal their organs volunteers at the pet shelter. Maybe the weapons engineer who sold bombs to Black Mask to gas the city shovels the snow off her elderly neighbour's driveway and bakes her pie on the weekend. Maybe the cop who killed a kid as part of a grand plan to set off a gang war has a cute favourite story he tells himself to sleep on the nights where he's haunted by what he's done and maybe he has flower pots on his windowsill he takes care of with so much gentleness and maybe he's really passionate about owl facts and has been collecting them since childhood. Whatever it is, there's a villain, and their actions are horrible and dangerous and they are human and Jason has no choice but to look at it this time.
Hatred is human. Violence is human. We can't allow our repulsion at the extremes of humanity to distract us from the weight and responsibility of our actions. Maybe Jason, psychologically, upon being confronted with this truth, cannot find it within himself to pull the trigger. Maybe he pulls through, and he can, and he grows as a person capable of saying out loud that he killed another because to him it was the right thing to do. No matter what, it's important to me that the focus is on preventing harm rather than whether or not they deserved it: in this story, Jason shouldn't choose or not to kill someone because they deserved it, but because if they live, he fears people will die/get hurt. Also speaking of people who are deeply shitty and profoundly human, a little reference to Sheila Haywood would not hurt 💖
I understand that this post would be far more thought-through/in-depth if I had read Countdown. However I have not yet read classic, highly acclaimed Kyle and Donna comics and I refuse to allow Countdown to be my introduction to them so this is what you get 🤷♀️
Post-Crisis, Jason's revival through early Red Hood (click here for Jason's rebooted origin to his death)
Compared to Jason's tenure as Robin, there is much less specific information given here regarding how long things take, and I don't have the energy to sift through the text for breadcrumbs (but if anyone does have that energy, I would love to hear what you find!). What I have done is skim Lost Days to account for the time between Jason's revival and his first appearance in Hush, and sorted everything else into a reasonable order of events.
Jason is revived in late October - Batman (1940) Annual #25: the narration states six months passed between Jason's death and revival, placing it in late October. Besides, I think it would be fun for Jason to be revived on Halloween. As I covered in part 1, this timeline puts Jason at 12 when he dies, and since death generally puts a pause on growth and development, he is still 12 when he's revived (an argument could be made that his birthday is now the date of his revival, but I'm not making it).
Three years pass between Jason's revival and his dip in the Lazarus Pit - Batman (1940) Annual #25: the narration states Jason spent 1 year in a coma at Huntington Convalescent Home, 1 year living on the streets of Gotham (I have qualms with the implication that none of the Bats noticed Jason sleeping on sidewalks for an entire year but whatever), and 1 year living with the al Ghul's before Talia put him in the Pit. Jason would be 15 at this time.
Much of the above is reiterated in Red Hood: The Lost Days (2010-2011) #1 with conflicting time spans given, but I'm prioritizing the information provided in Annual #25 because it was published earlier, in 2006 immediately following the conclusion of Under the Red Hood.
Jason gets to Gotham and spends six days there - Red Hood: The Lost Days (2010-2011) #2: after Talia pushes him off a cliff to get away from the al Ghul's mansion (not kidding), Jason swims and motorbikes and boards an undocumented plane to get to Gotham and there is no way to tell how long any of that took. But the narration states that Jason spent six days in Gotham before planting the bomb on the Batmobile. This would roughly be the beginning of November.
Jason spends about 10 months training - Red Hood: The Lost Days (2010-2011) #3-6: this is a guess at best. I counted up the time spans given (the story skips around a bit but something close to 6 months spent with 6 different mentors) and added a month each for the additional 3 mentors mentioned in passing. I added another month to account for the time Jason spent dealing with the bombs in London and tracking down Joker. That places the infamous Talia/Jason sex scene at the end of #6 in late June, when Jason is still 15. Do with that what you will. (What's worse: murdered at 15 or statutory rape at 15?)
Here is where I give up trying to keep track of time spans and Jason's age and look instead to the publishing dates for context clues.
I'll repeat: publishing dates are different than the date on the cover of a comic issue. Generally, the cover date is two months later than the publishing date, for tricky sales reasons. I think it's more a matter of tradition these days. All the IRL dates I mention are the publishing dates, and this next section is ordered as such.
Both Annual #25 and Lost Days are prequels that lead into Batman (1940) #608-619, aka the Hush storyline. Jason appears dressed as Hush in #617-618, published in July and August 2003. Bruce's internal dialogue says that Jason was killed "years ago" (which lines up with the roughly 4 years 5 months this timeline allots) and also mentions Jason looking the same age as Nightwing. Dick would have been firmly older than 20 at this time. The original explanation was that it was actually Clayface imitating Jason, aged-up so as to mask any inconsistencies. Annual #25 retcons this, so Jason really does look like an adult to Bruce. Whatever. Jason is always aged up when he's being antagonistic, so I'm ignoring that particular detail.
There's a year and a half IRL gap here to allow for a whole host of other storylines to happen. I'll link this post by bitimdrake that gives context for what's happening on the peripheries during all of Jason's shenanigans and provided me a very helpful framework in making this timeline.
The first half of Under the Red Hood, Batman (1940) #635-641, was published from December 2004 to June 2005. There was a short break for an unrelated story in the middle of Under the Red Hood, but publishing picked up again in September 2005 for #645-650, concluding in February 2006.
for context: Infinite Crisis #1 began in October 2005. Under the Red Hood is technically a tie-in for Infinite Crisis, because of the Superboy-Prime universe-punching that retconned Jason's death in-universe and caused his whole revival in the first place, even though those specifics are only mentioned in Annual #25. The details aren't important to me because they aren't important to Jason (see the panel in Lost Days #2 where Talia talks about Jason not seeming to be interested in finding out how he was revived).
more context: the infamous issue where Jason attacks Tim at Titan's Tower takes place in Teen Titans (2003) #29. The publishing date of November 9 2005 being right in the middle of Under the Red Hood leads me to believe Jason took a break from fighting Batman to fight Robin a little too. One could reread these issues and find a good reason/time for Jason to fly out to San Francisco.
As I mentioned earlier, Batman (1940) Annual #25 is published the month after Under the Red Hood concludes, in March 2006, and details the events between Jason's death and his appearance in Hush.
Jason's next chronological appearance comes in Nightwing (1996) #118-122, aka Brothers in Blood. This is part of the One Year Later storyline that, you guessed it, skips ahead one year in-universe after the conclusion of Infinite Crisis. Nightwing (1996) #118 is published a couple weeks after Annual #25 in March 2006 and wraps up in July 2006.
Next comes Green Arrow (2001) #69-72, aka Seeing Red, published from December 2006 to March 2007, so there were a number of IRL months with no Jason appearances. (I have not read this story yet, so please let me know if there are any timeline implications therein).
Lastly, Jason's inexplicable appearance in Outsiders (2003) #44-46 and Annual #1, aka Pay as You Go. This was published almost concurrently with Seeing Red, from January 2007 to April 2007 BUT. It's a flashback story to one year prior. Outsiders (2003) directly contradicts itself, but I choose to believe that Pay as You Go takes place between UtRH and Brothers in Blood, during the year that One Year Later skips. Here's a very long tangent with all my reasoning (or scroll to the bottom for an in-universe timeline):
I say inexplicable because Jason's presence and role in Pay as You Go doesn't make much sense when you look at his other stories around this time. To sum up, if you haven't read it, Black Lightning accidentally kills someone and puts himself in prison about it, but there are complications and the Outsiders (Dick Grayson being a member) need to break him out. Jason is the one who kicks it off by providing the information that Black Lightning isn't actually guilty. Looking at UtRH and Brothers in Blood, regardless of what order these stories are in, Jason and Dick are not on good terms. But Pay as You Go provides no real explanation for why Jason would bother to help exonerate Black Lightning and none of the events of UtRH or Brothers in Blood are mentioned. Nobody even mentions Jason's revival. It being published in 2007, Jason had been back for a while and it's likely the readers didn't need to be reminded, but it's also a flashback story and the characters probably should've been a little surprised. (And did Jason meet Black Lightning as Robin or something? I'm curious). Anyway.
The real question here is whether Pay as You Go takes place before or after Brothers in Blood. I'm looking to Outsiders (2003) for the answer. This is also why I brought up Infinite Crisis way back when.
The Outsiders (2003) run can be split into two parts: everything pre-Infinite Crisis (#1-33, #29-33 being a direct tie-in) and everything post-Infinite Crisis (#34-50 and Annual #1). #34 is the debut of the new Outsiders team, notably marking the exit of Roy Harper and the entrance of Metamorpho and Owen Mercer. The last part of Pay as You Go in Annual #1 has Roy quit the Outsiders, shapeshifter Shift merge back with Metamorpho, and Owen Mercer join the Outsiders after being broken out of prison along with Black Lightning, so it makes sense to slot Pay as You Go between #33 and #34. Also, Thunder has her original suit in Pay as You Go, meaning it can't take place anytime after #34. Also also, the Outsiders are lacking an HQ in Pay as You Go, which was destroyed in #28, meaning it has to take place after that.
There is a big fat Owen Mercer-shaped discrepancy here that I am choosing to ignore because it makes no sense. In IRL chronology, he originally meets the Outsiders during the Infinite Crisis tie-in (#29-33) and joins them in #34. But then you get to the flashback of Pay as You Go and he meets and joins the Outsiders because of the prison break, seemingly completely disconnected from the first occasion. Good job DC.
So, ignoring Owen, this puts the in-universe order as: end of UtRH -> Outsiders does Infinite Crisis -> Pay as You Go during the year skipped by One Year Later -> Brothers in Blood after OYL. Then Seeing Red, etc. Phew.
And none of this really matters because nothing in Pay as You Go has any bearing on Jason's character development or emotional arc (but I actually really like this story and there's a lot of fanfic potential to fill in the gaps).
A simplified timeline, in-universe:
late October, age 12 - Jason is revived, six months after death, Batman (1940) Annual #25
late October, age 13 - has spent 1 year in a coma, Batman (1940) Annual #25
late October, age 14 - has spent 1 year on the streets of Gotham, Batman (1940) Annual #25
late October, age 15 - has spent 1 year with the al Ghul's, dipped in the Pit, Batman (1940) Annual #25
early November, age 15 - Jason's first return to Gotham and the car bomb, Red Hood: The Lost Days (2010-2011) #2
end of June, age 15 - has spent 10ish months training, Red Hood: The Lost Days (2010-2011) #3-6
Choose your own age and date for the remainder
Jason's appearance in Hush, Batman (1940) #617-618
Jason plans for Under the Red Hood while storylines like War Games and Identity Crisis take place.
The first 8 parts of Under the Red Hood, Batman (1940) #635-645
Infinite Crisis begins publishing
Part 9 of Under the Red Hood, Batman (1940) #646
The attack on Titan's Tower in Life and Death, Teen Titans (2003) #29
Parts 10-13 of Under the Red Hood, Batman (1940) #647-650
During the year that One Year Later skips, Jason's appearance in Pay as You Go, Outsiders (2003) #44-46 and Annual #1
Jason dons the Nightwing suit in Brothers in Blood, Nightwing (1996) #118-122
Jason bothers Green Arrow and Speedy in Seeing Red, Green Arrow (2001) #69-72
I believe Jason shows up next in stuff leading into Final Crisis, and then Red Hood and the Outlaws makes its debut in the New 52, but that is where my interest wanes. Here is a great reading order if you are interested. The post I linked earlier also has more info on those stories.
If you read all of this, thanks for muscling through all my parentheticals and full-naming of comic runs!
finally succumbed and made jason in the sims 4 (and it didn't piss me off like i thought it would)
hair and white overlay here
autopsy/face scar and cigarette burns here
other scars here
wuppydog or whatever. staring into ur soul...
i have stuff to say so ig i'll say it >:( ig that's what tumblr is for >:(
i'll admit the self-inflicted burns were a spur of the moment decision, not a long-standing headcanon. but it tracks. where's that expanding brain meme of jason smoking as self-harm. the not liking to be shirtless tho. yeah. i think he always feels slightly naked leaving his apt without the armor/helmet. in public, he's particularly self-conscious of his torso but he doesn't like to show his legs either. it's more that he doesn't want the attention that scars would bring him, from civilians and from family members, especially the cigarette burns. which is tough bc i do think he would weaponize the face scar to make bruce and co. uncomfortable. maybe it's mainly the burns that he wants to keep secret... a thing he did instead of something that was done to him y'know.
and he does not like surprises (probably none of the bats do but probably jason is the most obvious abt it). so that overlaps with the discomfort around his scars to the end that he stresses tf out abt getting naked, even in his own apt or safehouse. he can kinda only manage it in the bathroom and even then he's pulling down the blackout shade on his window and locking the door. ofc not helped by the family trait of breaking into people's homes unannounced. in the event of dick or somebody slipping in through his window while jason is wearing a t-shirt and shorts (god forbid), jason essentially reacts like he was caught having sex lol. face like a deer in headlights and pulling a blanket over his legs even though it's like 85 degrees. the blanket he keeps on his couch for exactly this scenario.
reading red hood: cheer through actual tears. this is all total bullshit. i already knew the Narrative hates jason todd. idk why i'm doing this to myself.
