Jason died. And then the opinions came in.

A blog dedicated to cataloguing what the Batfam thinks of Jason after his death. Not always in chronological order.

[whattheythinkofjasontodd]

Batman 499

So Jean Paul Valley is much more violent than Bruce was as Batman. So much so that Tim is worried that since Jean Paul is pushing him away, there won’t be a Robin to balance out Batman, like there was after Jason died and Tim stepped into the position.

He thinks about telling Bruce he made a mistake picking Jean Paul. Meanwhile, Bruce and Alfred fly off to Santa Prisca because apparently Bruce’s therapist and doctor and potential love interest Shondra Kinsolving and Tim’s dad Jack have been kidnapped by Bane’s men and that’s their most likely location. Also, I don’t think they bothered to tell Tim his dad has been kidnapped because when he gets home the next night, he finds a note from Alfred telling him not to worry because they will find his kidnapped dad. Great communication skills guys.

Jean Paul redesigns the Batsuit, starting with gauntlets with very sharp claws on it. The rest of the suit debutes next issue, which doesn't have any Jason in it, so if you haven’t seen the AzBats suit, I suggest Googling it. It’s so bad. 

Brooding Bats: 10

[whattheythinkofjasontodd]

Batman 498

So Batman has had his back broken. Alfred, Tim and Jean Paul Valley find him in the cave and load him onto a stretcher. He’s pretty out of it, and seems to agree with Bane: he’s broken. Tim wants to know why he’s acting like this (Well Tim, when people break their spines, they aren’t usually bright and cheery), and Alfred says that it’s his first real failure, because when Jason died, it was out of his control.

I would argue that he did not face another man squarely. Bane had a clear advantage since he was properly rested and hadn’t been under unimaginable mental, physical and emotional stress for several months. But I digress.

They take him to his room while he mourns his failures. His failure to ask Vicki Vale out before someone else did, and his failure to save Jason. I don’t have a counter yet for Bruce blaming himself for Jason’s death, but maybe I should put one in...

The issue concludes with Bane thinking he won, Bruce asking Tim to ask Jean Paul to take up the cowl, and Jean Paul becoming Batman.

Batman’s Greatest Failure: 1

[whattheythinkofjasontodd]

Batman 497

Knightfall continues. It’s a big event and will probably keep going for a while. Anyways, Bane has finally decided that Batman is beaten down enough and goes to Wayne Manor to confront him. Yes, Bane knows who Batman is. He attacks Alfred, then waits for Batman to come upstairs from the cave. They chat and then start fighting. Batman is very seriously worn down from everything he’s been through in the past few months and can barely stand, but he puts up a decent fight. They eventually end up in the cave, and Bane throws Batman into Jason’s Robin case. This gives Bruce the strength he needs to stand up again, but he doesn’t last much longer after that.

Pretty quickly after this, Batman loses the fight. Bane decides against killing him, and instead breaks his back.

Going deeper into over-analyzing territory, if I could choose one event that broke Bruce, I’d choose Jason’s death. It sets the tone for Batman books for two decades, is constantly referenced right up until Jason’s return, and defines Bruce as a character for years. Throwing Bruce into Jason’s case, shattering it like this, is pretty symbolic of breaking his spirit again. Or I could be reading into it too much. Either way: 

Symbolic Memorial: 8

[whattheythinkofjasontodd]

Batman 496

Here we are. Knightfall. So the story so far is that Bane really wants to be the one to destroy Batman and rule Gotham, so he releases everyone in Arkham so that Batman will wear himself out. And it’s sort of working. So far, Batman has found and defeated a bunch of the inmates, but he hasn’t had a chance to get any proper rest. Plus he’s internalizing all his emotions and angsting over everything, which isn’t helping.

A few issues ago, Joker and Scarecrow took Mayor Krol hostage and was using him to mess with the police. In this issue, things are starting to fall apart for the two crooks because neither of them has any team work skills. Scarecrow wants to take over Gotham. Joker wants to kill Batman, like he killed Robin.

Batman is of course, hot on their tail. He goes to Krol’s mayoral mansion to look for clues, but that ends up exploding.

Eventually, Batman catches up to them. Joker keeps messing with Mayor Krol while Scarecrow starts messing with Batman. Batman gets a face full of fear gas and immediately starts hallucinating Jason’s death.

What comes next is an absolutely glorious beat down.

“Just a boy good at heart, more brave than a man... too brave to become a man. Just a boy, his parents felled in blood, his own life ripped and torn from the world he protected. Just a boy, but never to breathe, speak, or move again. Just a boy, but far too brave to face the stark, lurid madness of a grinning killer. Just a boy - dead - but to his killer, nothing more than a sick joke! Just a boy - but forever gone.”

Finally! This issue was dated for July of ‘93. That’s four years after Jason’s death. More than 60 issues, and someone finally remembered that he was a good person.

The issue ends when Scarecrow uses a missile launcher to blast the wall of the tunnel they’re in, causing the place to start to collapse. Batman lets Joker and Scarecrow escape so he can save the mayor.

Death Scene: 5

Violent Tendencies: 7

Better Times: 1

[whattheythinkofjasontodd]

Batman 481

Maxie Zeus is in Arkham and his girlfriend Iris comes to visit him. He tells her that his goons shouldn’t go after something called the “dust bucket” until he gets out. Jeremiah Arkham records this conversation, which is illegal I’m fairly sure, and shows it to Batman.

Batman broods in his cave, ignoring Alfred’s perfectly good suggestions to get some food and trying to figure out what the dust bucket could possibly be. Then Tim shows up after helping his dad (fresh out of the coma) move into the big manor right next door to Bruce’s house and figures out what the dust bucket is almost immediately. See what being well fed and rested gets you Bruce? Enough clarity of mind to figure out that the dust bucket is a priceless Greek funerary urn.

Batman heads out, telling Tim to stay behind and worry about his dad. Tim looks at Jason’s memorial and says, “Like I haven’t been doing nothing but.” Not sure why he looked at Jason’s Robin costume here, maybe he’s just trying to commiserate with him? “Man, Bruce kind of sucks sometimes, am I right?”

[whattheythinkofjasontodd]

Nightwing 25

Alright, so in this issue, Nightwing and Robin go train surfing. Blindfolded. Because that’s what they do for fun. Anyways, they talk and bond and do all that nice stuff, and then a bunch of rubble out of nowhere lands on top of the train, almost killing both of them.

“I know. I’m not like Jason. But what if I have some other flaw? Sometimes I think I go too far the other way. Too cautious.”

Meaning of course that Jason wasn’t at all cautious, blah, blah, blah. They keep talking about Batman and how he’s not as fearless as he seems and how he’s probably never going to quit being Batman, despite everything he’s been through.

Some criminal looking guys hop on the train behind them, and are apparently trying to steal something from the container the boys happen to be standing on. They kick the crooks off the train and into a small creek, then keep going on their conversation. Dick says he’s going to try and become a cop, and apparently both of them have thought about quitting before. Then they hop on the train going in the other direction (still blindfolded) and go home.

Reckless Robin: 11

[whattheythinkofjasontodd]

Nightwing 10

Last issue, Dick got hit with a pretty big dose of fear gas, courtesy of Scarecrow. So this issue opens with him deep in a fear gas hallucination where his life is falling apart. His wife Donna is cheating on him with Roy Harper, his neighbour Bruce Wayne is infinitely more successful than him, his boss Mr. Joe Kerr tells him to show the new guy Jean Paul Valley around, and that Jean Paul will eventually replace him in the office. Jason is in the hallucination as well, as Dick’s paperboy J.T..

“I’m like you. I try to do too much. I’m real hard on myself. That kind of pressure can kill you.”

Interestingly, this is one of the times where Jason is remembered in a negative sense, but not in terms of being a bad Robin. These are bad qualities for sure, but Batman and Nightwing both have them in spades. They do too much and never cut themselves any slack. But also, I don’t think it’s Dick’s memory of Jason speaking here, because Jason as Robin took nights off of patrol to do homework, not trying to balance both at the same time. I think it’s Dick’s subconscious warning him through Jason’s image that he needs to take a break.

Fun fact: he ignores that advice and keeps taking on more than he can handle.

He shakes off most of the fear toxin, enough to beat the crap out of Scarecrow, but he’s still suffering its effects for another issue after this.

[whattheythinkofjasontodd]

Birds of Prey 69

So this is a depressing issue. Three kids dressed as three dead teen heroes (Donna Troy, Terra and Robin) commit suicide, except it’s probably not suicide. 

It turns out to be the work of some weird cult. Huntress investigates, discovers Vixen is being brainwashed by the cult, it’s a whole thing.

[whattheythinkofjasontodd]

Birds of Prey 9

A very brief mention. Very brief. And so you get two today. Barbara and Dinah are doing an infiltration of a country for reasons, and Dinah needs Oracle to destroy some fuel tanks and trucks. Big explosion, no causalities. Babs tells her to cover her eyes or she’ll go blind, similar to how Jason Bard did a few issues earlier. Which prompts this little discussion of all the Jasons in the DC verse. Or at least a few. It’s a common name.

Oracle commandeers a space laser that the US government has in space and fires it. This will later prompt the US government to go on a massive man hunt for Oracle which they will fail at. I’m only mentioning it because I think it’s hilarious. 

Dinah rescues a scientist, who refuses to leave without his subject, a Guy Gardner clone named Joe.

[whattheythinkofjasontodd]

Impulse 50

Ok, so if you’ve never read Impulse, first of all, I highly recommend it. It’s a delight. Anyways. In this issue, Bart finds out what April Fool’s Day is, which is... no one should have told him. So he runs off to Gotham to prank Robin. But he ends up in the middle of a hostage situation involving the Joker. Batman tells him to go home, but Bart kind of really wants to help. Again, Jason isn’t mentioned directly here, but he’s clearly on Bruce’s mind.

“I can’t work with someone with your reputation for not following directions and being... impulsive. I won’t allow you to help because I refuse to put anyone - not the hostages, not you - at risk. Especially around that maniac. You’re untried, untrained. If anything were to happen to you... believe me... it would be on my conscience for the rest of my life!”

Joker ends up saying that he’s going to kill everyone if Impulse doesn’t run him a bunch of errands, so Batman reluctantly lets him help. If he doesn’t talk to Joker and doesn’t go within 20 feet of him. Bart agrees, and does his best to follow Batman’s rules. Joker notices and starts taunting Bart and Batman (who is outside disabling one of Joker’s traps). Which is where the next Jason mention comes in. Joker tells Bart that he blew the last Robin up, which is why Batman didn’t want Bart helping.

But Bart ends up running circles around the Joker, he and Batman save the hostages, everything ends well. Batman even tells Bart that his grandfather Barry would be proud of him.

Reckless Robin: 10

Symbolic Memorial: 7

Brooding Bats: 9

[whattheythinkofjasontodd]

JLA: World Without Grown-ups

Just for funsies, we're jumping from 1991 to 1998.

In this miniseries, Robin, Superboy and Impulse are all having trouble with the adults in their life, Batman, Superman and Max Mercury. Mostly with them being overbearing. But a young boy named Matt is given a mysterious artifact from his archaeologist father which bestows upon him unlimited cosmic power and splits the world. Two Earths, beside each other, but one has all the adults and one has all the kids. The adults flip and the kids run wild, trying smoking, driving, using chainsaws, flying fighter jets, all that stuff your parents told you not to do because it was bad for your continued health and well-being. All the kid heroes try and keep the damage to a minimum. Robin, Superboy and Impulse team up to try and figure out what happened. First stop is, of course, the Batcomputer.

Impulse, being Impulse, isn’t super interested in what Robin and Superboy are looking at, so he runs around the Batcave exploring. And finds Jason’s memorial case.

Robin, who had been calm and level headed for the entire time that both Superboy and Impulse has known him, freaks out when Impulse touches the case. Superboy is clearly surprised by his reaction, and Impulse stays by the computer for the rest of his time in the cave.

Anyways, they find out that the Watchtower satellite is gone (because the Earth was duplicated, not the satellites around it), so they go contact Billy Batson. Billy Batson who can transform into an adult at will and become the hero Captain Marvel, thus travelling between the two worlds. Except when he does so, he ends up on Adult World as a kid.

Long story short, they figure out that Matt, now going by Bedlam, is behind this and hiding in the old Justice League mountain base. They go and confront him, fight teen versions of their greatest nemeses, kind of lose to their worst nemeses and so they switch. Robin takes on Teen Metallo, Superboy fights Little Grodd, and Impulse drives Kid Joker up the wall. They go fight Bedlam, win, the world goes back to normal, and the adults all decide to let them keep the mountain base as their own headquarters. Thus begins Young Justice.

Symbolic Memorial: 6

[whattheythinkofjasontodd]

Batman 469

This issue continues a story from last issue, so I'll try and sum it up quick. The Ghost Dragons of Gotham are acting up because their leader, Sir Edmund Dorrance, King Snake, has returned and wants revenge on Robin. In Robin Vol 1, Robin went toe to toe against him and Edmund ended up getting pushed off a building by Lady Shiva. I think. I haven’t actually read Robin Vol 1 yet, so this is all context. Anyways, Edmund is  misremembering who pushed him off the building, thinking it’s Robin, and so is specifically targeting him. In this issue, Batman orders Tim to stay home and do his homework.

Tim does so, and is trying his best, but he’s having trouble with his computer. So he logs into the Batcomputer and sees that Dorrance is indeed alive, in Gotham, and probably after him. So he disobeys Batman, puts on his Robin suit and tells Alfred he’s heading out.

Batman heads to the ship yards to confront King Snake, spends a bit of time getting his butt kicked before turning the tables. Then he tells Edmund that it wasn’t Robin who pushed him off the building, it was Lady Shiva. Meanwhile, Edmund’s associate, Lynx, is setting herself up to snipe Batman. Robin shows up just as she’s about to pull the trigger and stops her, but she escapes. When Batman gets to where Robin is, he’s not happy.

I have a lot of issues with this page. One is that he’s directly contradicting what he said in 457 when he told Tim that sometimes heroes can break rules to save lives. Secondly, and more glaringly, is the, “When are you going to realize... I’m not Jason Todd.” Because Jason disobeyed Bruce, risked his own life, and that’s why he died, right?

His Own Fault: 3

Reckless Robin: 9

[whattheythinkofjasontodd]

Batman 465

And here we jump, wow, 8 whole issues! Like I said, they’re going to get more sporadic.

Batman and Robin are patrolling again for the first time since Jason died, when they come across two guys breaking into a store. Batman asks Robin what the play should be, and Robin says that they should just swoop over their heads, scare them off. Once the guys are running away, Batman realizes that he knows them. They’re being sponsored by a Wayne college scholarship program. Batman wants to follow them and asks Robin if he’ll be alright on his own.

“No risks!”

Robin keeps patrolling. He saves a crazy lady from a guy who was harassing her and then saved a guy from being mugged by two other guys. He ties up the guys and calls Gordon to pick them up. Gordon and Sarah Essen come right away, and Robin vanishes almost immediately after they arrive.

The issue continues with Bruce walking into the apartment of the two guys from earlier. It turns out, one of them, Chico, needed money because his dad got out of jail and then immediately stole the welfare money his family was on and took off. With a mom in hospital and two younger sisters, he turned to robbery to make ends meet. Bruce offers him a weekend job at Wayne Enterprises, as long as he continues going to school. This way, when Chico graduates, he can work at WE full time and help make the company more profitable. The guys accept, and Bruce leaves to go to his evening plans.

To wrap the issue up quickly, Bruce goes to a party, prevents a murder, goes to see Jim who tells him that he and Sarah are getting married, and then Alfred receives a phone call saying that Tim’s dad has woken up.

Reckless Robin: 8

[whattheythinkofjasontodd]

Batman 457

So Scarecrow has Batman tied up and hanging upside down, and he reveals that he was the reason people had been going nuts and killing others. They had had their fear of consequences removed by a compound he created, which had been shipped to them along with the ghost masks. Then he starts using various gases on Batman.

Tim’s cab arrives, and after drawing away/defeating various guards, makes it to the room Scarecrow is in. He pulls down his ski mask, demands the release of Batman and promptly gets gassed. Immediately, he starts seeing the Obeah Man killing his mom again. Then, he starts seeing the former Robins, again giving him a pep talk.

Tim gets up and smacks Scarecrow into his shelf of gases. The bottles all break, so Scarecrow is going to be in for a really bad time. He cuts Batman down and takes off, just in time for the police to arrive. (The cabbie had called them because he had been worried about dropping a thirteen year old boy off at an abandoned warehouse in the middle of the night.)

Batman meets up with Tim after the officers have taken Scarecrow and his men into custody, and Vicki to the hospital. He asks Tim why he didn’t wear the Robin suit and Tim answers that he didn’t want to disgrace it if he failed. And Batman tells him that sometimes, when it’s justified, a hero gets to break the rules, because if Tim hadn’t, both he and Vicki would have died. Then he makes Tim Robin.

All in all, this issue paints Jason in a fairly good light, which is a nice contrast to last issue. Tim’s hallucination of him is encouraging toward him, and Tim talks about Jason, Dick and the Robin suit with respect. I do have issues with the content of the issue, but that’s mostly retroactive. Tim disobeyed Batman and was made Robin because of it. Steph disobeyed Batman and had Robin taken away. Jason is believed to have disobeyed Batman, and blamed for it for years. Or at least, that is what this blog is here to confirm or deny.

Symbolic Memorial: 5

[whattheythinkofjasontodd]

Batman 456

Long post!!

Even more people are putting on weird ghost masks and committing acts of wanton violence, despite not being super violent people before this. And considering it’s Christmas, it’s kind of a bad time for everyone. Batman asks a police officer what he knows. Apparently, there’s nothing in the blood work that seems weird. The police officer also mentions that Vicki Vale, the reporter had asked him to check out a Mr. Marcuse, who checked out clean. Batman isn’t convinced and goes to investigate.

Vicki gets captured by the bad guys, including Mr. Marcuse. Batman sees this and follows them. Meanwhile, Tim is doing some computer based investigating and is getting discouraged. 

Alfred tells him that he should take a break. Tim decides to keep working, even though it’s Christmas Eve, causing Alfred to lament that it would be his first of many.

Here Tim paraphrases a fairly famous line that Jason said Pre-Crisis. Being Robin gives you magic. Makes you a hero. I had a little difficulty, because I wasn’t sure whether to put “Better Times” here. Yes, Tim is looking right at Jason’s memorial while he says that being Robin makes you a hero, but I think he’s thinking about Robin in general, and not Jason specifically. So unfortunately, that tag is going to have to wait a while longer.

Vicki gets taken to where Marcuse’s boss is, with Batman following right behind them. Then we get another look at one of Tim’s dreams. Not a nightmare this time, which is nice. Instead he dreams about Dick and Jason as Robin telling him not to give up.

“Drop outs don’t make it. And dead heroes are no use to anyone! I thought I knew better than Batman. I thought I could run before I could walk. I killed myself Tim. Because I couldn’t wait. Because I didn’t think it through.”

This is, to this point, the most outright the comics have been about blaming Jason for his own death. Remember, Tim didn’t have much of an opinion on Jason when he first showed up, other than Jason being the Robin who died. Everything he knows about Jason is things that Bruce, Dick and Alfred have said.

Tim figures out who is behind everything, and calls Gordon. However, Gordon has a lot on his plate and can’t spare anyone, so Tim puts on a ski mask and heads out, taking a taxi to the perpetrator’s last known hideout.

Batman ends up getting captured and oh my goodness, it’s Scarecrow! Scarecrow is behind this whole thing!

Reckless Robin: 7

His Own Fault: 2

Symbolic Memorial: 4

[whattheythinkofjasontodd]

Batman 455

Another long one, another cut.

This issue very heavily references the events in Detective Comics, where Tim and his parents, Jack and Janet, go on a vacation that goes horribly wrong. Janet is killed by someone called the Obeah Man, and Jack goes into a coma. I haven’t gotten to those comics yet, but I will. Eventually.

People who previously didn’t have any kind of criminal experience are suddenly going around killing people on a whim, all while wearing the same ghost-like mask. Both Batman and Vicki Vale are investigating.

Meanwhile Tim, not quite Robin yet, is having a pretty major nightmare. He’s in a graveyard, and two of the tombstones are dedicated to the parents of Dick and Jason. In this case, I think it’s referring to Sheila Haywood, as it specifies “The mother of Jason Todd: Murdered” and Catherine wasn’t murdered. So yeah, they don’t know what happened.

Jason is seen in the nightmare to be standing next to Janet’s grave with Alfred and Jack, while Batman and Nightwing lower her coffin in. Tim tried to pull of Batman and Nightwing’s masks, to see what they’re hiding, but they have masks under their masks. Jason peels his face off, revealing what looks like a corpse, and Tim wakes up.

When Tim wakes up, Batman (yes, he’s in cape and cowl) asks Tim if he wants to talk about it, but Tim does the tough guy thing and says he can handle it. Then Batman reminds Tim that today is his mom’s funeral.

Batman and Vicki do more investigating, then five minutes before they have to leave for the funeral, Bruce asks Alfred how Tim is holding up, to which Alfred replies, “Broken hearted, angry, confused, afraid.” Bruce sympathizes, and heads downstairs to get him.

Considering the placement of the Robin mask when Bruce says that the anger will be Tim’s friend one day, I’m marking that down as another “angry Robin” reference.

At the funeral, Dick and Bruce discuss Tim and how he’s going to want to put on the suit. Bruce says that he won’t though. Meanwhile, Vicki does even more investigating, and she’s getting pretty close to figuring out who is behind all these masked murders. Later in the cave, Bruce says Tim can’t come out with him as Robin. Tim asks why not, and Bruce says, “You tell me.”

Tim, previously pretty neutral when it comes to his opinion on Jason, says that Bruce thinks that “[his] anger will boil over, the way Jason’s did.”

Ok, so there’s the placement of the mask a few pages back, Tim’s opinion on Jason and his anger, and Bruce saying that if Tim disobeys him, he can forget about being Robin, with a very conveniently placed memorial. That’s three counts of Reckless Robin in one issue. Good job.

Anyways, Tim plans on showing Bruce that he can totally handle being Robin. 

The issue ends with Vicki finding out that someone has been drugging people to make them do the crimes they did, and tracking that drug to a warehouse. Then she turns around and someone is trying to murder her.

Reckless Robin: +3, total: 6

Symbolic Memorial: 2

[whattheythinkofjasontodd]

Batman 451

Continuing from last time, the issue starts with Commissioner Gordon, the Joker and Batman all remembering various laughs. Jim is remembering his daughter’s laugh, her joy as she did gymnastics, Joker is remembering laughing when he first murdered someone and Batman is remembering the laughs of his Robins.

“Perhaps darker, colder, but still young and filled with life.”

The memories continue with Jim remembering Joker shooting Babs, with Joker remembering that he almost died, with Bruce remembering that Jason died.

The issue continues with the police figuring out that there’s a Joker impostor, there’s a Joker-on-Joker confrontation, which real Joker leaves with a bullet in his arm and another crisis of comedy. Then fake Joker sets up another confrontation at ACE Chemicals, and to prove that he’s better than the real Joker, he jumps into the same acid that real Joker fell into. Unfortunately, this vat contains a stronger concentration of acid than it did when real Joker fell in, and fake Joker dies horribly. Batman and the Commissioner both wrestle with their desire to see justice done, but also their desire to see the clown dead. Joker goes back to Arkham, comedy back and ready to face the world.

Reckless Robin: 3

Brooding Bats: 8

Death Scene: 4

Violent Tendencies: 6