yeah this is a bad idea

The chronicles of my complete exploration of the Post-Crisis Jason Todd in an attempt to figure out, definitively, who the fuck he is (sans DC's bullshit agenda).

[whothefuckisjasontodd]

Detective Comics #568

Part Two of the Legends crossover that introduced New Earth post-Crisis on Infinite Earths. This makes this issue the first for Detective Comics in Post-Crisis continuity. 

We open on G. Gordon Godrey (I believe there is an artist mistake cause he looks different this issue) doing his anti-hero rhetoric thing while Batman and Robin look on. 

Jason calls the protesters ungrateful, saying it’s enough to make a guy wanna hang up the cape and stay home. 

Batman schools him pretty quick, reminding him that he’s fighting crime, not ‘saving the world’. I’m fairly sure modern comics has lost this distinction these days in Batman’s motivations. 

These panels are very, very interesting. Yeah, we get another case of Bruce sidelining Jason in a way that screams ‘keep the kid out of the dangerous stuff’, but the motivation of Jason here is the action. This issue is focused on teaching Batman’s philosophy about crime through Bruce teaching Jason, and it ends up at odds with his later post-retcon characterization as being concerned with victims. 

This can either be put down to Jason’s background not being retconned yet or the needs of the story being put before characterization. These issues in the Legends crossover are introducing us to Post-Crisis Batman before we go back to Year One. There are a lot of heavy-handed things like this pointed out at various times. 

Anyway, some counters: 

Sheltered Bird - 4

Reckless Thrillseeker - 1

Reckless Thrillseeker is obviously the popular victim-blaming idea DC tried to push as the reason Jason died. While it obviously had nothing to do with his actual death, this counter is to examine if it’s really a big part of his Robin characterization at all, or if the entire thing was made up in order to victim-blame him and serve later characters.

Just a note, I will be doing a counter roundup for all the issues of Post-Crisis that occur before Jason’s origin retcon and will later use those to compare to the Post-Retcon Robin!Jason, to see how much he really changed or if it’s even noticeable. 

More Robin as a means of exposition. Apparently Batman needs to do all that research in order to figure out that falcons in urban areas like to make their nests high up. Truly the World’s Greatest Detective. 

He doesn’t figure out that the Penguin he spots on the roof is decoy and falls into a trap, but he turns Penguin’s giant birds against him and catches him in a net. It’s...the 80s. 

The next morning G. Gordon Godfrey is still going on television with his ‘nah we don’t need heroes’ thing. 

Jason in civvies, and more of Bruce’s philosophy on people. 

And that’s the end of that issue. 

[whothefuckisjasontodd]

Batman #401

Alright, time to drift over to the Bat books for a bit. Batman #401 was published in November 1986 and is part of the Legends event which introduced the ‘New Earth’ (aka Post-Crisis) to the readers. 

It’s the official start of Post-Crisis over in the Batman world. 

So we open with a case where a jewelry thief is booby-trapping items. Gordon knows who it is but they’re having problems providing it. Bruce stages a party and the Magpie (the thief) strikes, while G. Gordon Godfrey spews his anti superhero rhetoric. 

Jason first shows up after the disastrous party

Pretty standard Robin stuff here. He’s the voice of the reader, getting the exposition. 

I hate it when he’s always right, too, Jay. 

Jason gets her, for sure. Accidentally ripping her entire outfit apart. That’s what you get for wearing impractical villain outfits, I suppose. I quite like that they actually went there played on that. 

Jason is, uh...embarrassed, to say the least.

Good Kid - 4

I’m really glad they had him do this instead of something joking about taking a peek or whatever they might’ve done. It fits in with Jason’s characterization as respectful to women, as well. 

The problem is that he freaking traps them all in the room with the deadly lasers so maybe he could stand to be a little less respectful of the villain’s modesty lmao. Good going, kid. 

Death by lasers! I love comics. 

Anyway, what I get from this is that Jason’s legs have always been strong, no wonder his thighs end up so impressive. 

Magpie dropped her shiny thing under a bench and was like ‘no no i can’t leave it’ and that’s basically how they catch her. She serves as a good lesson on...not being a magpie. If Batman is after you, just let the jewel go and gap it, villains. 

[whothefuckisjasontodd]

New Teen Titans #24

We’re back where we left off with Donna’s makeshift Titans. 

Jason is a little corn ball nerd, news at eleven. Hawk thinks this precious nerd is a punk and I’m looking into the camera like I’m on the office. 

Sheltered Bird - 3

A little borderline but still valid. Jason drops Batman’s name a lot in this arc and it’s clear he’s overbearing. It contrasts with the more hands off references we often get in other team books with other Robins. 

And Jason’s gone for now. 

[whothefuckisjasontodd]

New Teen Titans #21

We pick up where we left off. Roy tells Jason to go back to help the others, knowing that Jade won’t care that Jason’s just a kid. 

People Skills - 3 

Jason picks up on Garth’s grief in the midst of all the chaos. 

It turns out to be a trap set up by Cheshire and the Church of Blood to make the government and Titans look bad. Jason is boggled by this because politics. 

Jason’s angry little face when Hawk ruffles his hair is 2017′s mood. 

People Skills - 4 

Jason out of all of them is the only one who picks up that Roy (who just discovered he’s a dad) is acting weird. 

They’re both so cute and Jason is so polite and respectful of Donna in her role as floundering leader. It’s neat watching her come into her own in this arc. 

[whothefuckisjasontodd]

New Teen Titans #20

Donna pulls together a new team of Titans, which includes Jason. Somewhere in the world, Cheshire is up to no good. 

Jason, you’re such a little dork. Note Flash hanging a lampshade on Batman’s grim demeanor. This early in Post-Crisis it’s probably quite deliberate as DC goes for a more serious vibe than Pre-Crisis. The grimdark and edgy 90s approach. 

Sheltered Bird - 2

What’s the bet that Batman probably let him go expecting him to be on monitor duty only? I wonder if Batman even knew that Nightwing is currently not with the Titans. He didn’t really have much time for a heart to heart previous issue.

 Sheltered Bird - 3 

Has any Robin before or since been so very dad-ed? Probably not.

Geoff Johns did Jason dirty when he had Raven (who barely ever meets him) talk shit about Jason’s time with the Titans in the 2000s. Geoff Johns did a lot of Titans dirty tbh but this one hits particularly close to home because this is such a cute run. 

Good Kid - 1 

Jason was not a Bad Robin, and DC’s victim-blaming agenda trying to cast him as one beyond the grave doesn’t hold up when you actually go back and read his stuff. There is a period where he goes through a deliberate character assassination to make him unlikable, but it ends up somewhat sympathetic anyway and is still not as bad as DC tried to make him out to be later. This counter is to track the times Jason is shown to be a good kid. 

The Titans like to tease the baby bird, okay, it’s very cute. Poor lad. He’s very confused about Donna basically treating him like Dick and trying to defer to him, because in his eyes she’s the obvious leader. He also doesn’t rise to Hawk’s borderline bullying at this point. 

Jason expresses his opinion on the Robin costume early on. 

Note: At this point in Post-Crisis, it’s actually Bruce’s fault, not Dick’s. This is confirmed in Nightwing’s new Post-Crisis origin in Secret Origins #13. 

So, Bruce is the sadist. Moving on. 

The Titans settle in for the night and Cheshire attacks. Jason and his acrobatic skills means he’s in the best position to try and stop her. 

Boy Wonder - 1

Jason isn’t just a brute that punches people, he’s Robin, the Boy Wonder, and that comes with well-rounded talents including detective skills, agility and strategy/tactics. This counter is for Jason showing off any of those talents that earned him the suit. 

Jason and Hawk are the only two heroes in play, and Hawk basically shoves Jason out of the way so he can attempt to kill Cheshire and the thugs. Cheshire makes to kill Hawk and Jason...

...is a good boy. 

Good Kid - 2

Anyway, Donna comes to the rescue and then Cheshire escapes and Donna and Hawk get into it over his excessive violence and willingness to kill. Donna goes completely off on him.

And Jason is the voice of reason. 

Good Kid - 3

I’m counting each separate instance more freely than I might’ve if Jason had a long Robin run, just because it is so short so there’s not use condensing his actions and appearances. 

Of course, Donna is still confusing him with his big brother, and so she decides that the correct course of action is to step down as leader and put the 14/15 year old in charge. Yes. That sounds great. What do you think, Jason? 

He seems thrilled. 

And then is like ‘yeah nah, m8′ only he does it by running after Donna and telling her what’s what.

People Skills - 1 

Jason knows people and their motivations very, very well and can usually accurately figure out where they’re coming from or how to approach them best.

Anyway, this issue nicely establishes a big sister and little brother relationship between Donna and Jason, now that she’s remembered he’s not Dick Grayson but instead about six years younger and smol. It’ll continue through his run with the Titans. It’s very cute.  

The next morning the Titans discuss Cheshire and the ethics of killing. The Titans apparently don’t have a ‘no killing’ rule, it’s a ‘no needless killing’ rule which is...a bit more open to interpretation. 

An interesting look at where Jason currently stands on it. It matches up with his consistent portrayal as someone who dehumanizes murderers, allowing him to basically write them off and consider their death and motivations and humanity a ‘who cares’ scenario, which will eventually turn into ‘they deserve to die and I’ll kill them’. 

They Deserve It - 1 

This is going to track Jason’s tendency towards the kind of morality that sees him dehumanize the worst criminals, leading to his later motivations and actions as Red Hood. 

Anyway they’re doing their plan Titan things and Jason goes off inside because he’s hella cold (no kidding) and Roy joins him and then Jason basically turns around and probably gives Roy flashbacks of trying to hide things from Dick

Boy Wonder - 2

People Skills - 2 

Not just boy detective, but that’s a lot of insight into people and how they react to things. Very impressive, little Jay. 

Anyway Cheshire is basically like ‘YOU KNOCKED ME UP’ and Roy definitely did not see this coming. 

[whothefuckisjasontodd]

New Teen Titans #19

The beginning of Jason’s brief run with the Titans, and he appears once in this issue, on the last page. 

He is a tiny birb. 

[whothefuckisjasontodd]

Teen Titans #18

This is one of the first events in Post-Crisis (this issue takes place roughly at the same time as the end and the immediate aftermath of the Crisis). 

So this is Jason’s first Post-Crisis appearance. No background retcon yet, but Dick is coming across just a little less…warm than I recall him being with the Pre-Crisis Jason (whom he was going to adopt himself at one point). Could just be the stress he’s under in the issue (he’s perfectly fine with him in a later issue), but it’s interesting to note anyway, because it can easily be interpreted to support the background retcon to come (whether Marv knew about what was coming for Jason is something I’m not sure was ever disclosed). 

Anyway, what we expect with these early appearances is to have a lot more of the Pre-Crisis Jason’s influence. Tracking what stays the same between the two versions and what changes with the retcons is something we’ll pay attention too, because Jason doesn’t have a very long run before he dies, so we don’t want to chuck out everything wholesale. 

Also, why do the colorists in this era (and the 90s) love green pants with red tops? it’s bizarre. 

Sheltered Bird - 1

There are some hint in both Pre- and Post-Crisis Jason’s run that Bruce is a pretty overprotective, stern dad. This tracks those incidents for the Post-Crisis Jason to get a feel for how overbearing Bruce actually was as a dad. 

Girls Girls Girls - 1 

I suspect some of Jason’s talk of girls is a Pre-Crisis holdover (from memory it’s only very apparent before the new origin kicks in), but that’s what these counters are to figure out, so this one is for Jason mentioning his interest in the opposite sex. 

Anyway that’s it for this issue. 

[whothefuckisjasontodd]

Start Date and Background Info

There’s a lot of overlap in early @whothefuckisdickgrayson and Jason’s early Post-Crisis run, so since I’ve read a lot of his early issues anyway for the other blog, I thought I might as well get started over here. 

I’ll preface this by saying that I’m going to go chronological by publication date. Jason’s origin retcon did not happen immediately at the start of Post-Crisis Batman, although the writers were likely aware of it for a long while before it was published, if not in specifics (for one thing, the mystery novelist who we have to thank for Jason’s new origin came in pretty early as a writer). 

After the Crisis happened, books continued on, and while some of them immediately did do a year one-esque reboot, others just continued, quietly adding in the changes the Crisis wrought as necessary. There’s a lot of Pre-Crisis carryover in early Post-Crisis, but retcons continued to happen until eventually a solid ‘this is Post-Crisis history’ could be assembled. By going from publication date we can follow this kind of journey with Jason, which I feel gives a more natural understanding of the character and how to accept those retcons. 

Anyway, moving along to March 1986, and the end of the Crisis. An issue of the new Teen Titans references events in the last issue of the Crisis, placing itself concurrently with that issue and spilling over into the aftermath. Over in Batman and Detective Comics, November 1986 kicked off the Legends crossover, which was DC’s big way of introducing the ‘New Earth’ (aka Post-Crisis) to the readers. 

The starting point for our journey is therefore New Teen Titans Volume 2 #18 (1986). Batman #401 and Detective Comics #568 are the official Post-Crisis start dates for the Bat books.