I found a post of yours going through the jayroydick tag and I found your perspective on jason really interesting, so I'd like to pick your brain if that's okay.
Particularly, you said something about liking antagonist jason and I'm wondering if you have any particular examples of that that you've enjoyed
Full transparency, I mostly read fic with some comic issues here and there so my jason thoughts are not the most supported.
I guess, don't have an issue of jason being an antagonist/villain to the bats or just generally, I just need him to have a reason. They don't need to be logical/justified reasons but they need to exist.
Idk. I liked his green arrow cameo, but both his stints in nightwing and battle for the cowl just left me being like why??? Maybe I'm missing some context, but I couldn't really understand why he wanted the batman mantle so badly or why he was killing people for like. theft as nightwing (I think this was in countdown rather than in the nightwing issue itself but still). I guess maybe jason's threshold for killing is lower than I thought it was?
Anyways, you seem pretty knowledgeable abt this so I'd love to hear your thoughts.
(also, if you have any jason recs in general feel free to shoot, or roy recs I've been meaning to learn more abt him.)
gosh. I haven't posted on this account in a year, but asking my thoughts on things will always drag me out of retirement, as it were.
now, as a disclaimer, I haven't engaged in discussion about DC comics online in that year, so this is probably not as polished as it would be had I been asked a year ago, but I hope I can still provide adequate insight.
I do like antagonist Jason, specifically his post-crisis appearances post coming back as Red Hood. it's actually my favorite era of Jason content, though it's important to note that I am looking at him from a lens of Dick being my favorite character in DC, though I will try to keep this focused on Jason even when I bring up his relationship with other characters.
the main discussion I remember seeing around antagonist Jason was that it didn't make sense for him to be so violent when he was hurt, traumatized, and was Robin before he died. in my opinion, the way he acted as Red Hood in post-crisis made a lot of sense, minus some bits I think were needlessly edgy.
now, I haven't read Brothers in Blood yet. I've read up to it! I've literally read up to Nightwing '96 #117 and Brothers in Blood starts #118. I've been bouncing around a lot. anyways the other two pieces of context I do have with Under the Red Hood and Infinite Crisis. all that to say, take this with a grain of salt, but I can talk about their relationship prior to that story.
I do not know what you've read, so do not take this as me assuming you haven't read anything, this is just me explaining things just in case you don't know instead of guessing.
UTRH is much more about Bruce's relationship with Jason than it is his and Dick's, but Bruce's relationship with Dick is explicitly important. not throughout the entire thing, but it's certainly present, especially at the end.
one of the things that the movie obviously had to leave out and a lot of fans to leave out is that when Jason is asking Bruce to kill Joker in their final confrontation, is that Blüdhaven was nuked during that conversation. and Dick is, for a little bit, presumed dead or dying. and it does turn out, (in Nightwing #116) that Dick was in fact dying of radiation.
I'm bringing this up because Jason's reaction is I think very telling of his mental state and part of why I like him as an antagonist. if his problem was truly just with Bruce, or just with the Bats, he wouldn't be so flippant about an entire city ceasing to exist, right? or be so willing to stab another vigilante for simply getting involved in a way he didn't want her to.
or be so willing to stab and threaten another vigilante for simply getting involved in a way he didn't want her to. he fought with her, but as soon as she told him not to kill, he openly threatened her.
I don't think Jason harbors any hate for civilians, but he is so in his own head, so self-righteous that he tends not to realize his own hypocrisy. and I think hypocrisy will always be a very interesting character trait to explore.
it's something I think all of the Bats struggle with, to varying degrees, and in my opinion, Jason's is best expressed when he is at odds with the others. calling out their perceived or genuine hypocrisy, while displaying his own.
Jason does have valid points, of course he does, but what makes UTRH interesting, to me, is that Jason's points are directly contrasted by him making a spectacle and stooping to levels that hurt his points. he's not just killing bad guys. and it's important to remember he's, like, 19 here. 19 and stunted in many ways. it gives a bit of an explanation of Jason's actions because he essentially recreated the mob.
Jason holds a unique position in Bat stories when he's fighting against them. I, personally, like when they explore that rather than making him more similar to the others. though he is certainly not the only character I have disliked recent direction with. both Dick and Roy also being very high on that list.
...this is kinda bouncing all over the place. I was trying to talk about Brothers in Blood. okay, so. Jason and Dick, specifically in post-crisis, have a very odd relationship. honestly calling it brotherly is really over-selling it. Dick offered his hand to Jaybin when he needed it and was very upset about his death and the circumstances around it, but Dick and Jason's relationship has always been more about Bruce than it has been about each other.
each Robin 100% has to deal with the whole living up to Dickbin thing, but it's certainly different with Jaybin. Tim looks up to Dick, both as Robin and Nightwing, and so does Damian though Tim and Damian's relationships with Dick are very different and their respect of Dick expressed very differently. Jason is genuinely the only replacement longstanding Robin.
Dick is not the kind of person to hold Jason accountable for Bruce's mistakes regarding his firing as Robin, but it definitely does paint their relationship and it's clearly still very awkward once Jason is back. frankly, while I am going to say that I like Jason in the Dickbats era, I like Jason being an antagonist to Dick when it's very clearly about not about either of them, it's about Bruce. it feels more true to that origin of them hardly having a relationship.
hold on let me just actually quickly read the 5 issues of Brothers in Blood so that I can give my full opinion. I'm sorry this post is a mess, I haven't been taking my ADHD meds like I should.
okay, so this writer is not my favorite for Nightwing. gonna be honest, I started skimming a little. because I liked some of these ideas, but the execution was not my favorite.
Jason is not the main antagonist in this story and I do like that. though, I will say, I don't fully understand where he got the information he did about Blockbuster that he used to taunt Dick?
Dick told Bruce that he let Tarantula shoot Blockbuster, but I don't see why Bruce would tell Jason that? Bruce wasn't even really mad about the situation because he acknowledged there's a difference between shooting a gun and stepping in front of one. Bruce was more upset that Dick was trying to kill himself, though he still wasn't happy that Dick wanted Blockbuster dead. like it makes sense for Jason to know about the Outsiders but??
anyway, speaking of the ideas here and not the story itself, I think Jason being an annoyance for Dick is actually a great use of him. because it really does emphasize that these two don't really know each other, but Jason is petty enough to try and get under Dick's skin regardless.
them having to work together to defeat the main antagonists is also a great idea. because I think that works really well with Jason. sure, he wants to be a thorn in Dick's side, he wants to point out Dick's assumed hypocrisy in "killing Blockbuster," but with Dick he's not gonna get so blinded by that that he doesn't prioritize the villains.
anyway, I am gonna move on to the Dickbats era because this post is about Jason, not Dick regardless of my opinions about his characterization in Brothers in Blood. I feel like Jason's era during Dickbats is the one most people have a problem with and I can see from an outsiders perspective how it might seem very... unnecessary. and I will admit the gun Batman is like. a lot.
from my perspective though, I think Jason in this era is, in a lot of ways, an evolution of Red Hood. yes, it helped push Dick to take the role of Batman that he never wanted, but I don't feel as if Jason's characterization was ignored.
Jason spent so much energy and essentially built his entire new identity around Bruce. there was a genuineness to him wanting to get criminals off the street, to be sure, but the reason he was so drawn to lethal force was because of Bruce. even Jason's tendency to make everything a spectacle leads back to Bruce.
and then Bruce "died." away from Jason and before they could settle anything fully. their conflict was no where near over after UTRH completed. it makes sense to me why that would cause Jason to start spiraling. wanting to take over the mantle of Batman to prove he could do it better, lines up damn well with Brothers in Blood and both actions are fueled by a twisted sense of looking up to them.
Jason both thinks that he is below Dick and Bruce every step of the way while also believing that he understands how being a vigilante works better than either of them. it doesn't make sense and I think that's the point. of course his feelings are going to be so twisted up that even he hardly understands them. not that he makes much of an effort to analyze them.
I think Jason essentially becoming Dick's Joker, (though that title is also held by James Gordon Jr. and also kinda just Joker himself,) is honestly a good way to show off just how much Bruce's death fucked him up. because he's not fighting Dick because he hates him, it's completely about Bruce. all of their conflict resolves around a dead man. Dick can try to show Jason the light as much as he wants, but both him and the reader I think are supposed to realize that it doesn't matter.
Jason doesn't want Dick's hand. it will never be good enough for Jason. and Dick can't keep offering it when Jason shows little concern over who's getting hurt to prove his point or further his goals. he's repeatedly shown hurting Damian and not thinking twice about it.
Morrison, from what I've noticed, tends to write comics from the lens of black and white. heroes are right, villains are wrong. and while I can understand that not being everyone's thing, I can sometimes find that refreshing. obviously I love analyzing characters to an absurd extent and I do love morally ambiguous or morally grey characters and stories, but I think a lot of DC really appeals to me when it really hammers home that heroes are good.
that's a separate tangent though.
I've rambled a lot, and I'm not sure if I got all my points across, but I hope that answers some questions! 🩵
I'm probably not the best person to ask for Jason recs, but I can certainly give my thoughts. I know I talked about how I didn't love Brothers in Blood but here's some panels from Nightwing '96 #121 that's worth the read for Jason's mental state.
if you care about Jaybin, obviously his original run in the Batman comics is good to read, though I'm sure someone's made a list of the most important issues to read. and I would recommenced reading his appearance during the Dickbat's run if what I described sounded interesting. which also includes his time as Wingman.
I personally wouldn't recommend reading a lot of the stuff post-flashpoint of his, (2011 on), but I know some Jason fans do like his recent stuff. I can't recommend Red Hood and the Outlaws as a devoted Roy fan, but if you wanna read recent Jason stuff, it is kinda mandatory reading.
there's also his brief pre-crisis period if you're curious about when Jason was literally a direct copy of Dick! not joking, they made him a circus kid who's parents get killed.
as for recs for Roy, I have a lot more as he is my second favorite character. for comic recs, I will always recommend the 2003 Outsiders run. he's in most if not all Teen Titans/Titans runs and I would personally recommend the Titans 1999 run and New Teen Titans vol 1 and 2.
if you want Speedy content, there's obviously Roy's original run as Speedy, but there's also World's Finest: Teen Titans. I do also recommend Snow Birds Don't Fly if only so that you see what actually happened when Roy was on heroin, not a retelling. it's two issues and will show you a lot about Roy during this era.
on top of all of that, I have what might seem like a weird choice, but the novel Inheritance is an excellent insight into Dick, Roy, and their relationship with their own mentors as well as each other's. honestly, it's one of my favorite pieces of DC material and even reading just that will give you good insight into Roy as a character.
you can tell that Dick is Devin's favorite character, but she clearly respects the other characters too. except maybe Ollie, but he kinda deserves it. there are truly insane implications throughout the entire book, it's great.
alright I'll stop talking now. this took 3 days to fully make.
