Of Hoods and Birds
I'm finally prepared to admit that I'm invested in another fandom. I've also come to terms now with admitting that I'm not invested in the DCU as a whole; my investment begins and ends with Jason Todd, aka Robin II, aka the Red Hood.
That's not to say I don't give a damn about Batman, or Dick Grayson, or Tim Drake, etc, but the point where I give a damn about them directly coincides with their involvement with Jason.
It would probably be fairest just to say that I fell in love with the Under the Red Hood arc (to include Red Hood: the Lost Days) and Jason (and associated others) as written by Judd Winick.
Countdown and Battle for the Cowl can get fucked. NOT part of my continuity. Jury's still out on Nightwing: One Year Later until I can get my hands on it and read it for myself, and it'll all come down to characterization.
I like my Jason ambiguous. He's an anti-hero. He's fucked up. But he's likeable (Winick's Jason is kind of hilarious). You can relate to at least some of what's going on there; there's room for sympathy. Jason is always going to be monumentally fucked up, no matter who writes him, and he should be (or he wouldn't be Jason), but Winick's Jay isn't just fucked up. He's not simply a psychopath who kills because he doesn't give a damn, nor is he an outright evil villain.
He's a guy who was brutally (and I do mean brutally) murdered when he was fifteen, brought back to life in a way that we're all pretty sure messed him up a lot in the process, and came to find out that the crime-fighting vigilante hero he called a father never even avenged his death. His father's "antiquated morality" and self-imposed rulebook was more important to him than ending the guy who took his son from him. All Jason knows is that if it had been Batman who'd been killed, he wouldn't have stopped at anything to find the Joker and kill him. Because he loves Bruce. Clearly, Bruce never loved him.
Of course we all know that the Batman's no killing rule is the only thing that keeps it straight in even Batman's head what separates him from some of the very people he puts away, but Jason can't understand that -- probably never understood that.
So he comes back to Gotham and decides to do Batman's job for him, and do it better, and maybe somewhere in the process he can get his father to prove him wrong and show him that he does love him.
By killing the Joker.
Which will never happen.
(Or maybe just by explaining calmly and rationally that of course Bruce loves Jason, but that's about as likely to happen as Batman killing Joker, so.)
To sum up: aaaaaaangst. GREY AREAS. Complicated father-son issues!
Also: I kind of love Nightwing admiring Red Hood's skills.
That's not to say I don't give a damn about Batman, or Dick Grayson, or Tim Drake, etc, but the point where I give a damn about them directly coincides with their involvement with Jason.
It would probably be fairest just to say that I fell in love with the Under the Red Hood arc (to include Red Hood: the Lost Days) and Jason (and associated others) as written by Judd Winick.
Countdown and Battle for the Cowl can get fucked. NOT part of my continuity. Jury's still out on Nightwing: One Year Later until I can get my hands on it and read it for myself, and it'll all come down to characterization.
I like my Jason ambiguous. He's an anti-hero. He's fucked up. But he's likeable (Winick's Jason is kind of hilarious). You can relate to at least some of what's going on there; there's room for sympathy. Jason is always going to be monumentally fucked up, no matter who writes him, and he should be (or he wouldn't be Jason), but Winick's Jay isn't just fucked up. He's not simply a psychopath who kills because he doesn't give a damn, nor is he an outright evil villain.
He's a guy who was brutally (and I do mean brutally) murdered when he was fifteen, brought back to life in a way that we're all pretty sure messed him up a lot in the process, and came to find out that the crime-fighting vigilante hero he called a father never even avenged his death. His father's "antiquated morality" and self-imposed rulebook was more important to him than ending the guy who took his son from him. All Jason knows is that if it had been Batman who'd been killed, he wouldn't have stopped at anything to find the Joker and kill him. Because he loves Bruce. Clearly, Bruce never loved him.
Of course we all know that the Batman's no killing rule is the only thing that keeps it straight in even Batman's head what separates him from some of the very people he puts away, but Jason can't understand that -- probably never understood that.
So he comes back to Gotham and decides to do Batman's job for him, and do it better, and maybe somewhere in the process he can get his father to prove him wrong and show him that he does love him.
By killing the Joker.
Which will never happen.
(Or maybe just by explaining calmly and rationally that of course Bruce loves Jason, but that's about as likely to happen as Batman killing Joker, so.)
To sum up: aaaaaaangst. GREY AREAS. Complicated father-son issues!
Also: I kind of love Nightwing admiring Red Hood's skills.