You were twelve years old...
In honor of monkeycrackmary's birthday (*waves to Mary in case she sees this entry*), I present a rambling essay about Jason Todd.
I bought, a little while ago, the trade of A Death In The Family. I have yet to read it. Because PAIN and ow and I love my boy.
You see, long before I'd actually read any of Jason's canon I was reading Te and Mary. We see where this goes, yes? Yes.
People give Jason a lot of flack for being 'the violent Robin,' 'the bad Robin,' and so forth. (Some of this flack is the same flack Steph gets, and I'll address that later on.) The Jason I absorbed was a kid who never *ever* backed down, who loved being Robin because it was such a thrill and because helping people was right.
The Jason canon I finally did get was Under the Hood, and that was relatively late in the game. I *loved* Under the Hood. I'd fallen madly in love with Jason Todd and I could kinda see him in Red Hood, the anger and the bitterness and the smart ruthlessness and the W00BIE. And yet.
Well. Eight heads in a bag, you know?
This really wasn't Robin. Part of what I'd loved about Jason -- his genuine *ethics*, because Jason didn't lack morals -- was gone.
In BATMAN 409, Jason tells Batman that he was a thief, but he'd never wanted to be a crook. Red Hood, however, does work in drug-running and the black market; he doesn't let anybody deal to kids and he doesn't put up with pimps hurting their whores, but he's a crook. And a murderer.
Red Hood!Jason is bitter and hurt and furious and desperately, *achingly* in love with Bruce -- little boy lost under crowbars and desert sands and the Bat, with a sense of humor and a love of the kind of justice he's doing now. During the Under the Hood arc, he did what he did because of Gotham as well as Bruce. I loved Red Hood and I felt so bad for him, but I missed my sharp-edged, laughing, predatory kid in the red and green suit.
It took BATMAN 650 and BATMAN ANNUAL 25, in all their glorious horrible pained devotion, for me to believe the transition from Robin to Hush (even though the setup made no sense) to Red Hood.
I love that boy. I just... I *love* him. Street-punk thief kid who genuinely *liked* school, liked the crazy guy he worked with, believed so hard, who may or may not have actively killed Felipe Garzonas, who loved cars and girls and getting into fights, Neopolitan ice cream and the color green...
And I've heard all this stuff about how ADitF was badly written, I know full well it didn't respect the characters, and yet. I kinda feel like A Bad Fan for not having read the thing, you know?
But. I will never, *ever*, read War Games. I don't ever plan to read War Crimes.
Because STEPH NOES. I didn't have time to fall in love with Steph as Spoiler through canon, when Steph was introduced I was five. But I, again, read Te and Mary. I was doomed.
The Steph-Jason comparisions come fast, hard, and *often* in War Drums*, but Spoiler had already been used as a Robin figure. The scene where Batman tells Spoiler not to turn off her communicator (Petra has an icon of it) because he likes to hear her talking *breaks my heart*.
Steph isn't by any means a female Jason, and sometimes I worry that I might be going too far in that direction, but there are reasons I write stories like My familiar ghost again. I just. I. LOVE. I AM INCOHERENT AND FLAILY WITH ADORATION.
Jason died because some fans -- and there wasn't a very big difference between these two groups, the kill-Robin and don't-kill-Robin -- wanted him to. He died because he wasn't Dick Grayson, because he was too violent, because he was whiny, because he was an orphan off the streets, because he... you get the point. Jason Deserved His Death.
*Bullshit*.
Steph died, some fans say, because she wasn't really Robin, because she was stupid, because she started a gang war and had to be punished, because she... you get this point, too. Steph Deserved Her Death.
And that's bullshit, too.
*Fandom's gone into this. One of the best is Jason and Me.
So it's kinda weird, you know? You can't not know Jason's fate if you play in the Gotham side of fandom, and you can't write post-Crisis Jason without a knowledge of exactly what happened there anymore than you can't know Steph's fate. I don't own War Games or War Crimes, I never will. I do own A Death in the Family, I might as well read it. But.
But my BOY. My boy.
I bought, a little while ago, the trade of A Death In The Family. I have yet to read it. Because PAIN and ow and I love my boy.
You see, long before I'd actually read any of Jason's canon I was reading Te and Mary. We see where this goes, yes? Yes.
People give Jason a lot of flack for being 'the violent Robin,' 'the bad Robin,' and so forth. (Some of this flack is the same flack Steph gets, and I'll address that later on.) The Jason I absorbed was a kid who never *ever* backed down, who loved being Robin because it was such a thrill and because helping people was right.
The Jason canon I finally did get was Under the Hood, and that was relatively late in the game. I *loved* Under the Hood. I'd fallen madly in love with Jason Todd and I could kinda see him in Red Hood, the anger and the bitterness and the smart ruthlessness and the W00BIE. And yet.
Well. Eight heads in a bag, you know?
This really wasn't Robin. Part of what I'd loved about Jason -- his genuine *ethics*, because Jason didn't lack morals -- was gone.
In BATMAN 409, Jason tells Batman that he was a thief, but he'd never wanted to be a crook. Red Hood, however, does work in drug-running and the black market; he doesn't let anybody deal to kids and he doesn't put up with pimps hurting their whores, but he's a crook. And a murderer.
Red Hood!Jason is bitter and hurt and furious and desperately, *achingly* in love with Bruce -- little boy lost under crowbars and desert sands and the Bat, with a sense of humor and a love of the kind of justice he's doing now. During the Under the Hood arc, he did what he did because of Gotham as well as Bruce. I loved Red Hood and I felt so bad for him, but I missed my sharp-edged, laughing, predatory kid in the red and green suit.
It took BATMAN 650 and BATMAN ANNUAL 25, in all their glorious horrible pained devotion, for me to believe the transition from Robin to Hush (even though the setup made no sense) to Red Hood.
I love that boy. I just... I *love* him. Street-punk thief kid who genuinely *liked* school, liked the crazy guy he worked with, believed so hard, who may or may not have actively killed Felipe Garzonas, who loved cars and girls and getting into fights, Neopolitan ice cream and the color green...
And I've heard all this stuff about how ADitF was badly written, I know full well it didn't respect the characters, and yet. I kinda feel like A Bad Fan for not having read the thing, you know?
But. I will never, *ever*, read War Games. I don't ever plan to read War Crimes.
Because STEPH NOES. I didn't have time to fall in love with Steph as Spoiler through canon, when Steph was introduced I was five. But I, again, read Te and Mary. I was doomed.
The Steph-Jason comparisions come fast, hard, and *often* in War Drums*, but Spoiler had already been used as a Robin figure. The scene where Batman tells Spoiler not to turn off her communicator (Petra has an icon of it) because he likes to hear her talking *breaks my heart*.
Steph isn't by any means a female Jason, and sometimes I worry that I might be going too far in that direction, but there are reasons I write stories like My familiar ghost again. I just. I. LOVE. I AM INCOHERENT AND FLAILY WITH ADORATION.
Jason died because some fans -- and there wasn't a very big difference between these two groups, the kill-Robin and don't-kill-Robin -- wanted him to. He died because he wasn't Dick Grayson, because he was too violent, because he was whiny, because he was an orphan off the streets, because he... you get the point. Jason Deserved His Death.
*Bullshit*.
Steph died, some fans say, because she wasn't really Robin, because she was stupid, because she started a gang war and had to be punished, because she... you get this point, too. Steph Deserved Her Death.
And that's bullshit, too.
*Fandom's gone into this. One of the best is Jason and Me.
So it's kinda weird, you know? You can't not know Jason's fate if you play in the Gotham side of fandom, and you can't write post-Crisis Jason without a knowledge of exactly what happened there anymore than you can't know Steph's fate. I don't own War Games or War Crimes, I never will. I do own A Death in the Family, I might as well read it. But.
But my BOY. My boy.