An UnDeath in the Batfamily
Talking about recent scans about one of S_D's favorite talking points inspired me to talk about him myself: Jason Todd. There's not a lot of agreement about this character throughout fandom, but the one thing people do seem to agree on is that editorial has not handled him well at all.
I was saying what frustrated me so much about Jason was that writers always seem to write interactions with him in a way that's "safe" when they should be anything but safe. Not physically safe, obviously, but emotionally safe. And someone else pointed out that part of that was flattening the character morally or mentally--if he's ranting and killing nobody has to really listen in case he has an actual point.
For me it goes even deeper than that. Jason is the first Robin who aggressively challenged Batman, and while nowadays that often comes down to Jason being the one who questions why they don't kill the criminals, I feel like that's in itself just a cover for what he really represents. None of the family are guilty about not killing criminals, and can easily counter Jason's arguments that they should. That's why I think it's writing the character as "safe" in focusing on that too much. Jason may be the one who condones killing, but sometimes he's written as somebody they worked with but with whom they eventually parted ways because he believed in killing. This sometimes also goes along with the view of Jason as "the failed Robin." But Jason didn't fail as Robin. He *was failed* and continues to be, by his family, and the fact that he could be failed in the way that he continues to be, is to me what makes the character so potentially explosive for them.
Jason's last Robin story was called "A Death in the Family." The key word there being not death, but family. For years the comics have acknowledged that Family is the most important thing to these guys. The younger members are all people who lacked family at a young age, longed for it, and built it with each other. Both Dick/Bruce and Tim/Bruce have years of tortured self-reflection, and patterns of reaching out and pulling away from the father/son idea. Dick and Tim themselves share some understanding of that in each other, and work just as hard at their relationship as brothers. Just the words 'father' and 'brother' are emotionally weighted in this family (this includes Bruce/Alfred as well).
While he was dead, Jason had a surprisingly clear role in that-more even than when he was alive and at the mercy of writers who didn’t want a Robin. As a living person, based on the most current version of continuity, Jason showed up while Bruce and Dick were in the middle of an anger/angst-fest and Jason wound up being used in that whether they meant for that or not. That continued and got worse after his death. There’s a classic dysfunctional Batfamily scene where Dick confronts Bruce about not even telling him about Jason’s death and they wind up using it to pick at their own issues. Poor kid gets lost again as a personality, but his role gets defined at last.
I mention those years is just to point out how closely Jason, through no fault of his own, has always been tied to the dark underbelly of this family. He dredged up ugly emotions as Dick's replacement, and even more ugly truths (about the whole weirdness of Bruce's sons being Robin) with his death. Tim never knew Jason except as a cautionary tale and as the open wound he was understood to be healing, a job that goes deeper than just trying to avoid dying. Especially when you’re a kid who tends to be insecure about how much he means to people. For young!Tim Jason was a kid whose death bought his own place as Robin, a kid Bruce chose whose death nearly broke him.
That worked beautifully with Jason when he was dead. It was a good reason for keeping him dead. But now that he’s alive, it’s a bit weird to dial him down to whatever he is now. UtH, iirc, did a good job getting at the heart of the issue of Bruce/Jason-particularly, iirc, using the “you should kill the Joker” to obviously be about wanting Bruce to prove he didn’t love Jason. Other writers aren’t so clear, plus it seems like most of Jason’s recent interactions have been with Tim and Dick, but they seem to avoid those issues, treating him like he’s Bruce’s problem they are sometimes stuck with managing.
I don't think those issues about Jason being "bad" or not. I think Bruce, Dick and Tim are all confident in their own moral positions and aren’t all that horrified by Jason’s. They don’t doubt their professional or personal relationship with Bruce or each other when Jason attacks it. Jason as "failed Robin" is a comfortable idea for both of them. Even if one or both of them think Jason is a very bad man, but it’s weird for them to skip to judging him that way without dealing with him being a version of themselves who’s cut out of the family, which has to be a scary idea. Even when they reach out to him it’s curiously impersonal, which of course makes me think they’re acting impersonal on purpose because they’re afraid of having to deal with their own feelings in there.
Jason is scary, imo, because the family failed him, and that shows the family can fail, period. Jason's the son Bruce not only didn't save from crime (which whatever Jason says now really wasn't the main priority), not only didn't save from death, but didn't save from despair and abandonment. He's a constant rebuke to Bruce's idea of himself as father--a role he doesn't really feel good at anyway. He’s never been good at handling delicate emotional situations like this, but with this kid he can’t rely on Dick or Tim to run interference for him.
That same insecurity should be reflected for the other two as well. Jason is proof that Bruce can fail-maybe both as a hero and as a father. Not in terms of it being entirely Bruce's fault Jason died (in their eyes), but because Jason's all the things the family doesn't want to face, all those feelings they have to keep to themselves or not think about to commit to things now. Which is often the job of a ghost, actually, and in many ways, isn't that what Jason still is? A loud, angry ghost back from the grave flinging accusations at the family who lived? Or at least, I feel like this is what he should be. Just think of all the guilt and dread he *should* be inspiring in all these people who left him for dead and moved on, didn't notice when he crawled out of a grave and have never done anything to welcome him back. It’s not like both of them don’t on some level probably fear they could be out of the family too. (They’ve lost family already.)
Jason practically screams all that every time he sees any of them and for some reason they don’t listen. And it’s not like they tried for years and finally had to give up. Where do you even begin with what they all should talk about? I don’t think there’s a proper etiquette for reintegrating the family member who died while your feelings were a little conflicted anyway and then mourning him was painful and when you found out he was alive you…I don’t even know what you do. Was there even a story that dealt with it, exactly? Like when recently Jason talks about Bruce wanting him to be Dick…does Dick think that’s true? Does he want to assure Jason that’s not true? Does he think Jason’s wrong because of his previous insecurity? It plays like he just doesn’t even hear it.
All the family had positive feelings about Jason--Bruce did want him as a son, Dick did, it seems, attempt to have a relationship with him, Tim did respect him. But I feel like now all he would bring up was all the awful feelings they don't want to think about: Bruce's blaming Jason for his own death, Dick's resenting him for the way he had a part in hurting him, Tim's insecurity about his own place. The way his death calls into question the whole idea. It’s like all that stuff disappeared when Jason came back.
*This* is the kind of thing I think resurrected family would bring up in the survivors. Yet sometimes it's like Jason is the only person who remembers he's supposed to be family. I'm not really sure how Bruce/Jason interactions are usually handled now, which is weird because that would be a huge thing for Bruce. While Dick and Tim almost seem to have closed ranks with each other to view Jason as Bruce's problem who isn't really a Robin (like them) and isn't really a brother (like them).
Which is just so creepy because it's actually believable, as much as I hate to say it. I mean, it's recognizable human behavior and a possible family dynamic given how well those two click with and understand each other and prove themselves. I love the two of them, but I can almost see them through Jason’s eyes as two goody-two shoes closing ranks against him. (Jan Brady Robin indeed!)
I guess I feel like when people start talking about what Jason should be-anti-hero, villain, hero, in the Batbooks, out of the Batbooks-I feel like without working out who he actually is based on the family that created him and gave him his greatest meaning it’s going to be hard to tell.
I was saying what frustrated me so much about Jason was that writers always seem to write interactions with him in a way that's "safe" when they should be anything but safe. Not physically safe, obviously, but emotionally safe. And someone else pointed out that part of that was flattening the character morally or mentally--if he's ranting and killing nobody has to really listen in case he has an actual point.
For me it goes even deeper than that. Jason is the first Robin who aggressively challenged Batman, and while nowadays that often comes down to Jason being the one who questions why they don't kill the criminals, I feel like that's in itself just a cover for what he really represents. None of the family are guilty about not killing criminals, and can easily counter Jason's arguments that they should. That's why I think it's writing the character as "safe" in focusing on that too much. Jason may be the one who condones killing, but sometimes he's written as somebody they worked with but with whom they eventually parted ways because he believed in killing. This sometimes also goes along with the view of Jason as "the failed Robin." But Jason didn't fail as Robin. He *was failed* and continues to be, by his family, and the fact that he could be failed in the way that he continues to be, is to me what makes the character so potentially explosive for them.
Jason's last Robin story was called "A Death in the Family." The key word there being not death, but family. For years the comics have acknowledged that Family is the most important thing to these guys. The younger members are all people who lacked family at a young age, longed for it, and built it with each other. Both Dick/Bruce and Tim/Bruce have years of tortured self-reflection, and patterns of reaching out and pulling away from the father/son idea. Dick and Tim themselves share some understanding of that in each other, and work just as hard at their relationship as brothers. Just the words 'father' and 'brother' are emotionally weighted in this family (this includes Bruce/Alfred as well).
While he was dead, Jason had a surprisingly clear role in that-more even than when he was alive and at the mercy of writers who didn’t want a Robin. As a living person, based on the most current version of continuity, Jason showed up while Bruce and Dick were in the middle of an anger/angst-fest and Jason wound up being used in that whether they meant for that or not. That continued and got worse after his death. There’s a classic dysfunctional Batfamily scene where Dick confronts Bruce about not even telling him about Jason’s death and they wind up using it to pick at their own issues. Poor kid gets lost again as a personality, but his role gets defined at last.
I mention those years is just to point out how closely Jason, through no fault of his own, has always been tied to the dark underbelly of this family. He dredged up ugly emotions as Dick's replacement, and even more ugly truths (about the whole weirdness of Bruce's sons being Robin) with his death. Tim never knew Jason except as a cautionary tale and as the open wound he was understood to be healing, a job that goes deeper than just trying to avoid dying. Especially when you’re a kid who tends to be insecure about how much he means to people. For young!Tim Jason was a kid whose death bought his own place as Robin, a kid Bruce chose whose death nearly broke him.
That worked beautifully with Jason when he was dead. It was a good reason for keeping him dead. But now that he’s alive, it’s a bit weird to dial him down to whatever he is now. UtH, iirc, did a good job getting at the heart of the issue of Bruce/Jason-particularly, iirc, using the “you should kill the Joker” to obviously be about wanting Bruce to prove he didn’t love Jason. Other writers aren’t so clear, plus it seems like most of Jason’s recent interactions have been with Tim and Dick, but they seem to avoid those issues, treating him like he’s Bruce’s problem they are sometimes stuck with managing.
I don't think those issues about Jason being "bad" or not. I think Bruce, Dick and Tim are all confident in their own moral positions and aren’t all that horrified by Jason’s. They don’t doubt their professional or personal relationship with Bruce or each other when Jason attacks it. Jason as "failed Robin" is a comfortable idea for both of them. Even if one or both of them think Jason is a very bad man, but it’s weird for them to skip to judging him that way without dealing with him being a version of themselves who’s cut out of the family, which has to be a scary idea. Even when they reach out to him it’s curiously impersonal, which of course makes me think they’re acting impersonal on purpose because they’re afraid of having to deal with their own feelings in there.
Jason is scary, imo, because the family failed him, and that shows the family can fail, period. Jason's the son Bruce not only didn't save from crime (which whatever Jason says now really wasn't the main priority), not only didn't save from death, but didn't save from despair and abandonment. He's a constant rebuke to Bruce's idea of himself as father--a role he doesn't really feel good at anyway. He’s never been good at handling delicate emotional situations like this, but with this kid he can’t rely on Dick or Tim to run interference for him.
That same insecurity should be reflected for the other two as well. Jason is proof that Bruce can fail-maybe both as a hero and as a father. Not in terms of it being entirely Bruce's fault Jason died (in their eyes), but because Jason's all the things the family doesn't want to face, all those feelings they have to keep to themselves or not think about to commit to things now. Which is often the job of a ghost, actually, and in many ways, isn't that what Jason still is? A loud, angry ghost back from the grave flinging accusations at the family who lived? Or at least, I feel like this is what he should be. Just think of all the guilt and dread he *should* be inspiring in all these people who left him for dead and moved on, didn't notice when he crawled out of a grave and have never done anything to welcome him back. It’s not like both of them don’t on some level probably fear they could be out of the family too. (They’ve lost family already.)
Jason practically screams all that every time he sees any of them and for some reason they don’t listen. And it’s not like they tried for years and finally had to give up. Where do you even begin with what they all should talk about? I don’t think there’s a proper etiquette for reintegrating the family member who died while your feelings were a little conflicted anyway and then mourning him was painful and when you found out he was alive you…I don’t even know what you do. Was there even a story that dealt with it, exactly? Like when recently Jason talks about Bruce wanting him to be Dick…does Dick think that’s true? Does he want to assure Jason that’s not true? Does he think Jason’s wrong because of his previous insecurity? It plays like he just doesn’t even hear it.
All the family had positive feelings about Jason--Bruce did want him as a son, Dick did, it seems, attempt to have a relationship with him, Tim did respect him. But I feel like now all he would bring up was all the awful feelings they don't want to think about: Bruce's blaming Jason for his own death, Dick's resenting him for the way he had a part in hurting him, Tim's insecurity about his own place. The way his death calls into question the whole idea. It’s like all that stuff disappeared when Jason came back.
*This* is the kind of thing I think resurrected family would bring up in the survivors. Yet sometimes it's like Jason is the only person who remembers he's supposed to be family. I'm not really sure how Bruce/Jason interactions are usually handled now, which is weird because that would be a huge thing for Bruce. While Dick and Tim almost seem to have closed ranks with each other to view Jason as Bruce's problem who isn't really a Robin (like them) and isn't really a brother (like them).
Which is just so creepy because it's actually believable, as much as I hate to say it. I mean, it's recognizable human behavior and a possible family dynamic given how well those two click with and understand each other and prove themselves. I love the two of them, but I can almost see them through Jason’s eyes as two goody-two shoes closing ranks against him. (Jan Brady Robin indeed!)
I guess I feel like when people start talking about what Jason should be-anti-hero, villain, hero, in the Batbooks, out of the Batbooks-I feel like without working out who he actually is based on the family that created him and gave him his greatest meaning it’s going to be hard to tell.