Greetings comic lovers and welcome back to casually comics the channel where we chat
all things comics from reviews of comics new and old to history to anecdotes to really
wherever our whims take us. I asked you if you wanted more Jason Todd and the people
spoke and they said Jasoooon. So last time we talked about the lead up to his rather
brutal death by rigged vote so it seemed fitting that we talk about how he came back which
is yet another convoluted tale of shock value, retcons and hilarious in canon explanations
for resurrection.
If you have accepted the revolving door that is comic book death hit that like button.
So let’s set the mood the year is 1988 Jason is dead killed most likely because one man
set his phone to dial the death number on repeat all day when he was at work because
the world wasn’t ready for a misintroduced or rather re-introduced as he had had two
origins 2nd Robin. Two things one if you missed our death video check it out so the context
of all this makes sense as always we’ll do some cliffnotes but it’s not the same
you know the drill card and link. Also in that comment section someone brought up a
good point that the vote was limited by location and access so it never got the reach it should
have for such a big decision yet another reason it was inaccurate. And that’s well true
and a great point thanks for the comment.
So after radio silence for eleven months after his death Jason was at least able to be mentioned
again but it wouldn’t happen often. It feels more often today cause you can get all the
issues collected together but if you were reading concurrently months or even years
would pass with no mention of Jason. Yet he hung over Batman’s world like a grim spectre
in a way by not talking about him for those who knew of his fate it made his presence
even bigger. When he was brought up it was a source of great sadness and angst for Bruce
a testament to his failure as a mentor and father. On that cheery note let’s talk about
how he came back. And for that we need to talk about Batman Hush which now has an animated
adaptation that massively changes the ending cause….cause they could it’s polarizing
too it’s not a meh kinda change.
But that is a topic for another day Batman hush ran from December 2002 – September
2003 and spanned Batman 608 to 619. Though it would prove to be one of those occurrences
that stood out enough to warrant separation and publication as a trade which is how most
know it now. This would be the first reappearance of Jason, and then it wouldn’t be and then
it would be again. Let me explain. Throughout all of Batman Hush Bruce is tormented by a
villain who is always a step ahead and knows things that only someone close to him could
it’s a tale that sees him confront his entire a list or at least well known Rogues gallery
and was all building to the reveal just who is Hush. A villain wearing bandages over their
face for the majority of the arc.
Near the arcs climax Tim Drake the third robin is grabbed issue 10 to be precise and Batman’s
oh no not again angst flare’s up once more and when he confronts who he thinks is Hush
and the bandages come off the big reveal is that underneath is Jason Todd dun dun dunnn
he’s back and he’s got a sexy white hair streak. Mileage will 100% vary on how you
feel about that hair streak I’m all for it, it’s a look!
Here’s where history gets murky this would by the arcs conclusion be revealed to be clayface
pretending to be jason which was also used to explain why jason looked so much older
given he was so young when he dies cause aging would not be a factor given the canonical
reason for his “true” resurrection that would be given later on. Why this change was
made is the murky factor some believe it was because this twist was guessed before it happened
by people on forums and the like and so it was a nuh uh you’re wrong take
that surprise clayface.
While others think it was because this initial Jason reveal was for shock value kind of a
what can we do that will be genuinely surprising who’s a character people wouldn’t expect
off the top of their head Jason had been dead for 15 years at that point and many believed
he would be a permanent death. There was no reason for him to come back or so it seemed
as there was a new Robin. And yet at the end of Hush Jason’s grave was empty and for
the first time in 15 years he was an open topic of conversation once more. However once
the response was seen to the return some believe that DC then wanted to do it properly and
make it permanent and not just a one off kind of thing where he would re-vanish. And so
Jason would return again this time as an anti hero the Red Hood in the arc that would come
to be known as Under the Hood or under the red hood if you watched the movie where jensen
ackles from supernatural voiced jason which led to tons of fan casts about him playing
jason in a live action film. Too late now...harsh but true.
Now we would get an explanation for where Jason had been and it would now be stated
that at the start of the fight in Hush after Tim had first been nabbed that was Jason but
after he swapped out with clayface so we can have our cake and eat it
to. This meant that the attitude and anger established by Jason in that story would carry
over as would the hair streak. If people thought Jason was angry before he died man post death
Jason was a lot of a lot. He hated tim calling him the pretender was furious at Bruce for
not killing the joker to avenge him and was more than a little unstable thanks to how
he was resurrected and some time in the lazarus pits. This arc ran from November 2004 – February
2006 and was compiled in issues Batman #635-641, 645-650, Annual #25 There
was a hiatus in there This story would reestablish Jason in the
dc universe permanently though ultimately his sanity would return but he would remain
a hard anti hero until the new 52 and now post Rebirth he’s much more of a black sheep.
His kill count is no longer 83 last time I checked cause well when he first came back
he was killing people with guns just an extra f u to bruce. Initially him being alive was
even more heartbreakng seeing Bruce and the batfamily have to fight one of their own someone
so broken especially for Bruce it was quite chilling and the fact that he wasn’t quite
sure what to do with Jason played well with how he was bounced around at first. Now they
still don’t know quite what to do with Jason and it plays less well now that there is distance
between his resurrection and even more since his death.
But put that in a box for now what’s the canon reason for why he came back well for
that we need to look at yet another crises. While Jason indirectly owes his death to crisis
on infinite earths which caused DC to reboot his origin to one that was at the time very
unpopular. He owes his resurrection directly to infinite crisis.
1985’s crises on infinite earths was about eliminating the multiverse and folding everything
into one universe and hopefully cleaning up all contradictory histories it did not do
that...at all. Infinite crisis would begin the reestablishment of the multiverse and
re-introduce multiple characters and backstories and create new backstories and also retcon
soe random things out of existence. And lead to an amazing year long event but for now
we need to talk about Superboy Prime a ey player in both the first crisis and this one.
Initially a positive and heroic character infinite crises would see him driven mad and
turned into a villain. Him and a few of the other survivors of crisis on infinite earths
from realities outside of the mainverse were exiting chilling in a crytal palace asteroid
subspace wibbley wobbley timey wimey zone. In there you could play back events from other
realities that no longer existed and superboy prime would play back his reality over and
over on his earth he had been a normal kid named clark kent until haley’s comet flew
over head and activated latent powers. Making him a powered hero but before he could do
anything crises happened. This strikes him as really unfair the more he thinks about
it so in a fit of rage he pounds on the walls of their crystal prison which are in actuality
the walls of reality.
He punches through the walls of reality and this causes ripples and changes in the mainverse
one of those was you guessed it Jason Todd coming back to life he crawls right out of
his grave with his wounds from the joker still oozing for maximum gross which also helped
fuel the whole beaten to death with a crowbar again that happened but then the building
blew up. Really he should have been a puddle but that would have been too much of a panel
for anyone to handle.
He would then eventually find himself in the lazarus pits to help him heal and restore
his mind, that happened before the pit bit was actually an accident. Talia pushed him
in it was a whole thing. He was kidnapped off the streets by talia and ra’s he was
living there cause well he had been institutionalised but escaped. I’d be bitter too. A bitter
betty. Also in a bit of history we don’t talk about and by we I mean other people I
talk about it constantly and I’m about to again Talia slept with him after years of
getting to know him in a mother son capacity well as much as talia can. She tells him about
tim drake she fuels his rage lets him escape so he can go around the world like bruce learning
to kill. Then she tells him to punish batman to punish him for her Batman had taken out
ra’s at the time she tells him to cross the line and then sleeps with him. Blargh,
unclean . It’s a good thing this isn;t really canon anymore cause can you imagine how much
jason would throw this in Damien’s face. You know he would even though he was the one
taken advantage of. This would happen in Red Hood Lost days in 2010 which would also firmly
establish Jason knowing hush and the clayface swap and why jason takes on the name red hood.
Nowadays Jason’t death and resurrection are just part of canon meaning everytime we
do a giant company wide reboot which has happened twice since he was resurrected him dying and
coming back i just part of it since the first time no more wall punching it’s just talia
throwing him in the pit. Also not sleeping with him hooray.
So that was the return of Jason Todd do you think it was more or less of a mess than his
death? Are you todded out cause I got more did you think this was a game? Thanks so much
for watching causally comics please do all of the youtube things like share, subscribe
COMMENT and hit that bell notification so that you never miss a vid. I;m Sasha andI’ll
see you again soon buh bye.