Greetings Comic book 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 and today
we’re untangling a tangled web of fandom history that many of aware of the result of
but not exactly how we got there.
I’m Sasha and today we’re going to be tackling the death of Jason Todd by asking
the question just why did fans hate him in the first place cause make no mistake they
really did.
If you’re always down to untangle some history hit that like button.
Ok now let’s get back to basics and unpack this.
Jason Todd is the second Robin and is known to most as the Robin with the bad boy attitude
but he didn’t start off that way.
No some wouldn’t even recognize the first Jason who was ginger, red haired Jason it
was a thing that’s why he had a red hair for a bit in Morrisson’s run but we’ll
get to that a bit later first let’s go even further back to why they needed to create
Jason in the first place.
Something unique was happening a rarity in comics even today a character was growing
up Dick Grayson the first robin was getting to a point where he was breaking out into
his own character and fans were liking it.
They were down for solo adventures with Robin a sidekick especially after the much celebrated
New Teen Titans run began a run that would see Dick transformed into Nighhtwing.
It was becoming clear he couldn’t be Robin forever and not just because those shorts
were gettin’ mighty short.
But at the same time the feeling was that Batman needed a Robin since his inception
essentially there had been a dynamic duo someone for Batman to bounce off of and care for.
So it was though that a new Robin was needed enter Jason Todd for the first time in 1983
in Batman #357 and then fully with a proper introduction in Detective Comics#525 and thusly
we are introduced to the first factor that would come into play in only 2 years.
You were supposed to be reading both of these books and they were written that way plot
points would start in one and pick up in another.
So if you weren’t reading both things could feel pretty abrupt.
So Jason Todd was a member of a circus family the flyting todds is this sounding familiar
yeah initially Jason was pretty much a clone of dick except for having red hair which he
would dye when he wanted to become robin so that villains wouldn't think there were two
robins.
Later Grant Morrison would retcon this to Bruce forcing Jason to dye his hair whyyyy
cause he could so now it’s creepy and like Bruce has fetish thanks unnecessary retcon
was necessary because Jason’s going to end up
with hair as black as ebony anyway.
Now at first reception to Jason was luke warm with a side of step off of Dick Grayson’s
turf, but the transition was eased thanks to panels of Dick giving Jason his blessing
after Bruce expressed concern over jason taking Robin’d identity.
Jason even tries out a new costume and name to be respectful before Dick tells him it’s
ok he has his own life now and Jason can be Robin.
This admittedly was a bit at odds with what was going on with Bruce and Dick which had
been a full blown disintegration of their relationship which was suddenly dropped in
lieu of this.
So ok fine none of this sounds like we need to have vote on whether to kill Jason or not
worthy and it wasn’t Jason owes much of his death to 1985’s Crisis On Infinite Earths.
This was a giant company wide event that was meant to clean up DC’s multiverse and condense
it all into one universe something that has obviously since been retconnned now there
are layered multiverses.
However at the time the different earths were housing different eras of characters different
companies properties that dc had acquired over the years and they just felt it was confusing
so this was a way to fold everything in but like most giant reboots it still ended up
confusing.
Since reception to Jason had been luke warm dc figured now’s the time to fix that so
Jason was introduced again with a brand new origin in Batman 408 and 409 in 1987 and this
is the version most people remember already dark haired Jason is caught trying to steal
the wheels off the batmobile and Batman is impressed by his spunk one adventure later
he asks Jason to be Robin.
Now some of you may be saying that sounds way more interesting he’s not a dick clone
anymore what’s the problem.
Mostly execution.
While the first Jason had been embraced by Dick this one was not in fact Dick is benched
fired really from being robin cause he gets shot by the joker at the issues start and
bruce is all no it’s too dangerous and Dick’s like I’m going to move a full city over
to it’s an hours drive you’ll be sorry and bruce is like yeah do your thing I can’t
stop you but by the end of the two part story he’s just told some kid he can be Robin
and Robin was a special name for Dick not just some random name he picked.
Dick was very much a favourite character and he was shown to be hurt by all of this even
confronting bruce as nightwing and saying bruce had forced his hand that he had no choice
but to leave and that Bruce had taken his home away.
None of this made people like Jason Dennis o’neil who took over as Batman editor in
1986 had receipts or rather quotes "[The fans] did hate him.
I don't know if it was fan craziness—maybe they saw him as usurping Dick Grayson's position.
Some of the mail response indicated that this was at least on some people's minds."
Although really after you have dick get upset about not being robin and replace him the
next issue what were fans supposed to think.
Confusion also set in because Crisis didn’t mean that comics stopped no it took awhile
for new Jason to overtake circus Jason so sometimes you could be reading a story and
be like is this dyed hair Jason or street kid Jason.
And post crisis Jason tended to be angrier than the pre crisis one who was such a carbon
copy of dick that you could go a whole issue and not realize it was him until someone would
call his name.
A great example of this si the superman story for the man who has everything.a story from
1985 which is a really great one but I had no idea it wasn’t Dick at first but I think
that’s what they wanted from pre crisis Jason.
So it’s quite the contrast to go from that to a Jason who tries to beat two face to death.
He could be quite edgy for the time and there are some controversial Jason stories out there
that left readers wondering if he had gone too far.
It plays better now in retrospect.
I’ll explain why later.
So this meant Dc was sitting there publishing batman books with a robin nobody seemed to
like then a perfect storm hit.
Dennis O’Neil was looking to find a way to get more people involved in comics and
he came up with the idea of audience engagement there should be a vote of some kind where
readers determined the outcome.
He pitched this to dc comics president Jenette Kahn who liked the idea but was like well
it can’t be a lame vote so like no voting about what Bruce should have for breakfast
that day no it had to have stakes, teeth, a crowbar.
So they settled on a death quote time one’ll stated "The logical candidate was Jason because
we had reason to believe that he wasn't that popular anyway.
It was a big enough stunt that we couldn't do it with a minor character."
Now many focus on the vote aspect about whether or not this a good form of audience engagement
but we’ll leave that aside to focus on Jason.
And so you the reader got to call in to determine whether Jason would live or die it would come
out later that the margin between the votes was was 72 votes a margin of 5,343 votes to
5,271 so in total there were only 10,614 that determined Jason’s fate.
On top of that it came out later that it was highly likely many of the votes had been cast
by one person who had set their phone to redial "I heard it was one guy, who programmed his
computer to dial the thumbs down number every ninety seconds for eight hours, who made the
difference" so hundreds of votes from one single Todd hater.
Yeesh he really wasn’t that bad.
Dc was serious two in later published editions of the arc known as a death in the family
the panels where he lived were included.
They weren’t always planning on killing him they held true to the vote so props for
integrity?
Here’s the thing there was backlash to killing Jason from outside the industry and within
people tend to not like kids being killed and Robin was a symbol of hope even if he
was Jason for some this was the most horrifying thing they had ever seen.
Funnily enough one of the detractors would be frank miller one of the authors who would
usher in the dark age he stated To me the whole killing of Robin thing was probably
the ugliest thing I've seen in comics, and the most cynical."
But O’neill stood by it stating "It would be a really sleazy stunt to bring him back."
and yeah really they had to when you think about it cause if they’d backed down it
would have made it seem even more tacky, as it stood they turned Jason's death into a
source of pathos for Bruce for years and kind of buried it for awhile just not mentioning
Jason.
They also used it as a lesson for how to introduce the third robin when they ultimately did that
being Tim drake one way was to start him off trying to form a relationship with dick grayson
cause if dick doesn’t like you just pack your bags it’s not happening.
The funny thing is a Jason is a decently popular character now and some have a hard time understanding
the hate in the first place and his death by vote is deemed by many to be unfair and
was a large part of the push to bring him back and give him his due.
Whether he’s gotten it is a question for another day.
So remember how I said post crisis Jason plays better in retrospect here’s why for newer
readers dick was established as nightwing those transition pains were done and the knowledge
was there Jason was the second robin it was fact not a usurpation and distance allowed
for the contrasts in the two robin’s to be viewed as a positive why have a clone of
a character when you could tell a new story a different one.
That couple with the abruptness of his death all of it made Jason interesting and made
people see what could have been the wasted potential, Hindsight is 20 20 after all.
All and all Jason's time as robin was brief just 5 years barely a blip and yet he left
an impact that echoed until his eventual resurrection.
Most know that he died and that it was brutal and that it was decided by vote but many weren’t
sure how it came to that hopefully this helped you understand why there was a vote in the
first place.
If you want to explore more of one or both of Jason's origins or the specifics issues
of his death of resurrection let me know maybe we should vote on it.
Depending on what wins I’ll beat my coffee of a death in the family with a crowbar then
blow it up no I won’t.
Just leave a comment and thanks as always for watching do all of the youtube things
like subscribe hit that bell so you never miss a vid.
This was a lot of fun I’m sasha this was causally comics and i’ll see you again soon.