So where does the Batfam's Jan Brady go from here....

[benicio127]

Since Morrison decided to make Jason Todd the literal red-headed step-child of the Batfamily (.....As much fun as my friends and I have had making fun of Jason for being a closet ginger, this was really ridiculous), where does he go now?

Jason came back and was written brilliantly by Judd Winick in Under the Hood. Then came that.... Nightwing Story We Do Not Speak Of, Geoff Johns' Jason (which I personally think was awesome) in Titans, Countdown and Fabian Nicieza's Jason (which I also think was really good).

Then came Battle for the Cowl. .............................Yeah. And now while I don't think Morrison did as bad a job with Jason as Tony Daniel or Bruce Jones, the red-head thing is a head-scratcher. (pun intended). I still don't understand why Morrison did it. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

But what was very interesting is that Morrison made Jason very meta. It' almost like he's also telling the reader: It was too late for him. He was killed by a phone poll. So it was ...too late for him in a way. 










Oh good dear, Tan's art is..... Not Good in that last panel. EW.

So anyways. While I like Jason's Red Hood (Winick) the best, he's really made it his own and plus it has that irony, he's only worn borrowed uniforms. And apart from Winick, Johns and Nicieza (IMO), he's been written fairly inconsistently. DC can't seem to figure out if they want him to reform (Countdown), be an anti-hero/vigilante who kills criminals, or become a cliched villain (BftC).

So any ideas on where he goes from here? (After he gets out of jail). I'd love to see DC put Winick back on him and do a mini finding out who he is, but this is just really wishful thinking, I know.

What do you want to see him do?
Reform and join the Batfamily again?
Reform, but still be at odds with the Batfamily?
Stay an anti-hero?
Officially become a villain?
....Other?

Comments

[ladymirth]

I want him to:

-join the Outsiders
-have a reluctant team-up with Tim in Red Robin to find Bruce/ take down Ra's, during the course of which they realize how much they have in common and end up having sex being BFFs.
-get his own title written by either Winnick or Nicieza (didn't like Johns).
-LOSE THE VIBRATOR-HEAD AND CAPE and go back to looking cool in a leather jacket, pimp cane and domino mask. Because that was awesome.

[perletwo]

Outsiders would be an excellent use for Jason. Or placement on a new Suicide Squad, if ever there was one. Someone with the skillset and most of the ethics of a Robin would be extremely useful on their kind of missions.

Absolutely on the fashion statement. The pimp cane could be a trick cane, even, with hidden weapons and suchlike.

[sistermagpie]

How weird is Gordon's reaction to Damian? He's been shot 5 times close range and Gordon's asking if he's "a tough kid, right?" One would think Gordon would be looking at that and saying: And this is exactly my nightmare of what's happened to every Robin I've ever met and there's far more than 4 of them.

I can't begin to say what Jason will do next. I feel like so many of his interactions with the batfamily are so strange. And I can't really blame the writers all the time, because it's like...well, how does a family react when the kid whose relationship with all the members isn't quite solidified who died comes back to life and starts shooting at them a while ago but now they've kind of gotten used to him? And the answer is: wtf knows?

[darkblade]

I'm sure there is support group for people with ressurected loved ones in Gotham.

[ladymirth]

I love your Black Cat Jason icon!

[benicio127]

Thanks! It's the perfect Jason icon, really.

[darkblade]

Rorasach's Journal. December 7th, 2009.

Jason Todd. The second Robin. Taken away by police screaming. Panels vaugely resembled mine. One fedora and sentence fragments away from stealing my act.

[midnightvoyager]

DAMNIT. You beat me by WHILE I WAS TYPING!

*shakes fist!*

[midnightvoyager]

...Jason, stop Rorschaching in those last panels. Your hair DOES NOT HELP.

[saralakali]

I've said it before: If this was all they were going to do with Jason, then why did they bother?

There's something appealing about a bad boy trying to make good, sometimes failing, but picking himself up and trying again. He could have been one of those characters that's written with the right kind of realism. Unfortunately, DC seems to be too stupid and/or shallow to get that.

[toasty_fresh]

THIS. THISTHISTHISTHIS. Honestly, I would have loved to see this kind of trajectory for him-- instead of these random 3- or 4-issue stretches where he acts like a totally different person every time and then totally fades back into obscurity. I mean, I don't really see the point . . .

[kingrockwell]

Did Morrison really consider what kind of can of worms he's opened here with Jason's identity revealed to the police and maybe the public? Not only the fact that he's supposed to be dead, but the sort of connections that can be drawn from his identity?

Consider the possibilities here, either Hush as Wayne is about to get a visit from the GCPD to let him know that his long-dead adopted son i not only alive but also incarcerated for murder and vigilantism? Can you imagine the public spectacle?

On the other hand, would Jason keep his identity secret to protect Bruce and Dick?

[perletwo]

...you know, I think he just might keep his identity secret? It's counterintuitive, but he's had "the mission is what matters" drilled into him by Bruce so thoroughly after all. commence punning on "drilled into him" in 3...2...1....

[perletwo]

At least in prison he'll have a chance to get over the acne. Poor Jason.

Really, the Red Hood schtick just does not work for him. I think he needs a new identity, one divorced from Bat-history, not unlike what Dick did when he became Nightwing. I'd like to think such a thing could be accomplished by his becoming embroiled in something bigger than the batclan, something Crisis or Blackest Night level, but they kinda blew their chance at that in Countdown.

[darkblade]

Which is a shame because his development was the only half decent thing in the series. Only to be ignored while most of the bad parts remain present and untouched.

[cuntfucius]

Have people succeed in reaching out to him. No, I'm serious. MAKE LOVE HEAL JASON. Tim, Donna, Dick, RevivedBruce, I don't care who does it. I hate the determinism concerning Jason's trauma. "HE'S BROKEN AND DAMAGED AND WILL BE FOREVER, AND HE KNOWS IT, AND HE IS SCREWED UP AND IS TOTALLY AWARE OF IT AND MUST SUFFER WITH IT BECAUSE HE IS EVIL AND NO ONE WILL EVER TRULY LOVE HIM IN ANY WAY OTHER THAN THEYD LOVE A FAILED SON OR MONSTER THAT THEY PITY"

[toasty_fresh]

This as well-- and I would love for it to be Dick, but I fully admit to that being because of my fondness for Dick/Jason, lol.

[mullon]

I wonder how Jason is going to do in Arkham.

Also, that "I can't feel anything" line? Lame.

[benicio127]

He's not going to Arkham. Probably Blackgate, where he was before.

[jlroberson]

Why a redhead? Because the original, circus-acrobat Jason had at least orange hair in his first appearances. He dyed it black later.

[thehefner]

At the risk of sounding obstinate... yes, that was Pre-Crisis. We're still in Post-Crisis, so unless Batman was making Jason dye his hair black before they even met when Jason was stealing the tired off the Batmobile, Morrison it seems like typical Morrison wank for the Silver Age without any regard to continuity.

In all seriousness, how exactly is this supposed to work now? Does it actually work and am I missing something? Or do we just accept what Morrison's doing because it's Morrison?

[aeolos_sakya]

Oh, God, please
When will they give a good use to Jason?!
Geez, there was lot of potential in this story (not counting the red hair thing), and they didn't use it. What's wrong with you people at DC?
Hell, there are lot of things they could use.

And answering the question, I would like seeing him rejoining the batfamily (I was expecting he'd use the Red Robin identity with some changes -I like the costume, but I think it's not Jason's style, but I would've been ok if he use that costume again)

[foxhack]

And nobody comments on Jason saying, outloud, GRAYSON, in front of all those cops and Gordon?

[lamashtar]

I was wondering about that...(and the whole scandal of a ward of the richest man in Gotham being a costumed murderer)...and I think the darkness in the background, then the growing lights, culminated in watery circles in the right-most panel, are intended to show the cops speeding to the scene, but not close enough yet to hear Jason out Dick.

[kd_the_movie]

*once again for millionth time forwards pitch on what to do with Jason Todd*

I actually posted this on the 4th Letter comic blog a year ago and mostly of it relied on the post infinite crisis statuses of the characters, but neway

My idea was to have Ryan Choi (sans the title of atom, acting as brains and straight man of the group) and Jason (de facto leader, but also hot head) form a “for hire” agency (jason cuz he doesn’t like straight heroism or straight villainy and Ryan because he can’t give up the excitment of the life, but he’d be teaching on the side) and would just run into Cass (sans costume and agile,stealth fighter of the group) who would subsequently join/move in with the group.

They’d eventually find an amnesiac Jean Paul Valley who now has some of his Azrael abilities in his Jean Paul personality, but now has a Naruto/Nine Tailed fox think going on with the Azrael persona . He would ask the repressed Azrael personality (whose abilities and fighting prowess outweigh JP’s)to take over for him in times of dire emergency.

And to round out the cast, Mercy Graves (getaway driver, exceptional fighter and marksman) would wander in to the group and act as a love interest to Jason, but her motivations would always be questionable because of her loyalities to Luthor.

The book would explore the mercenary/criminal world/grey area of the DCU and try some new takes on unused characters (for example, wouldn’t it be cool if Flash villain/teleporter Peek-A-Boo were a courier for mercs? She never really was a “true villain” anyway). I

[likeaminx]

I like those first three panels. They ping my secret red-head love.

[shadowvalkyrie]

Well, my preference would be:

- first of all, a return to the mostly-sanity he used to have when he returned: sad and angry and feeling betrayed, but otherwise reasonable and functional, not the raving lunatic we see here

- a return to being pretty (yes, I'm shallow); currently, I can't even look at my favourite Robin without wanting to punch people, and that's just not right! Ideally, he'd also get the high-boots-and-leather-jacket outfit back (+domino mask, not necessarily that helmet), because that was sexy and in character

- as to his relationship towards the rest of the family, I'm open to various possibilities, as long as he isn't the villain-destined-from-birth half the DC writers seem to believe him because they didn't read the back issues about his time as Robin. (And also, because they appear to have a fucked up social agenda). Whether he keeps hunting criminals on his own terms, in a moral grey area, add odds with the family, or reunites with them, it all can make for interesting developments! The more reasonable his point of view that vigilantes need to kill sometimes comes off as, the more challenging his very existence is to the other heroes. And I, for one, take a good old-fashioned moral dilemma over some pretty-but-lacking-in-mental-and-emotional-nutrition multiverse-spanning mega-crossover-event thing nobody really understands, any day.

In my perfect world, Jason remains the anti-hero he used to be for a while yet, but slowly starts reconnecting with the family. We saw steps in that direction for a while (his fighting back-to-back with Batman, reaching out to Tim, etc) and I loved that. Ideally, he reconnects with Bruce once he's back. (Because Batman still loves his dead Robin, no matter what anyone says, awww!) (Or better yet, once this whole mess has been retconned. Chant it with me: RETCON! R-E-T-C-O-N! RETCON!) But I'm really not picky who gets him home, as long as it happens and involves some real, believable character development on both sides. (Or, hell, make it a ridiculously sappy Christmas special, if that's the only way!)

In short: send this red-headed, crazy abomination from Earth 7634245 back to where it came from and let us have our real Jay back!

[benicio127]

The red-head thing is mostly bothersome because it makes absolutely no sense, since post-crisis Jason was found in Crime Alley with black hair already. It's not so much an ugly thing, tbh.

He doesn't look so bad in those first three panels.
He looks hot here?



But also Tan's art coupled with bad "camera" angles make him look even worse.
Then again.... there aren't that many badass male gingers, so I hope this is retconned away from existence.

[psychopathicus_rex]

At this point, I think it's best to either make him a straight-up villain or keep him in the grey area between villain and anti-hero. I mean, there is no way on Earth you're going to convincingly have him go back over to the good guys after the way he behaved in 'Battle for the Cowl' - not for a long, long time, anyway. If he hovered in 'is he REALLY evil, or just disturbed and misunderstood?' territory for long enough, a few years or so, I could maybe see him becoming a good guy again - but not right now. No way.

[404glitch]

Anything Jason can do as a villain has probably been done by either Prometheus, Talia/Nyssa/Ra's, or David Cain. His only real hook there is the guilt point that he was family, and that's not much since it can essentially be solved by a long talk and a hug.

Jason's future (imo) is on the light side of the fence, but that's many miles down the road. He needs to work on himself (along with that long talk and a hug) and get a couple of "good" writers behind him before anything sticks.

But hell, the whole thing could start with him, in jail, using his one/only phone call on Donna.

[benicio127]

But hell, the whole thing could start with him, in jail, using his one/only phone call on Donna.

That would be awesome.

I totally agree though that he needs to work on himself before the whole Love Heals All thing.

And I still say he deserves a back-up feature over freakin' Rose Wilson. WTF. Plus the fact that he's a way more popular/known/controversial character. Stupid hot angry pirate chick.

[galateus]

I just really, really want to see an animated adaptation of Jason Todd, because that can safely ignore/find a middle ground between all the inconsistencies and retcons and reboots. Maybe a straight-to-DVD movie with a short "A Death in the Family" opening [homages to Tim's fate in Batman Beyond wouldn't hurt either], and that leads straight into his resurrection.

[pyrotwilight]

I kinda want to see him join one of the Anti Titans groups.

The Terror Titans are a group of badish guys willing to kill but at their core are good people mostly, except Copperhead who just follows the team's lead but can't feel any emotions and might kill if left alone. Jason could join the team as ironically one of their more heroic members.

The Titans as led by Slade will be all about moral ambiguity between Slade and Tattooed Man. We could also thus have Slade as the Batman-ish leader with Jason as his Robin.

Finally one idea I like is seeing the Team Titans get remade somehow with their ultra violent Nightwing being Jason and having Redwing as his Robin. PLEASEEEEEE.

[darkknightjrk]

"I still don't understand why Morrison did it. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever."

The man has said that everything that has been in the Batman comics over the past 70 years has been in continuity in some way, shape, or form, so that means that Jason was the red-headed son of acrobats and the punk kid who tried to steal the hub-caps of the Batmobile. Makes sense to me.

[lyraeinne]

To me, Jason has always worked infinitely better as the token floating dead Robin + automatic angst button for Bruce than he did as a real, flesh and blood person that the other characters actually have to deal with. The fact that almost every writer since then has taken it upon themselves to completely reinvent his personality and motives in an attempt to force him work has done infinitely more damage. At this point, I really do think he would be better off dead again, or at the very least relegated permanently to the villain bin. And believe me, I say that as someone who actually is rather fond of the guy. But whatever place he had in the story to begin with is gone now, and buried under so many layers of non-nonsensical retcon that I'm just not sure there's anything else left now that would be worth fleshing out further.

And, really. There comes a point where the Batfamily is just too large, and Bruce really has too many kids as it is. I like Jason for what he is, but ultimately I like Dick, Tim, Steph, Cass, and Damian more, and I'd rather see the story stay focused on the viable characters we have than see much of it spent on yet another reinvention for Jason.

[magnetic_regina]

Pretty much until someone starts writing Jason half-decently in my mind he was attacked and impersonated just before Battle of the Cowl by Jason from Earth-2 or 1 or whatever. Pre-Crisis world. Who WAS the ginger son of a pair of acrobats. He freaked out from hearing Bruce's message in Battle of the Cowl because it reminded him that he wasn't the real Jason. Not the street kid. Buuuuut he's in denial still. Eventually the deception is discovered and real Jason is freed and he's disgusted that they believe that he was red-headed psychopath willing to shoot children and pretty much annouce their identities and the pits to a bunch of cops, so he just goes screw it and joins some anti-hero team and tries to forget that he was ever Robin or part of the Batfamily.

Hooray for run-on sentences!

[philippos42]

I want the Batfamily to ditch the supernatural elements is what I want.

[pepperspray101]

He needs to join up with Cass and go on a soul-searching journey with her (aka limbo from current batman comics), and when someone gives a damn and things aren't as Morrison-ed out here, have them pop up again, reformed and at peace with themselves and make the attempt to help out the Bat family.