Ever since the classic Batman story “Year One”, DC has used the “Year One” label to tell stories of the first year of many heroes’ lives especially those in the Bat-Family. Batgirl, Dick Grayson’s Robin, even the Joker in 2024 got their own “Year One” stories. When we take into account the fact that DC has rebooted its universe multiple times, these kinds of stories are crucial to fans understanding of the characters. DC has announced another “Year One” style story, from a team that has a lot of experience with these types of tales — Jeff Lemire and Dustin Nguyen. The writer/artist team is responsible for the 2022 miniseries Robin and Batman, giving a new look at the early years of Batman and Dick Grayson’s early career. Their newest subject is the most controversial Robin — Jason Todd. DC released this solicitation for the upcoming three-issue miniseries Robin and Batman: Jason Todd —
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“Batman has a new Robin, Jason Todd. Jason is a rash, impulsive and reckless kid with a troubled past, who Batman was certain could be molded into Gotham’s next protector. But can the Dark Knight save Jason Todd from the darkness within himself? And when a mysterious new villain, shrouded in white cloth and mystery, sets his sights on Jason, Batman realizes that even he has what it takes to train the anger and torment out of his new young ward.”
By now, everyone knows the story of Jason Todd, the unpopular Robin that was voted to die in “Death in the Family”. Todd eventually became a more popular after he was brought back in 2005-2006 story “Under the Red Hood”, and has since become an antihero, starring in multiple series. Todd’s history is one of retcons, and the character has never gotten an actual canon origin, so this upcoming story is one that is desperately needed.
Jason Todd Is the Literal Red-Headed Step-Child of the Batman Mythos
Jason Todd first appeared in 1983’s Batman #357. Dick Grayson had left Batman’s side despite still being Robin years before, and at the time was part of the cast of the most popular book at DC, New Teen Titans. Batman didn’t feel right without a Robin, so DC gave him a new one. Looking at the early days of Jason, it’s easy to see that DC was basically just copy/pasting everything from Dick Grayson onto Jason Todd. So, for example, Todd’s parents were also acrobats in his pre-Crisis origin — inspired by the Flying Graysons, no less — and the Todds were introduced to Bruce Wayne by Dick. The circus they worked for, the Sloan Circus, was being blackmailed by Killer Croc and the Todds volunteered to help Robin find the blackmailer. Unfortunately, they were killed, leaving their young son a orphan. Bruce Wayne stepped up, taking on Jason as his ward.
That’s basically just Dick Grayson’s origin in a lot of ways — a circus being blackmailed leads to the deaths of acrobats whose young son is taken in by Bruce Wayne and Alfred — and the early days of Jason’s time as Robin was basically just him as the same kind of Robin as Dick was before. Alan Moore even had Wonder Woman make a joke about Jason basically just being Dick in the classic story “For the Man Who Has Everything” from Superman Annual #11. The differences between the characters was completely negligible, at best, and that’s one of the reasons he never connected with fans. He was basically, “We have Dick Grayson at home.”
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After Crisis on Infinite Earths, Jason was given a new origin, the familiar stealing the wheels off the Batmobile one, and he was established as the mouthy Robin on a hair trigger. However, since then, DC has been rebooted several times, and every time more and more is added to the character’s background — for example, Morrison saying that Todd was a redhead that Batman forced to dye his hair and Tom Taylor making him a nu-metal fan in a Nightwing Annual — to the extent that most fans don’t really have much idea of what Jason was like as a Robin other than a violent and edgy sidekick.
This is why this new series is so important to Jason Todd. Jason Todd is an important part of the Batman mythos. In fact, when it comes right down to it, Jason is one of the most integral parts of Batman’s history, representing the Caped Crusader’s greatest failure. His death was a major turning point for Batman and his comics, and the fact that there are so many versions of his origin out there, and so many voices adding and subtracting from it, means that he’s needed this treatment for a very long time.
Seeing the Early Days of Jason Todd May Give Fans a New Appreciation for the Character
Jason Todd is a character whose best days are seemingly behind him. There was a time when a Jason Todd series of some sort — whether it be a solo Red Hood book or the team book Red Hood and the Outlaws — was always being printed, but those days are gone. Fans don’t really appreciate Jason Todd anymore, and that’s a problem for a character who is as important as he is. Jason deserves more respect for his time as Robin, and Robin and Batman: Jason Todd could be the series that gives it to him.
DC needs to do something to make Jason work as a character again, and maybe getting to see the young Jason as Robin alongside Batman will do that for fans. Jason Todd has long been the least loved Robin. Honestly, there’s good reason for that to an extent — DC themselves never seemed to have any respect for him as anything other than a Dick Grayson replacement — but it’s also unfair. Any character can be great with the right creative team, and Lemire and Nguyen are that kind of team. Hopefully, they can not only give all the Jason Todd fans what they want from the character, but they can also convince lots of other readers to actually take the character seriously.
What do you think about Jason Todd? Let us know in the comments!
