Did you "hate" the 2nd Robin (Jason Todd)?

[LEADER DESSLOK]

I could. Starlin made the character utterly unlikable as little as two or three issues before "A Death in the Family."

Collins and then Starlin made for an absolutely appalling run on Batman...

WAA-U-U-U-G-HHH!

TEN NIGHTS OF THE K.G.Beast...

VICTIMS...

A DEATH IN THE FAMILY...

APPALLING?!

Boy, do I disagree with this.

Also, the story where Jason starts to move over to the "dark side", where there was a question of whether he allowed a villain to fall to his death, that one really hit me and I didn't see how they were going to re-habilitate him after that--so I expected that he was either going to be killed off or they were going to come up with a story clearing him of murder, kinda like how they did with Batman's seemingly doing a "Cask of Amontillado" with The KGBeast. But even so, those stories were really intense when they first came out. I think Starlin's tenure is really under-rated by some Batfans...

[Reptisaurus!]

I like all the Robins about equally, barring the current version. I also like all the Batgirls about equally. And I like them all better than gloomy-guts Batman.

[adam_warlock_2099]

Whats the seperation point of pre and post Crisis Jason? I have the Batman issues of his first appearance and ending in Death In The Family, but don't have an idea of the distinction that yall put on the two different characters.

Minding now, I was reading Robin's series, Tim, at the time of discovering this story line ... I have no problems with Jason, but I am a fan of Tim as Robin between the three Robins.

If the post Crisis Robin is referring to his appearance in Hush, I can't say I care for him at all in that instance. The whole revenge on Batman for letting me die, is just more drama than I care for, and have little desire for vengeance comics to that degree. Batman avenging his parents through crime fighting is different from individual vengeance for a perceived wrong.

[MRP]

Whats the seperation point of pre and post Crisis Jason? I have the Batman issues of his first appearance and ending in Death In The Family, but don't have an idea of the distinction that yall put on the two different characters.

Minding now, I was reading Robin's series, Tim, at the time of discovering this story line ... I have no problems with Jason, but I am a fan of Tim as Robin between the three Robins.

If the post Crisis Robin is referring to his appearance in Hush, I can't say I care for him at all in that instance. The whole revenge on Batman for letting me die, is just more drama than I care for, and have little desire for vengeance comics to that degree. Batman avenging his parents through crime fighting is different from individual vengeance for a perceived wrong.

They redid Jason's origin in Batman #408 (I believe off the top of my head), and that is usually pointed to as the separation between the versions of Jason Todd (though that origin redo came out after the Legends mini-series).

-M

[MRP]

sorry double post

-M

[shaxper]

Whats the seperation point of pre and post Crisis Jason? I have the Batman issues of his first appearance and ending

There's definitely more than two versions of the character (I offer a crash-course about this here), but the most obvious and abrupt change occurs in Batman #408, in which Jason's back story is completely altered in the wake of the Post-Crisis reboot. A better written crash-course on the history of the Post-Crisis Jason Todd can be found in Batman #416.

[LEADER DESSLOK]

There's definitely more than two versions of the character (I offer a crash-course about this here), but the most obvious and abrupt change occurs in Batman #408, in which Jason's back story is completely altered in the wake of the Post-Crisis reboot. A better written crash-course on the history of the Post-Crisis Jason Todd can be found in Batman #416.

Thank you, your article cleared up some things for me. Now I see why I actually preferred the new origin for Jason: his original (Conway's), being a mirror image of Richard's, was terribly redundant to say nothing of improbable! I also remember liking Jason's more reckless persona because again, it was DIFFERENT from Dick Grayson's. I never saw this as "bratty" by any means!

However, I agree his allowing the rapist to die was a point of no return. It might have been interesting if Jason had become a vigilante\villain not unlike The Punisher. In fact, what ever happened to Wolfman and Perez' creation THE VIGILANTE? I could very easily see Jason taking on that identity--turning his "Red Hood" persona into a hero makes no sense to me...

By the way, was this rapist also the serial killer who appeared in VICTIMS? I remember the follow-up where Batman got it together and tracked him down, but is he the same villain that ran afoul of Jason?

[Buried Alien]

To be honest, I was unaware that the comics had replaced Robins until A DEATH IN THE FAMILY started getting mainstream media attention. I was in the middle of a four-year break from superhero comics at the time (interest stolen by anime for a few years), and I think I had left superhero comics just before Dick Grayson became Nightwing.

I found it quite interesting to backtrack how Jason Todd replaced Dick Grayson as Robin, and the path that led to Jason's demise. It got me into BATMAN comics, really. Up to that point, everything I knew about Batman, I knew from television.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[Slam_Bradley]

WAA-U-U-U-G-HHH!

TEN NIGHTS OF THE K.G.Beast...

VICTIMS...

A DEATH IN THE FAMILY...

APPALLING?!

Yep. Appalling.

[Deadman25]

Is Jason Todd supposed to be a better fighter as Red Hood compared to being Robin ?

[adam_warlock_2099]

They redid Jason's origin in Batman #408 (I believe off the top of my head), and that is usually pointed to as the separation between the versions of Jason Todd (though that origin redo came out after the Legends mini-series).

-M

There's definitely more than two versions of the character (I offer a crash-course about this here), but the most obvious and abrupt change occurs in Batman #408, in which Jason's back story is completely altered in the wake of the Post-Crisis reboot. A better written crash-course on the history of the Post-Crisis Jason Todd can be found in Batman #416.

Well the fact that I own #400, 403, then 408 to when I stopped reading Batman is probably why I didn't know that Jason Todd had been Robin that long. And that was discovered when I started reading in the 90s when Tim Drake was the current Robin. I have only one older Batman comic in the 300s. For some reason most of my old Batman comics are Detective.

[dupersuper]

Is Jason Todd supposed to be a better fighter as Red Hood compared to being Robin ?

Well, he's bigger now, and not wearing pixie boots...

[MRP]

Well, he's bigger now, and not wearing pixie boots...

Never discount how distracting pixie boots can be to an opponent. They are the second most distracting garment you can wear to a comic fight (the first being a chain mail bikini).

-M

[Gothos]

There's definitely more than two versions of the character (I offer a crash-course about this here), but the most obvious and abrupt change occurs in Batman #408, in which Jason's back story is completely altered in the wake of the Post-Crisis reboot. A better written crash-course on the history of the Post-Crisis Jason Todd can be found in Batman #416.

Excellent breakdown. I have most of these issues but I totally forgot that the Collins version of Jason was a reboot, one of many quickly (and often badly) conceived post-Crisis rethinks-- not that original Jason was any prize, but still--