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I love how it isn’t “Don’t kill him, Kara wouldn’t want that”. It is “Let’s save the multiverse, because Kara gave us a chance to. ”

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High school JayKara AU where Kara lands a little younger and Jason dies a little older.

Jaybin giving Kara double thumbs up a she beats the living daylights out of Powerboy. While someone else tries to tell Jason to get Kara to stop because Kara listens to him usually and Jason is all like, “Yeah, but he is abusive and shouldn’t hurt people if he cant take a punch or 15.”

Ooooo I like this idea! It goes on the list

[kezahex]

There's certainly Something about a guy who markets himself as Vengeance ™ and then proceeds to stop. People. From getting their own vengeance. From guys who the justice system has allowed to walk out

[kezahex]

The common assumption that the events of Under the Hood are "just" to get Bruce's attention has done irreparable damage to fandom's critical thinking skills.

No, Jason did not decapitate those lieutenants to get Bruce's attention. He DID blow up an empty building to mess with Bruce (Bruce evacuated the building first, but it WAS empty when it blew) and staged his own fake-death to traumatize him. (again)

I need you to understand that people's motives can be multifaceted and he said exactly what his motives were in very plain speech if you bother to actually read it.

"Who does Jason think he is to say who lives or dies?"

Who does BATMAN think he is to make those calls?

When he interfered with Joker's lawfully acquired sentence for execution (Joker: Devil's advocate)?

When he healed/saved Joker from dying in a Lazarus Pit and then restored the status quo by tossing him in the prison where Joker pointed out how many times Bruce had saved his life at that point, thus enabling his crimes (Legends of the Dark Knight #145)?

When he resuscitated Joker after Nightwing beat him to death (Joker: Last Laugh)?

When he prevented Jason from killing Joker? When he prevented Clownhunter/Bao Pham from killing Joker?

When he started going around interfering with the Lazarus Pits/possible locations for Lazarus Pits and causes Ra's al Ghul's death by preventing him access to them?

When he deliberately left KGBeast to die after he shot Dick?

What about all the maiming or maim-worthy bullshit that he and the other bats do to common criminals you think those medical debts aren't going to murder them just as surely if not slowly?

These aren't even the only examples of Bruce doing this and anyone is free to add more I just don't feel like going all the way through Bruce's list.

"Dick would have crashed out/killed himself if Bruce hadn't!"

So Bruce gets to decide that Dick has more of a right to live than the countless people that would be saved by letting Joker die? How is that not being an arbiter of who lives or dies?

Multiple people have tried to kill Joker and Bruce stopped them. Multiple people have argued that Bruce should have let him die or someone kill him. Bruce choosing to let someone live with the understanding that he will kill more people (because it's not a question of if, but when) is not playing god any less than Jason is when he personally does the killing, it just absolves him of direct culpability.

So, if Jason has some kind of arguable god complex about deciding who lives or dies? Well, frankly, some things you don't need to be related by blood to inherit.

[kezahex]

Okay actually you know what I'm gonna make my own post about this.

Jason's primary goal in UTRH was not for Bruce to kill the Joker, it was about Bruce choosing Jason's wellbeing over the Joker. I don't think Jason ever expected Bruce to actually headshot the Joker. He's not stupid - he knows Bruce doesn't like guns, and he knows Bruce doesn't kill.* But Jason needed to get closure of some kind, and he wanted his dad to prove that Jason still had some kind of meaning to him, hence why the other option was for Bruce to kill him. If he wasn't going to choose Jason, if Jason was no longer his son, Jason would rather die than live with that choice.

Is it selfish to ask his dad to kill him if he doesn't want the Joker dead? Sure. I guess. It is more of a direct ask for Bruce to kill someone so like. Make of that what you will. But is it selfish to ask Bruce to stand aside and literally do nothing while Jason deals with it? I don't think so, and I don't think it was an unprecedented ask!

*Because Bruce has attempted to kill before, including in Jason's presence, and allowed others to kill with his blessing

Detective Comics #570: The Joker brainwashes Selina to be evil again. Jason stops Bruce from killing him, and Bruce notably says "he took her from me" (aka something Jason famously says in UTRH)

Batman #425: José Garzonas sets a trap for Batman and Robin due to Jason's (intentional or unintentional) involvement in the death of his son, Felipe. Bruce indirectly but intentionally kills three people in this issue, and he tells Jason outright that fathers avenge their sons.

Batman #429: Bruce intentionally goes after the Joker with the intent to kill him, and only delays that until Joker loses his diplomatic immunity. He does not attempt to save him, only asks Clark to find the body.

Detective Comics #741: After the Joker kills Sarah Essen, Bruce tells Jim Gordon to take the shot and he won't stop him.

(These are just what I remember off the top of my head; I know there are more, I just don't remember issue numbers rn)

"Joker's Last Laugh #6," the people cry, "what about Joker's Last Laugh #6?"

In Joker's Last Laugh #6, Dick beats the Joker to death and Bruce resuscitates him. But that was not about Bruce's refusal to kill or let his allies kill - it was about protecting Dick. Dick, who rather famously does not handle having blood on his hands very well even when it's not actually his fault (see Nightwing #93 and the fallout from that for proof of how poorly Dick copes with his perceived guilt).

If it were anyone but Dick, I genuinely believe that Bruce would have left it. Helena was there. Dinah was around. If one of them had taken out the Joker, I think Bruce would have let it lie. Helena and Dinah are not Bruce's kids, and they both have killed before. It's not their first choice, but they have in fact killed and are willing to do so again. Bruce bringing back the Joker wasn't about keeping him alive, it was about protecting Dick's mental health (and he uh. kinda failed at that anyway. Good try though 👍)

So how on earth is UTRH an unreasonable ask? Jason says "let me kill him, or do it yourself, or kill me," and really, there's no reason Bruce should have stopped him. This is more direct and personal than either Bruce's attempt in 'tec #570 or the opening he gives Gordon in 'tec #741. This is Jason asking for Bruce to live up to the standard Bruce himself set in Batman #425. Jason doesn’t have Dick's problem with killing, he's killed several times and he's more than willing to do this. His first option, Jason killing the Joker, asks nothing of Bruce. Bruce literally had to do nothing in UTRH, and Jason would have counted that as a win. Probably. We'll never know for sure, because for whatever reason, Judd Winick decided that in this scenario, Bruce's best move was to throw a batarang through Jason's neck.

So no, UTRH is not Jason being a hypocrite who claims to want to protect people from the Joker but really just wants validation (I mean, he does want validation, and he does want the Joker dead to protect people, but that's not the point). UTRH is Jason asking Bruce for less than the bare minimum that Bruce established when Jason was Robin, and Bruce failing to allow even that. UTRH is Jason desperately screaming for Bruce to prove that he cares even a little bit about him, and Bruce trying to duck out at every opportunity. UTRH is about a kid, 17 or 18, maybe 19 at best, asking his dad to love him and getting a knife to the neck for his trouble.

No wonder Jason goes on a full villain arc after this - I would too.

[kezahex]

Okay but do you know what really gets me?

There's no one left in-universe who can or will talk about Jaybin as he really was.

Bruce is the founder of the Jaybin Slander Department;

Alfred is no better.

Dick wasn't around much, didn't know him that well.

If Barbara ever interacted with him in his original run, I haven't found it yet.

I mean, he had some interactions with the Teen Titans, but was he really close with any of them?

I suppose Gordon could, assuming he isn't in on the Jason-bashing. I haven't seen it but I could be missing something.

And, well, Jason... somehow, I don't think anyone's asking Jason what he was like as a kid, nor is he really a reliable source. Autobiographical memory is weird.

No one in-universe will ever really talk about this bright, friendly, eager kid, and it's a tragedy.

He was smart and clever and had so much compassion.

He wanted so badly to help people, and he found joy in his work as Robin.

He had a dramatic flair and he was kind of a nerd and he was really funny on occasion.

He was so deeply, fundamentally good, and the fact that somehow his legacy has been twisted into one of anger and recklessness is honestly a crime.

It makes me so desperately sad that there's not a single character who can even start to undo the lasting damage of a four-decade smear campaign against a kid who did nothing to deserve it.

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Kara canonically loves school and I love that nerd.

Kara goes to multiple colleges because she likes college. Kara loved Crucible academy. (She does struggle adjusting to american schools, but it is more shown as a cultural disconnect.)

Kara loves the arts (Pre-Crisis, Post-Crisis)

Kara loves science (New52, Rebirth and Pre-Crisis was very knowledgable about science)

Kara liked history (Post-Crisis, New52)

Kara played sports (New52, Rebirth)

[kezahex]

The cutest thing I have ever written that wasn't LOA-verse, where Jason Todd volunteers his birthday gala to be for kids from orphanages that the Martha Wayne Foundation helps with. Jaybin gets a fun birthday and makes a friend from Midvale.

[kezahex]

Immortal Jason and nearly immortal Kara

Definitely occurs in multiple fics!

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Jason Todd: The kid who made Batman laugh in Crime Alley

Never forget how fast they retconned Batman's reaction here to make it easier to victim blame Jason for his own death.

^ Batman (1940) #408

^ Batman (1940) #428

Jason was absolutely a little shit, yes. But it wasn't a knee-jerk 'I can put this kid in a cape!' It wasn't pity and sentimental lunacy that drew Bruce to Jason.

It was a brave kid fighting as best as he could--as hard as he had to--in order to get by. It was the scared kid, clearly still hurting from his mother's death, but not letting that destroy him. It was strength and spirit and will and hope and spite and salt.

And it was the way Jason made him laugh.

Besides the black hair and blue eyes that reminded Bruce of Dick, it was the familiar feeling of someone being able to make him feel joy again, even on his darkest of nights.

[kezahex]

Working through the to-do list, today we have chapter 2 of Provocateur, the Jaykara BDSM AU, where they have to go undercover for the JL at their usual kink club. Also, in this chapter, a lesson in shibari.

[kezahex]

A WCDC work, where Jason Todd is Neal Caffrey and almost gets outed when he has to babysit a de-aged Kara. For Birdwatchers 365 #223 -- Translate

[kezahex]

The Stephanie Brown Wars

It has come to my attention that not enough people know everything DC put Stephanie Brown and her fans through in the 2000s and 2010s, so here, as threatened, is the Saga. There have definitely been female characters who have been put through more horrific storylines, but what I think is really remarkable about Steph's story is how clearly it highlights the misogyny against real women, i.e. readers, that was completely mask-off in the comics industry at the time.

Please note that I am only going to be focusing on Steph's death in War Games, her erasure from continuity with the New 52, and the fallout from both of those events. If I dug into the sexist treatment she got from Batman and Tim prior to her tenure as Robin, we'd be here all day.

ANYWAY. It begins in 2004. In Robin #125, Tim's dad discovers that he is Robin, and threatens to out Batman unless his underage son quits this highly dangerous and illegal activity (fair).

In Robin #126, Steph sees Tim being kissed by his ex-girlfriend, Darla Aquista. Now in Tim's defense, Darla initiated the kiss and Tim tells her afterwards that he's seeing someone. On the other hand, the kiss lasts for four whole panels and five lines of dialogue from observers. Also, considering Tim originally ended his relationship with Darla by cheating on her with Steph, you can see why Steph might not be feeling super trusting here.

Upset, Steph makes herself a costume, breaks into the Batcave, and declares herself the new Robin:

Bruce is like "...You know what, yeah, okay." Alfred pulls him aside and immediately calls out what's going on here:

Bruce very pointedly does not answer Alfred's question, which is as good as a yes. And look: you can question Steph's decision to volunteer as Robin out of spite because she assumed her boyfriend was cheating on her without talking to him. And you can question her later actions that kick off War Games. But she's sixteen years old. Meanwhile Bruce, a grown-ass man who is also Batman, is playing mind games with a couple of high schoolers in order to...what? Destroy Tim's relationship with his only living parent and totally discard Steph when she's no longer useful, presumably.

Also please note Bruce accurately describing Steph's best qualities, which are also her fatal flaw. And remember that the quality he claims he's hiring for is also what he'll blame her firing on.

Time goes by. Bruce trains Steph, but he tells her she's on "probation" and that means 1) she doesn't learn any of the big secrets and 2) if she disobeys any order, no matter how small, she's fired, no second chances. For the record, none of the boys were ever on probation (Jason and Tim had long training periods but that's the opposite; they were protected until they were ready, not thrown into the field without full support), they all knew Bruce's identity, and they disobeyed his orders all the time. Tim did it on his very first mission.

Just...putting this here.

In Robin #128, Batman is fighting a villain while Steph waits in the Batplane. Fearing for Bruce's life, Steph disobeys his orders to stay in the plane and tries to rescue him, only to be taken hostage by the villain, who escapes. Bruce fires her, and tells her she's not allowed to be Spoiler anymore, either. In a particularly cruel move, he specifies that all the codes will be changed in the Batcave to keep her out, even though in the previous issue, Tim noted to Steph that Bruce didn't change anything to keep him out.

Just to make the point again: yes, Steph broke the rules. However, none of the boys before her, nor Damian after her, were ever penalized the way she was and for such a minor infraction. Disobeying orders and getting taken hostage are like the second and third most important Robin responsibilities, after puns.

Steph is devastated, and this is what leads to War Games, which was a crossover event across the entire Batman line that ran from October 2004 to January 2005. It began with Batman: The 12 Cent Adventure, in which a bunch of crime bosses all show up for a meeting that none of them called, get antsy, and start shooting. The ensuing deaths cause a gang war across Gotham. Eventually Steph confesses to Catwoman that she called the meeting. She was trying to play out a war game she'd found on the Batcomputer to show Batman he was wrong to fire her, but the meet went wrong. A guy named Matches Malone was to show up and become the new crime boss of Gotham, but he never turned up.

Of course, the reader and Selina know what Steph doesn't: Matches Malone is Batman. If Batman doesn't know about this meeting, he can't control the situation. But if Batman had treated Steph like a true Robin instead of putting her on "probation," Steph would have known he was Matches Malone, and none of this would have happened.

I'll say it a third time: Steph fucked up, yes. But Steph was sixteen. What was Bruce's excuse?

Anyway. While running around Gotham desperately trying to fix her mistake, Steph encounters Black Mask, who manages to knock her out. He then chains her up and tortures her with a power drill in order to get her to spill Batman's plans (which she does not do). Here's how this sixteen-year-old is drawn when she's being tortured (in Robin #131):

Thank god we can see her tits and her ass at the same time, that was really important to the narrative.

Here's how she's drawn the next time we see her, in Catwoman #35:

Gotta make this dying teenager look hot or what's the point, amirite?

Steph manages to fight her way free, but Black Mask gets the upper hand again after she refuses to kill him. He shoots her, then lets her go to send Batman a message. She makes it to Bruce, who takes her to Leslie Thompkins's clinic, where she dies:

THESE PANELS ARE IMPORTANT. (Batman #633.)

Side note: Bruce is with Tim when Leslie calls him to tell him Steph is actively dying, and consciously decides not to tell Tim and let him and Steph say goodbye.

Side note #2: Steph's death was always planned as part of War Games. Dylan Horrocks, who was writing Batgirl at the time, and Devin Grayson, who was writing Nightwing, both vocally opposed this but were overruled, which is why this aspect of the plot barely plays out in their books.

Anyway. What I want to talk about is the aftermath of Steph's death. Characters dying was commonplace back then (way more common than it is now, actually), and female characters was extremely commonplace - this was a time when the term "fridging" was becoming more commonplace but wasn't yet seen as something to avoid. But readers noted a couple of things about Steph's death in particular:

The art was really inappropriately sexual. Why was Steph's tortured body being drawn to titillate?

Steph didn't have a memorial case in the Batcave. Why was that? Jason Todd, the only other dead Robin, had a case. In fact, Jason retained his case even after he came back to life (his first appearance as Red Hood is in Batman #635, two months after Steph's death). Why didn't Steph get a case?

I used the word "readers" specifically up there because it wasn't just Steph fans. I remember hearing from a number of people at the time who were like "Yeah I didn't actually like Steph, I thought she was annoying. But what happened to her was fucked up."

And these readers started asking DC where Steph's case was. Social media wasn't really a thing yet, but they asked in fan letters, at conventions, on LiveJournal and blogs, on forums.

"She wasn't really Robin," DC said, over and over again (like when Dan DiDio said it at Wizard World LA in 2007).

"But Batman said she was Robin. Right there on the page."

"Well, she wasn't."

"Why not? What makes her different from the other Robins? What makes her different from Jason?"

"...no comment."

(Hint: IT WAS THE GIRL COOTIES.)

At another con, Bill Willingham, who was writing at the time, said he wanted to "take a gun to all those girls who kept asking about a memorial case for Spoiler." I'm paraphrasing because the source is some LiveJournal page buried deep in the bowels of the internet, but I'm confident in the "take a gun to those girls"* part of the phrase because it burned itself onto my brain at the time.

*It was of course not only girls and women, not that he cared.

To be very clear: this man thought it was appropriate to respond to a group of mostly female readers pushing back against the comic book industry's relentless depictions of violence against women by...describing his fantasies of enacting violence against women. Out loud. With his mouth. To an audience. While acting in a professional capacity.

I also want to note something that never occurred to me at the time, but we (yes, I was there, Gandalf; this is in fact my origin story) weren't even asking for them to bring Steph back. Like, the thought never crossed my mind. Compare to HEAT (Hal's Emerald Attack Team), a group of fans who waged a harassment campaign after Emerald Twilight demanding Hal's reinstatement to the Corps and the firing of the writer who wrote the comic. We were only asking for DC to acknowledge that Steph had been Robin, and it infuriated them.

As a last point on Steph's death: I mentioned this in another post, but when Steph died in 2004, she had zero official action figures despite having been a recurring character in comics for 12 years. She wouldn't get her first action figure until 2010. But in 2005, DC started selling this:

Yes, he is holding the power drill.

Anyway. Fans kept the pressure up for four years, and eventually DC got so fed up that they just...fucking brought Steph back. I don't know how much of the reason was so that they wouldn't have to give her a memorial case and thus "let the girls win," but I bet it was more than 50%.

This is so fucking funny to me. What a bitchy little line to give Bruce. (Robin #174.)

See, immediately after Steph's death, Leslie Thompkins told Bruce she could have saved Steph but deliberately let her die to teach Bruce a lesson about letting kids fight in his war, which was a shocking bit of character assassination for Leslie and also...lol. As if Bruce cares about Steph enough to change his behavior.

Now in 2008 the official retcon was that while Steph was out of it and barely clinging to life, Leslie snuck her out of the country to Africa (where in Africa? don't worry about it, it's all the same, right?) to recover, and just told Bruce she was dead for the same ineffective lesson-teaching from before.

So Steph was never really dead! And Bruce knew that despite being by her side when she flatlined! And then he lied to Tim and said she was dead for...enrichment? Tim needs a little unnecessary grief in his enclosure sometimes. (Lol j/k Tim was nothing but grief and several nervous breakdowns in a trenchcoat at the time.) And Tim's just...basically fine with it???

DC sort of didn't really know what to do with Steph for a couple of years, so they put her through some really bad writing, and then since they had conveniently also put Cassandra Cain through several years of really bad writing, they had Cass quit being Batgirl and vanish out of comics for a bit, and Steph took over. What was done to Cass could be a post in its own right and the way she vacated the Batgirl role is awful, but it did give us the beautiful, golden, shining joy that is Batgirl (2009):

STEPHBATS YOU WILL ALWAYS HAVE MY WHOLE HEART.

This comic was beloved. It wasn't a huge seller (though comfortably above the usual cancellation threshold), but everyone I know who has read it loved it, even people who had never liked Steph before. This is the book that changed her from "cautionary tale about comic book sexism" to "fan favorite funny Batgirl."

And then the New 52 happened. And the second battle of the Steph Wars began.

If you weren't reading comics in 2011, you may not know that aside from all the controversy any major reboot engenders, the New 52 was very specifically controversial because of how women were treated by the reboot. Prior to the reboot, 12% of the creators working on DC's comics were women, which is just...an incredibly embarrassing number to begin with.

After the reboot, 1% of their creators were women. There were two (2) women in the initial New 52 lineup: Gail Simone and Amy Reeder. They were both fired the following year.

I am really struggling to communicate how badly women were treated around the New 52: creators, fans, characters. It was so bad that the Wikipedia page for the New 52 has multiple subsections about it. But I want to call out one part in particular:

This led to a tense interaction between fans and DC Comics co-publisher Dan DiDio at the 2011 San Diego Comic Con, where DiDio was asked by a fan about the drop in female creators from 12% to 1%. DiDio responded by saying, "What do those numbers mean to you? What do they mean to you? Who should we be hiring? Tell me right now. Who should we be hiring right now? Tell me."

What Wikipedia doesn't mention, but was widely reported all over the internet in 2011, was that the fan who held DC's feet to the fire at multiple panels over their obvious misogyny was dressed as Stephanie Brown.

Just like she had in 2004/2005, Steph became a symbol of the comic book industry's mistreatment of women - and a symbol that "all those girls" Bill Willingham had fantasized about shooting would not go away.

But what about Steph herself? Well, the New 52 reboot was meant to be starting over from scratch. Batman had only been around for five years, so obviously he couldn't have gone through five Robins in all that time!

...No, he'd gone through four. Dick, Jason, Tim, and Damian were all still around. But Cass and Steph were gone and Babs was still Batgirl, erasing both her status as DC's most iconic disabled character and her legacy as the first of and mentor to all the other Batgirls. Legacy only matters when it's boys, you see. And following the rules only matters when it's for the purposes of keeping girls out.

And the erasure of Steph in particular was very clearly targeted. In 2012, Bryan Q. Miller (who had written Steph's Batgirl series) tried to include Steph as a future Nightwing in his Smallville Season 11 comic, set in the Smallville universe and not the main DCU. He was told to replace her. Not with anyone in particular, just get her out of there.

Later that year, DC launched the adorable digital first Li'l Gotham series by Dustin Nguyen (who had also worked on Steph's Batgirl series) and Derek Fridolfs. The Halloween issue included a little blonde girl trick or treating while wearing what was clearly Steph's Batgirl costume, a cute little Easter egg for fans. That is, until later editions, when the girl's hair was recolored to black. Again, this is a comic that was not set in the main DC universe, and the little girl wasn't even Steph, just a random kid. (Dustin managed to sneak a reference into a later issue in 2013, and by 2014 things had chilled out enough that Steph got a proper cameo.)

Scott Snyder asked to use Steph and Cass and was told no. Same with Gail Simone. Word on the street was that DC had declared them both "toxic."

Was it DiDio who hated Steph? I have no idea. But it was certainly DiDio who publicly berated a cosplayer in a Steph costume when she asked why there were so few women in the reboot that would become his ultimate legacy. (Well, his other ultimate legacy besides shielding and repeatedly promoting noted sexual harasser Eddie Berganza for 15 years.)

Steph finally, finally returned in 2014, not just to Li'l Gotham but to the main DCU with Batman #28. It makes me very happy that Dustin Nguyen got to be the one to draw her:

(Cass would have to wait nearly two more years, until Batman & Robin Eternal in late 2015 - further proof, as if any was needed, that however bad white women have it, women of color get treated even worse.)

As the comic above would indicate, Steph was reintroduced as being Spoiler and only Spoiler - still no girl Robins allowed. The 2016 Rebirth reboot introduced the idea that she had been both Robin and Batgirl...but in a different timeline. Finally, 2021's Infinite Frontier (after DiDio's departure from DC) restored both Steph and Cass's full history with all of their previous roles to continuity, further reinforced in 2022 by both the Robins miniseries and the Batgirls ongoing, both of which co-starred Steph.

Is the comic book industry still sexist? Yes, obviously. Do I wish DC had a better idea for what to do with Steph these days than occasionally pop up in the background of a Bat comic to make a joke? Yes, obviously. But when I look back at how openly misogynistic the industry was in the 2000s and early 2010s, how naked the vitriol against female characters and readers was, I'm always shocked anew by how much has changed, and how much we used to put up with.

We've come a long way, and some of that is thanks to Stephanie Brown becoming a symbol for women who would not lay down and die, would not be erased, would not shut the fuck up. As Bruce himself put it waaaay up at the top of this post:

"I did everything I could to make her quit. She wouldn't. She stood up to me, right down the line--defied me."

So in honor of Steph, the get-back-up-again-est girl in comics, please take two things away from this post:

Remember what they did.

Never, ever shut up.

[kezahex]

So... Jason Todd might be immortal.

So, a long while back, I saw a theory floating around that Jason Todd (specifically the version from the New Earth continuity, we won’t get into Prime Earth, and New52 and Rebirth) is actually immortal. 

I can’t find the theory now, google has failed me, but if I remember right, the gist of it was that Red Hood super fucking dies at the end Under The Hood. 

Jason is hurt badly after Bruce gets him with a batarang, but it’s suggested this wasn’t fatal because Bruce’s whole thing was figuring out a way of stopping Jason from killing Joker without killing Jason. 

However, Joker immediately blows up the building they’re in. 

There’s this weird ripple of space sparkles, Bruce gets up, and immediately begins to mourn him, alongside various images of different Batmen across the multiverse… I guess, maybe. 

Under The Hood was technically part of the Infinite Crisis event, so like everything else that happened in that block of time, we time jump a year after this (theoretically, some characters don’t appropriately age up, the perpetual teenagers that they are).

If you read this at the time, you probably assumed Joker just killed Jason in another explosion. 

Jason returns in the Nightwing costume in Nightwing #118. If you remember my post about Conner Kent dying in place of Dick, I’ve been told this happened because they’d planned to have Jason become Nightwing after Dick’s death, but when Dick was spared, allegedly they already had art drawn of Jason as Nightwing, and I guess didn’t want to scrap it. I cannot confirm this as fact, though, I’m not sure where that information comes from. 

So, clearly Jason didn’t die, so what happened? It’s kind of a weirdly written comic, so Nightwing is going to be no help explaining what happened, Dick asks no questions regarding where Jason’s been or how he’s back, character emotions and actions are all over the place, Jason turns into a grotesque blob monster for a bit (it… is explained, but its weird and confusing), it’s a whole thing. 

If I remember right, the theory has to do with those space sparkles. They seem to be associated with the event of Superboy Prime punching the universe, the same event that un-killed Jason Todd. 

As the theory goes, Jason cannot die - his death was unwritten, and cannot be re-written; he will always come back. So, Jason died at the end of Under The Hood, but reality won’t let him stay dead. 

He’ll just come back - “reset” so to speak - as if he never died. 

This is also a handy excuse for how he crawled out of his grave without dying again from lack of air. 

So I read that theory, thought “oh that’s cool” and then proceeded to never think about it again. Until today. 

So I was reading Battle for the Cowl, and I got to this bit in Dick and Jason’s fight where Jason yeets himself to what surely must be his death - Dick seems to think it is, at least, and Jason indicates that Dick doesn’t want Jason’s blood on his hands, so Jason must know this fall could kill him. 

But just before letting go of the ledge, Jason tells Dick “I’ll be seeing you sooner than you think.” 

…..Weird. 

And then I remembered this little line from Batman and Robin, after Jason’s returned again (in the fucking pill helmet outfit….), where Jason says - “shoot me, do it, I’ll come back.” 

….I mean it seems like Immortal Jason Todd may have been the intent during this era. Possibly. There’s more evidence supporting it than I thought. 

Sometimes you get things like this that are just a bit out of place, a bit odd, but build on each other and seem to be leading toward some big reveal or deeply explored concept… and then it just got dropped entirely or the universe rebooted, and you’re left wondering if it was ever really there at all. 

[kezahex]

By @ janepicaart on xTwitter

[kezahex]

"Bruce and Jason are the worst communicators! They'd find common ground if they just sat down and talked!"

I know it varies from comic to comic, but I can't get on board with this take for how many times I've seen Jason be so incredibly real with Bruce, only for him to come at Jason with the most irreparable emotional gut punches, regardless of how he meant them.

This isn't even the only time I've seen Jason speak very openly about his feelings. And this is proceeding what Bruce always does, which is bring him into these situations, only to tell him "Get out" as soon as he's outlived his use.

[kezahex]

Jason and Kara meet Wally and Dick over gargoyles at the gala. Dick is wondering what is looking and talking like his dead baby brother, while Jason thinks that Dick knew he was alive again.