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liedownquisition · 2 months ago

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Ooh, care to share what are your opinions on the personality distinctions between pre-crisis Dick and Jason?

Okay so, I don't know how coherent my thought process here is going to be so bear with me, but there's a few things I want to acknowledge first and foremost because they play a SIGNIFICANT part in how each character is, well, characterized. I'm also going to try as best as I can to compare them at similar ages but, well, if you know anything about comics and also in light of some of the points I bring up in this post, I think you'll understand why that's so difficult.

Additionally, look. There are like... soooo many comics, yeah? I'm going to focus on characterization specifically in Detective/Batman comics because frankly I don't want to hunt down examples from every comic he's appeared in or have to deal with potentially conflicting characterizations from different titles, there's enough of that in just these two.

The biggest reason I say is that at the time that Robin was originally added to Detective comics (#38), it was still something of an anthology of multiple stories in one book. Batman's adventures took up something like 11-13 pages and were completely self-contained. The Batman comic was started, if I'm not mistaken, after Detective #39, and while it is (almost) completely devoted to Batman, it also contains multiple stories in one issue and each is largely self-contained. Conversely, by the time that Jason is introduced, most storylines bounce back and forth between Detective Comics and Batman, and often last for several issues each. It also takes up more of the Detective comics pages (I wanna say something like at least 16?) and only has 2-3 stories (often, actually, Green Arrow & Black Canary stories, lmao.) (If I'm not mistaken, I believe both Detective Comics and Batman released monthly but two weeks apart from each other, so you'd be able to get your Batman fix every two weeks? Or at least, that's how it was before they started bouncing storylines back and forth, but I have to assume it's something similar given the consistency with which the stories zig-zag.)

This means that generally speaking we spend a lot more time developing characters later on in the comics. Dick, for a long period of his run, I feel has a more implied personality than a displayed one, but what he does is also heavily informed by his role in the comic and his relationship with Bruce. When Jason comes in, his role and relationship is different and that also informs his characterization.

So, I guess, let's start with that.

So, first of all, Dick is never* Rarely referred to by Bruce in Pre-Crisis with any familial language, Also Rarely* does he refer to Bruce with any. We often like to use the modern comics' interpretation of their relationship as father and son, especially since DC has pivoted their market onto their superhero "families," and I'm not going to argue that the idea of raising a child from the age of, say, eight or nine up until adulthood is pretty parental. I've made these arguments before, but it's important context to understanding his "personality" that he's not treated like that in the actual writing.

*Edit: I stand corrected on the "familial language" point. Unfortunately it looks like some of the issues listed here are ones I'd skipped because the image quality in the archive I was using was bad enough to give me a headache. Still, I don't really think he feels like a "child" in a majority of the cases that aren't literally centered on the idea of him being a child.

Dick was, from the get go, introduced to be Batman's partner, so his joining was a foregone conclusion they didn't waste too long deliberating. He was originally just supposed to be under Bat-Witpro but then Bruce activated turbo mode on his trauma projection beam and the rest is history:

Detective Comics #38

As far as either of them are concerned, they are each other's "best/closest friends," and as far as the narration uses, Dick is Bruce's aide or sometimes protege. It's not until some, what, few hundred comics later I think*? They'll start referencing him as Bruce's ward more often. *In Detective at least. Apparently I wasn't searching through Batman thoroughly enough and missed a few things, per above link.

Batman #3

Batman#359

Detective Comics#43, Batman#3

On a more... practical sense, you could say that Dick is the Watson to Bruce's Sherlock, albeit with an added flair of "training him to also be like Sherlock" kinda deal. This, imo, is reinforced with how often you see Bruce smoking a pipe while the two of them are talking, usually with Dick asking a lot of questions and Bruce answering them pretty authoritatively:

Batman#1

Contrast it to Jason, who literally the very next story after he's taken in by Bruce, starts referring to him as his "new father."

Detective Comics#526 (As a slight aside, another point to the, I suppose arguably "personality" differences here is that Bruce was going to send Dick back to Haly's, but Dick wanted to stay. Meanwhile Jason was the one suggesting he'd go back to Sloan Circus, and was diverted by Bruce's offer. He does also run away and go back to the circus later but we'll get to that)

Detective Comics #527 - I'd originally had two cuts from this issue including the previous one where Jason's saying "Batman's like a father to me now, I have to help him" but I ran out of images and decided if I'm sacrificing one that was the best option. Yes, I could theoretically use an image software to fuse some of these together. it's 3 AM, I'm not doing that.

Now, a not insignificant part of the above is later framed as Jason trying to prove himself so that Bruce will let him join him in his fight, but I'm going to be honest, given that Batman #361 (immediately prior to the above) has Jason enjoying an acrobatic routine with Bruce and then having a slight melancholy flashback about his parents being dead, I'm more inclined to believe that Jason scared of losing another parental figure so soon after losing the last ones, and he's clinging on to Bruce with all of his might because he's a scared child who's recently been uprooted from everything he's ever known.

It's not quite explicit, but as Jason notes that Batman had some clever tricks but that he'd needed Jason's help to win, it feels like Jason's trying to take control of the situation. His parents' deaths at Killer Croc's hands (Which were, tbh, largely Bruce's fault imo. He asked them, average & untrained civilians, to help him snoop around Croc's extortion outfit, and even lashed out at Dick when he suggested it was too dangerous for them. Yes, Bruce has a lot on his mind, but still) were completely out of Jason's hands. He couldn't even try to save them and didn't even find out they were dead until he was trying to warn Batman about a plot against him and overheard Batgirl telling Bruce about it, and, well, gestures above. He can't not want to save what little he does have left.

What all of the above really adds up to is that generally speaking even in his more "childish" moments, Dick is narratively handled as an adult. Yeah, he makes jokes and is dashingly daring, perhaps a bit more impulsive than Batman and occasionally damsel-ified, but he's not exactly that much more of a punster than Batman and his own quips tend to be.

And, I'll be honest, I can't help but wonder if the contrast between "miniature adult" Dick Grayson and "actually a kid" Jason Todd, is part of why he wasn't very well liked by some readers. After all, look at how a lot of people modernly react to more emotional younger characters like, say, Shinji from NGE or Steven from SU. When Dick is shown being emotional, idk, in the earlier comics it feels much more abbreviated and easy to gloss over. This applies to female characters as well, of course, and generally even moreso, but considering Jason's a boy character I felt relating it specifically to other boy characters who have that issue was more appropriate.

(The above gets worse when he's rebooted, because he IS definitely still framed as a child, with more volatile emotions like a child, but a child who "had to grow up too soon," which STILL reads differently from Dick being written effectively as a small adult.)

Anyways, as a result of this difference I'd like to make something clear: Dick Grayson has always been a far more serious character (personality-wise) than the cheery, bright colors of his costume and the concept of him as a circus performer might make him seem. And yes, even the puns, which at the time Bruce also made all the time. Dick, for the most part, is fairly content with his life until he gets older and starts butting heads with Bruce.

I do feel like in some ways it's a bit harder to really nail down a single, clear personality for him especially in the older comics, because there's not a lot of time spent exploring it, per the whole above thing on less pages and self-contained adventures. Honestly, if anyone wants to add on more panels and a more specific description for Dick, including outside these two titles, please feel free because I've been combing through hundreds of comics trying to find some more tangibly descriptive options for specific traits, but frankly the best panels I've found for him aren't until we get closer to, say, Detective #400 and such, which he's in college during and therefore I think is an unfair comparison.

But fundamentally, the core of Dick's personality is this, repeated at the beginning of nearly every issue, he's supposed to be more spur-of-the-moment and courageous (and quippy, but so is Bruce... until he starts sometimes randomly-but-not-always being a sourpuss about puns during Jason's run????). Where both are people of action, Robin lacks the "adult" patience, and making him a child is pretty much there as a means of excusing his impulsiveness. He's of course still incredibly clever, especially after Batman trained him, and is often sent on undercover missions alone.

And, y'know, an independent streak a mile wide. I would definitely say that in the long run he's a lot more mature than Jason, point blank, and he's pretty much got a handle on this whole crime fighter thing right outta the box as soon as he's trained up.

Jason though? Jason is frequently and consistently denied parts of Bruce's life in a way I would argue makes him crave a more dependent (and reliable) relationship:

Batman#363

Batman#395

If I had to really draw a strict line between the two on their biggest difference it's insecurity. Jason is full of it, and even after he becomes Robin he hinges so much on his relationship with Bruce and proving that he's important to Bruce, that he ultimately cripples is other relationships. (See: Rena)

Honestly, it's so weird to see Jason's writing here sometimes, because he'll have very natural misconceptions and feelings of discontent, and then it feels like it gets artificially tied to the fact that Bruce won't let him be Robin.

On the other hand, It feels very much like Jason won't settle for anything less than Bruce's full attention, and I can't say I entirely blame him: he's a kid and Bruce is all he has. With how much of Bruce's life is consistently upended by his role as a crimefighter... who would want to be only part of the life that gets upended? Who wouldn't want to feel more secure by knowing they aren't just being blown off? ... After all, we have a perfect example of this in Bruce's constant abandonment of Vicki Vale, which runs parallel to Jason's own insecurities.

First, third, and fourth are from Detective #530, second one is from Batman #364

Jason is deeply, deeply insecure, and, with the exception of anger issues (arguably), most of the things Jason gets accused of modernly, are actually more accurate for describing Pre-Crisis Jay: recklessness, a need to prove himself, being a bit of a glory-hog... which is all generally attributed to the fact that he's young, and it's forgivable for it... most of the time.

Honestly, I would go so far as to say that, with the exception of the victim-blamey tone they have about it and his motives, you could argue that if enough of the pre-crisis cases were considered canon then you could almost say they're right in ascribing those traits to him.

Batman #368

Detective #535* which, I'll say you could arguably take some of this with a grain of salt. Jason is hypnotized, but does later mention that he was only hypnotized to act certain ways at certain times and was able to decide for himself what to do outside of them.

But I'm going to reiterate: A lot of it feels like a need to have more control in his life, and a constant presence by Bruce's side. He wasn't there when his parents died, and found out by coincidental timing after the fact. I feel like he does tend to display some separation anxiety from Bruce, and is very worried about losing him.

This is a somewhat decent page about that from Detective #534 after he choked out Ivy (who'd previously been choking him out first) to save Batman:

(It was emphasized earlier in this same comic that Ivy had gone to a length that they'd likely need to "take the gloves off" and take extreme measures to stop her)

Despite being really excited to work with Batman, he very quickly learns the drawbacks in ways that cast him with a lot of self-doubt, including the above kidnapping from Manbat, another almost-kidnapping out-of-costume via Chimara, being assaulted because of Crazy Quilt's obsession and hatred for Robin specifically despite having no clue who the villain was and everyone assumes he's the same Robin as there's always been... Consequences Dick didn't struggle with nearly as much or, in some cases, never faced at all.

I definitely probably missed some stuff but at this point I don't think I'm making myself any more clear unless someone asks me about a specific point lmao.

#Mashing Meta Bones with Axel #dc #dick grayson #jason todd #at the point in which I hit image cap I decided that was probably enough.#I won't lie this is more about Jason than it is about Dick #for reasons that I did explain.#In a lot of ways it's easier to just point at the ways Jason was different than it is to really explain both of them I think #Batman #Robin #anyways It's bedtime now methinks.#I've overexplained myself enough

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