#bruce canonically considered lady shiva as a possibility for his mother

[cowboymater]

humble proposal for an alliance between the wasian jason & latino jason truthers: mexican catherine, filipino willis (sheila stays white), therefore wasian jason todd raised as pinoy-chicano

[zinnie-zoloft]

I don’t understand anyone getting mad about people drawing the robins as non-white because canonically the only one who looks white is Tim

Dick is Romani, in current canon half Romani through his mother, but before that he was a quarter Roma through his father

Jason looks racially ambiguous enough for Bruce to consider the possibility of lady shiva being his biological mother

Damian is middle eastern which, despite his family name literally being Al Ghul, way too many people seem to forget in favour of making him a Bruce clone

People drawing them with darker skin than the comic art typically depicts isn’t even racebending most of the time, get the fuck over it

[doraambrose]

So, I know there's a lot of discourse in the Fandom about whether jason is white or Hispanic or whatever and I wanted to give insight based solely on canonical evidence. This is not to shame anyone's headcannons or anything, I'm just giving my own opinion based on facts I've seen in comics (but I know DC flip flops things all the time)

1. Jason being Mexican or Hispanic

There is no evidence to support jason being Latino or Hispanic in any way. Canonically, he is described as a pale guy with dark hair and blue eyes. His biological mother is a blonde woman with blue eyes named Sheila haywood. His father, though probably not fully white, does not have any canonical evidence of any Latin heritage. The last name "Todd" is northern English and Scottish. "Haywood" comes from minor areas of old England. Jason has been seen a couple of times speaking Spanish or Portuguese. However, he's canonically a polygot from during his time in the league and has been seen speaking Russian just as much.

2. Jason is asian

While there's also no real evidence to support this in canon and his canonical description does discredit this headcannon, it does seem more logical than other headcannons. Willis Todd's appearance has been consistent with more asian like features (I'm not sure that sounds right, but I hope you understand what I mean) . Though, he does also appear with pale blue eyes.

Though, with his last name, it's more likely that his mother was of a different race, but his father was white.

Another reason people use is lady Shiva in his contact book. Here's how I see it. When Jason and Bruce went to look for jasons biological mother, they weren't paying attention to appearance of the woken they sought out, they were going solely based on the s names in his dad's book. Why is lady Shiva in his book, idk.

3. Jason is afrolatino

No. Just no. See reasons above

4. Catherine Todd is Hispanic so jason was raised in a Latin household

Catherine todd does not have any canonical evidence of being Hispanic or Latina in any way. Her description states that she's a blonde/redhead pale lady with green eyes. Her maiden name is Johnson, which is middle English and Scottish. She has never been seen speaking any languages other than white and there have been no allusions to her heritage that suggest Hispanic heritage.

In conclusion, canonically, it's safe to say Jason is probably you're standard white boy. The other possibility is slight percentage of Asian or indigenous heritage from his father's side, but his whole family is mainly white and possibly from England or Scotland.

And I know I said I wasn't going to shame anyone's personal preferences, but why is Jason the one that's so widely considered Latino? And why is he being made a different race to fawn over instead of giving actual Hispanic comic book characters the love they deserve? This is done alot too. Instead of acknowledging comic book POC comic book characters and their own stories, struggles, and badassness, people are turning white characters into poc characters and it doesnt make sense to me. I feel like there's some deep rooted racism there that the only robin from "the ghetto" is the robin who "can't possibly be white". And that point is backed up by the fact that there is no evidence to suggest that jason is Hispanic or Latino in any way, so I have no idea how this headcannon came to be.

[goatsghost]

asian-ifying the batfamily with technically-not-quite-canon evidence but it makes enough sense in my head:

dick is half romani/half white, and it sounds like romani people are considered indo-aryan, and come primarily from india but also any of the surrounding countries in that area, so we’re good here

BUT, to be extra, i’m also heavily leaning into the wfa live action that got cancelled, where dick was going to be played by yoshi sudarso (indonesian), who i love. AND dick’s voice actor in gotham knights is christopher sean, who’s mixed japanese/white

basically what i’m saying is that the dick in my head deserves to be a poc at this point

cass is already canonically chinese/white

damian is also already canonically arab/chinese/white

jason, though he is canonically fully white, before finding out his biological mother was sheila haywood, both he and bruce briefly consider lady shiva (for some reason). so. he must at least look to be mixed race for it to be a genuine possibility

also his va in gotham knights is chinese (stephen oyoung)

for tim, i am still living in the era when ryan potter made a video to campaign to be tim drake for ben affleck’s batman. it didn’t work, they didn’t want a robin for those movies, but from then on he became the tim drake in my heart

though in titans (which i haven’t actually watched), it looks like his character is blasian? (jay lycurgo) so i’m here for that too, tim is just meant to be mixed race <3

duke i’m coming for you next

[scandalsavagefanfic]

hey so like.. if sheila really is jason's mom... why does he still say that his mom was a good person? he always talks about his horrible dad but he only ever mentions his mom's drug addiction, never the fact that she was complicit in his murder? she's highkey worse that willis, no?

So for starters (and this is actually the last thing I’m writing in this response because below this I went on a whole rant about how much I hate Sheila and then I reread your ask and realized there might be a little confusion) when Jason mentions his mom, he’s definitely referring to Catherine. Because she is the woman he knows, the woman who ‘raised’ him, the woman who was there during his childhood. She’s the only mother he knows. Sheila is just the egg donor who gave him life only to murder him when he finds her later.

Sheila is 100%, HIGH KEY, the absolute worst. I can’t possibly overstate how much I hate Sheila. She is despicable. Because, imagine you read A Death in the Family for the first time. Maybe you know that Jason dies in the end. Maybe you’ve heard on the interwebz, or 90′s comics, that he gets himself killed, that he’s reckless and he disobeys Bruce’s orders. But you don’t know the story. 

That was me. I knew nothing about Jason’s search for his bio-mom and Sheila when I went into that book. And maybe, like me, this is your introduction to Robin!Jason.

So it opens with Jason going half-cocked on some child pornographers and Bruce is understandably worried because Jason almost died but at the same time you’re like... child pornographers are the scum that grows on scum and Jason is a child so like... we feel where you’re coming from Robin, no big deal that’s not really reckless, you’re just a passionate kid (because you don’t know anything about Jason’s past on the streets, hinted at in issues leading up to this one and you don’t know that Jason may have a personal reason for having a grudge against sex offenders and child abuses but it doesn’t really matter because, like, child pornographers!). 

So Bruce benches Jason for dumb reasons I won’t go into (and maybe you’re not a total newb like I was, maybe you’ve read a little of Jason’s Robin run before this in Batman and Detective Comics so you think it’s pretty ooc for Bruce and Jason to not discuss things). 

Then Jason finds his birth certificate and the name is smudged but it definitely can’t be Catherine’s. So Jason does some research and since he and Bruce are still on the outs, and Bruce is busy tracking down the Joker, Jason, who has been trained as a detective and crime fighter, tracks down three possibilities for his bio-mom. 

Skipping ahead, after they fight off Lady Shiva and ask if she’s ever had a kid, because she’s option #2 (option #1 was an Israeli spy and like... how did low level henchman Willis Todd end up with these deadly, badass women?) they walk away and Bruce asks Jason if he really would have wanted a woman like Shiva to be his mother and I BET THE ANSWER IS DIFFERENT NOW!

Because then they get to Sheila and I can finally say that what makes her awful is that she sells her story. I’m reading this for the first time, and I have no idea what happens, just that somehow Jason gets from meeting his birth mother to dead in a blown up building.

And if you’re reading it like that, you’re right there with Jason. You understand why she left him, she’s sympathetic and you feel for her and you think “That is so sad, at least they can have a relationship now”. 

So then the Joker shows up and surprise, surprise, comic book worlds are small and he and Sheila have a past. 

Joker wants drugs and he threatens to expose Sheila’s past doing abortions, which, in the 80′s may have been meant to make her slightly less sympathetic but now just kind of makes her a victim of a dumb system. Anyway, one of those went bad and she accidentally killed someone and fled the country. 

So Sheila takes Joker to the warehouse and you’re thinking, that sucks but Bruce Wayne is there and maybe he can replace the drugs Joker stole, Sheila is in a tough place. 

Then she stands by when Joker replaces a shipment of life-saving drugs with his deadly Joker gas and you go ‘uh... ok... not... not really much she can do I guess...”

Jason is watching this go down, recognizes that this is too much for him, and runs off to get Bruce.

That’s when Bruce and Jason split up. Someone has to stop the shipment from being delivered or a bunch of people will die. Their Land Rover isn’t fast enough to catch the cargo trucks and all they have is a one-man, fold-up helicopter! (It’s exactly as contrived as it sounds but hey, comics. 80′s. Whatever.)

Bruce pleads with Jason to wait for him. Jason agrees but as soon as Bruce speeds off, Jason makes the comment “Sorry Bruce, but that’s my mother in there with that lunatic.”

And here’s where I’d like to take a minute and say... I know a lot of Jason fans hate Starlin and ok, I get it. But I... don’t really. Because here’s the thing, he set it up, he could have had Jason barge in, guns blazing (as the saying goes), and while it may have been ‘reckless’ it would STILL would have been understandable. Because Jason is a kid who has been trained in combat, who has just found his mom after both his other parents left him to fend for himself on the streets. Whether he meant to or not, Starlin set this up for Jason to be beyond reproach regardless of how he ended up in that warehouse.

But, and this is important, he didn’t have Jason do that at all. Jason tells his mom, who has, until this moment, seemed to be a humanitarian thrilled to be reunited with the son she never thought she’d see again. He tells her he’s Robin and tries to stop her from going back into the warehouse.

She fucking lures a child, her child, who she was genuinely happy to see an hour ago, into the hands of the Joker because he’s Robin and that means Batman is around and she’s been embezzling funds from the relief organization. She points a gun at her child, asks the Joker what he wants to do with him, gives one pained expression to steel herself, and smokes a fucking cigarette while the the Joker beats her child to death.

Then, when the Joker predictably betrays Sheila, and Jason turns out to not be beaten to death, he drags his broken, bleeding body across the floor and unties her. When they can’t get out because the Joker had the foresight to lock the door, Jason throws his broken, bleeding body in front of hers in a last ditch effort to save a woman who very literally sent him to his death. 

So. Now that I’ve covered my undying rage for Sheila and explained why, yes, she is inarguably the worst of Jason’s shitty parental figures, I can get to the rest of you’re ask.

In Universe reason why Jason doesn’t talk about Sheila: Because she murdered him. Because she’s an egg donor and nothing more. Catherine may have been too drugged up to really raise Jason, but she’s the closest thing he has to a caregiver. My adopted cousins call my aunt mom. She’s the only ‘mom’ they talk about. I don’t know if they know who their bio-moms are, but they wouldn’t stop calling my aunt ‘mom’ just because they met them. My aunt is the one who provided for them and raised them. She’ll never stop being they’re mother. Catherine will always be who Jason considers his mother. 

Real life reason why Jason doesn’t talk about Sheila: Option 1 - Lobdell hasn’t read “A Death in the Family”. Option 2 - Lobdell forgets the details of “A Death in the Family”. Option 3 - Lobdell has his own headcanon for Jason’s past that he desperately wants to make canon but DC won’t let him because “A Death in the Family” hasn’t been out of print since it dropped, so he just writes RH like his headcanon is canon and as long as he doesn’t explicitly contradict one of DC’s most popular books he can do what he wants.

[psychovigilantewrites]

Jason Todd: A Tale of Tragedies.

We all know how Jason Todd came to be. He had a drug addict as a mother, and a father who was abusive. After his mother died and his father sent to prison, he had to make a living in the streets. He came across Batman when he was stealing the tires off the Batmobile.

And so, he became Robin. Now, during his time as Robin, he found out that his mother wasn’t his biological mother, and so he ran off to look for his birth mother. Finally after searching, he was reunited with his biological mother.

The touching reunion was short lived, because Sheila Haywood (aka EVIL BITCH) betrayed Jason and gave him up to the Joker. Imagine what was going through his head. He had finally found the woman who gave birth to him after crossing off the others (he once considered the possibility that Lady Shiva was his real mom), and he was ecstatic, running into her arms immediately. The betrayal he felt must have been overwhelming.

Joker then beat Jason with a crowbar. I can’t fathom the pain he went through.

Jeez, DC is dark af. Showing a child getting beaten to death by the main villain? And people say comics are for children?

Anyway, Jason died, but was then resurrected. Talia al Ghul found him and dumped him in the pit. She then funded his training around the world, which was where he learned of his second betrayal. Bruce had let Joker go, and replaced him with Tim.

(From Red Hood: Lost Days)

At this point in time, he already felt two betrayals by two parental figures.

But moving on from this canon, let’s talk about other universes, namely Arkham Knight universe.

Joker had caught Jason and tortured him and manipulated him emotionally. Jason was clinging on to the smallest hope that Bruce was still out there looking for him. So he endured all those months of torture. But then Joker showed Jason that Bruce had replaced him with Tim and left him for dead- when in reality Bruce didn’t know that Jason was alive. This made Jason into the infamous Arkham Knight.

(From Arkham Knight: Genesis #3)

Jumping to Batman: White Knight, a story of how Joker was cured of his insanity and adopted his previous identity, Jack Napier, due to swallowing a number of experimental pills that Batman had forced down his throat. Jack Napier was portrayed as the savior of Gotham, from the violent Batman who was supposedly doing more harm than good.

In this comic, it was revealed that Joker had kidnapped Jason and (surprise, surprise), tortured him to find out Batman’s true identity. Jason was so broken by the torture, that he said he wished he never met Bruce Wayne. After learning that Joker had released Jason when he got what he want, Bruce was surprised that Jason never went back to him. He was so broken that he didn’t go back to his home.

(From Batman: White Knight #7)

But going back to RHATO Rebirth, after Jason killed the Penguin on live TV, he was then beaten the shit out of by Batman- who, mind you, was the man who raised him like a son.

Bruce kicked him so hard, his goddamned helmet shattered, and then dragged him by the head like some sort of mutt. He was saved last minute by Roy.

Now we see in RHATO Annual #2 Preview, the extent of the damage that Bruce had inflicted upon his adopted son. He had injured Jason so badly that it took him a month to be able to stand up and walk again. Even after that, he couldn’t shoot straight. The trigger-happy gun-wielding anti-hero we all know and love can’t shoot straight because of what his adoptive father had done to him.

The whole point of this was to point out that Jason can’t catch a damn break. He’s not only tragic in ONE universe, but spans onto multiple Earths. Why can’t they just let our Jaybird be? 

[batfamquotes]

reading a death in the family left me with a lot of questions, namely, how did willis todd get lady shiva’s number? we know he worked for two face’s gang but beyond that how does a nobody crook from gotham get the number and name of one of the greatest fighters in the world?

also I’m just gonna say it, headcanoning jason todd as white is ugly and boring, as is thinking he’s a natural redhead, no, his natural hair color is black. the red hair was only for pre crisis, where he had the circus background, the only thing from pre crisis jason we are claiming are his stories, personality, and father-son relationship with bruce. actually you know what? post crisis jason’s origin is the correct origin, and anything that pre crisis jason todd did is now canon but happened to post crisis jason. 

but back to the topic, the two women that jason thought might have been his birth mother: sharmin rosen, an israeli woman, and sandra wu-san, a woman with an east-asian background. we already know his birth mother was a blonde named sheila haywood, but there’s no reason we can’t headcanon her and willis as anything but white. so if jason was seriously considering the possibility that sharmin or sandra could be his mother, doesn’t it stand to reason that jason’s ethnicity is ambiguous?

for me personally in my headcanon jason todd is half mexican, and part chinese, part filipino 

speaking of lady shiva, it’s funny that she says no she’s never had any kids in death of the family when we learn later down the line that she’s cassandra cain’s birth mother. the question should have been ‘are you jason’s mom’ if anything. so I guess shiva doesn’t consider herself a mother even if she has had kids.

and since I’m bringing up cassandra cain, when she first shows up in no man’s land, her appearance is more racially ambiguous, we already know she’s half-white since david cain is her birth father, and her skin tone is noticeably more brown than in her later appearances in comics, when we find out lady shiva is her birth mother she’s drawn to look more asian (specifically chinese) I can only guess to reflect that, idk. 

and it’s wild to remember that canonically cassandra and jason are the same age, actually cassandra is OLDER than jason, by like 6 months and a few days. 

[aion-rsa]

Birds of Prey: DC Comics and DCEU Easter Eggs Guide

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Harley Quinn and the gang deliver a romp through the seedy underbelly of the DCEU in Birds of Prey!

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This article contains nothing but Birds of Prey spoilers. We have a spoiler-free review right here.

Birds of Prey is the latest entry in Warner Bros.' sprawling DCEU shared universe of superhero movies. It's not just any superhero movie though. Birds of Prey offers up a female-led, female directed R-rated action romp through the grimy streets of North Gotham. Like any good comic book movie, the Cathy Yan helmed flick includes a whole bunch of impressive Easter eggs from deep cut DC Comics references to ridiculous Batman '66 nods all the way through some awesome homages to Harley's origin. 

As always we're trying to catch all of the Easter eggs and secrets that Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn has to offer but despite our hard work there's no way that we've spotted them all! That's where you come in, if you caught something that we didn't then jump into our comments or hit us up on Twitter and if we update the piece with your spot then we'll give you a shout out! 

Harley Quinn

- Easily the most deep cut reference in the entire movie, Birds of Prey features the first appearance of Harley Quinn. But we're not talking about Batman: The Animated Series. During Harley's prep for the final battle, a clip from Days of our Lives can be seen on the screen of Renee Montoya's TV which shows Arleen Sorkin as a Harlequin on the popular soap opera. It was this sequence that inspired the character and that led to Sorkin becoming the first person to voice Harley Quinn on Batman: The Animated Series! 

- Harley's necklace says Bruce, the name of her Hyena who in turn is named after Bruce Wayne (in the film she apparently doesn't know that he's also Batman). Harley keeping a pet hyena is also a nice riff on her pet hyenas from Batman: The Animated Series. Only those two were named Bud and Lou, after famed comedy duo Bud Abbott and Lou Costello.

- We get to see Harley chopping it up on a Roller Derby rink which comes from Amanda Palmer, Jimmy Palmiotti, and Chad Hardin's popular New 52 Harley Quinn run. 

Black Canary 

- At the Black Mask club, a drunk Harley accidentally calls Dinah "Bianca" in the club... now we're probably reaching with this one, but in the comics Helena Bertinelli has a daughter called Bianca Bertinelli...Could this be another deep cut reference to the classic comics? 

- When Renee Montoya and Dinah first meet, the cop references Dinah's mother who was apparently the first Black Canary. This is a really interesting note as in the comics Dinah was the first Black Canary and her daughter Laurel later took on the mantle, so who was Dinah's mom? We'd love to know more, especially as the pre-Man of Steel history of the DCEU has only been explored in brief teases so far.

- Black Canary’s costume at the very end incorporates her traditional fishnets, but as part of her sleeves in a smart reinvention of her iconic look. 

Huntress 

- The Helena Bertinelli version of the Huntress has been kicking around DC Comics since 1989. But there was an earlier version of the character, Helena Wayne, who was the daughter of Batman and Catwoman! The Helena Bertinelli Huntress was created by Joey Cavalieri and Joe Staton.

- The rival mafia don who kills the Bertinellis is Don Galante. In the comics the Galante family are one of Gotham's five mob families that make up the city's La Cosa Nostra.

- That Huntress costume at the end looks pretty cool, we even get a classic domino mask. We're excited to see where the Birds of Prey go next... now they're a real team could we possibly see the appearance of one Barbara Gordon? 

Renee Montoya 

- Renee is the first canonically gay character in either a Marvel or DC movie and when we're introduced to her ex-girlfriend (played by Ali Wong) it's a nice nod to the queer history of the character who once dated Kate Kane's Batwoman. 

- In the comics Renee Montoya quits the police and becomes the Question. Considering that the film ends with Renee retiring to become a full time crime fighter, with the Birds, maybe there's a chance we could see something like this happen on screen. We'd love to see her put on the iconic mask if Birds of Prey gets a sequel. 

Cassandra Cain

- One of the first things that we noticed was that Cassandra Cain mentioned she was in foster care. Now that might not seem too out of the ordinary for a street kid, it's important in regards to Cass and her comic book origin. In the DC Comics, Cass is the daughter of Lady Shiva and David Cain who train her to be an assassin. Now it doesn't look like Cass got that training here (although she is quite good with her hands). But the fact that she's fostered means that we could learn more about her real parents going forward...

- When Cassandra Cain is initially unable to respond to Montoya’s question in the precinct, it’s a nod to how the character couldn’t speak in her early appearances. This was due to her brutal training by her father which put the ability to kill above the ability to communicate.

- This probably isn't the direction they're going to take her in the movies, but in the comics, Cassandra Cain wore the mantle of Batgirl for a number of years, and rocked one of the coolest costumes in the Bat-family while doing it!

Black Mask

- The Janus Corporation gets several mentions and background appearances in the movie, notably in a "Janus Cosmetic" billboard. In Black Mask's comics origin, Janus was the foundation of the Sionis family fortune, and Roman made a fortune on flawed cosmetics that ultimately ended up scarring its wearers. The appearance of Janus here is another tie to the wider DCEU as well, as we had previously seen a Janus sign all the way back in the Justice League movie. 

- Roman’s “fuck family” rant is the closest this character feels to his earliest comics appearances, where he resented his parents and actually created his mask from the wood of his father's coffin. Roman is a weird guy.

- Roman keeps an extensive collection of exotic masks, as he did in the comics, even before he adopted his villainous alter ego.

- Later in the movie, Roman's goons all wear strange and exotic masks which works as a rad homage to his crew in the comics who were known as the False Face Society. 

Gotham City

- During the third act of the movie we see Harley take on Black Mask at the so-called "Founders Pier" though that isn't a location we know from Gotham City, it seems like it could be a mashup of Founders Island in the Arkham series of games and Gotham Pier in various Batman movies and comics. That's not the only landmark familiar to gamers, as Amusement Mile, the location of the Funhouse is a key location in the North East of Gotham in both the Batman comics and the award-winning Batman: Arkham games. 

- Harley mentions Robinson Park, a landmark in Gotham City which is named for classic Batman artist Jerry Robinson. It's a regular fixture in the comics and has been mentioned in Joker as well as other DC movies.

Suicide Squad 

- During that epic evidence room fight we caught a glimpse of what looked Katana's iconic sword from Suicide Squad. 

- In the third act when Harley and the gang are battling the gangs of Gotham they're in the top of a funhouse and the windows are covered with Joker-style "ha-ha-ha" graffiti. When she looks for her weapons stash it's all gone revealing that it was clearly an old safe house for Harley and Joker. 

- The building that Harley crashes the truck into is ACE Chemicals which is historically where he first turned into the Joker. In Suicide Squad this is also where Harleen was turned into Harley, this destruction is a key part of her titular emancipation! What's more, when Harley is reminiscing about her origin story, the movie reuses footage from Suicide Squad meaning that it's definitely in canon with past DCEU efforts.

- Some other nods that Suicide Squad is 100% in continuity focus on Harley joking about the events of the film, cutting her Squad hairstyle off, and the infamous “Daddy’s Little Monster" shirt that she says has "sentimental value."

- Something that is interesting here though is that any and all references and footage of the Joker are definitely not Jared Leto and seem to be almost aggressively generic and more of an implication of the Joker rather than any specific representation of him. 

Miscellaneous Cool Stuff

- The "famous Gotham artist" who made Roman's statue could be the Bat-family villain Grotesque or in a more deep-cut and silly reference it could be a Batman '66 villain known as the Clock King who pretends to be an artist when he isn’t committing bizarre time-based crimes.

- Harley mentioning that she once stole "Eleanor Rosevelt's nudes" for the Joker is especially funny because the first lady was actually introduced in to the DC universe canon as a character in 1981's All-Star Squadron #3. 

- Harley and Cassandra are watching a Tweety and Sylvester cartoon, and there’s a Porky Pig VHS tape on top of the TV, this is not just a cool Warner Bros. animation nod, but also pays homage to the fact that the film really feels like a live action Looney Tunes cartoon, which is exactly what Harley Quinn should be!

- Though we couldn't find anything about the Golden Lion crime family in the comic we were wondering if the name of Mr. Keo's organization could be a nod to the similarly named award that Joker took home at the Venice Film Festival last year. 

- This might just be us living in a dream world but we think that one of Roman’s goons in the funhouse near the end was dressed like almost-forgotten DC Comics character, B’wana Beast!

Birds of Prey Post-Credits Scene

There isn't a post-credits scene in Birds of Prey, but we DO get a post-credits voiceover. Harley says “I hear Batman f…” before it gets cut off. This is likely a reference to the excellent Harley Quinn animated series on DC Universe where Harley refers to Batman as “a guy who fucks bats.”

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Feature

Books

Rosie Knight

Feb 6, 2020

DC Entertainment

Birds of Prey

Margot Robbie

from Books https://ift.tt/387ZHLg

[firefrightfic]

I'd like to know what's your favorite depiction of Jason, like, both from fanart and books? do you have any favorites that are the closest to your personal vision of him?

I’m so glad you asked because please let me talk to you in far too much depth about how I see personally see Jason Todd.

Anyone who reads my fics knows I love writing Jason with the idea he has loosely curled hair, which is very much based off his earlier depictions in comics with the adorable little temple curls and something that has sadly mostly been lost to time in most current DC artist’s depictions (after all, it’s not like we need anything to differentiate all these black haired blue-eyed sons of Bruce Wayne apart from each other, right?). That being said…

… I absolutely adore the way he’s drawn by Alisson Borges in the first few issues of Arkham Knight: Genesis.

(More images and the rest of the answer to your question below the cut to save everybody’s dash)

This is my Jason almost perfectly (minus the scar outside writing him in the actual Arkham-verse of course). Right down to facial structure and skin tone, with curly, unruly hair that flies everywhere – maybe a little longer than it’s drawn here, but still quite close. It’s hair that doesn’t stay still, doesn’t behave and never surrenders. There is no such thing as a perfect family photo with Jason Todd, and Alfred had kittens over trying, let me tell you.

Borges’ baby Jason is even better, I mean:

Scrawny little pupper, look at that hair.

Even the eye colour is closer to being on point for my personal vision than many other depictions I’ve seen. I headcanon Jason’s eyes to be a kind of teal shade. Bluer when he was younger, then closer to green after he took his dip in the Lazarus Pit.

And just like 99% of fandom, I of course imagine him to have the white streak in his hair XD which is another thing that has sadly been lost from canon since its initial appearance in Hush. However! There is a lot of Excellent fanart out there depicting that, of which I think this picture may be my favourite (I also love this piece for how Jason’s face looks overall.) The streak is a few thin locks, rather than a big chunk of his hair, but still prominently noticeable from the rest.

(Also here is also another lovely little curly haired Robin Jason close to my headcanon image. I would love to link more, but going back through my dash to find the original artist’s pages for a lot of what I have saved would be very time consuming and I don’t like to repost fanart, especially if I can’t give credit.)

The other headcanon I have about Jason’s appearance is that he has Asian heritage somewhere down the line (which is apparently visible enough in his facial features that both Bruce and Jason readily considered Lady Shiva to be a possible candidate for his birth mother during the Death in the Family storyline). Personally, I think this was a Chinese grandmother on the Todd side, just because Sheila Haywood is drawn as the whitest white woman ever. But it’s harder to find fanart/official art that conveys this.

But in short. Arkham Knight: Genesis Jason is as about as close to perfect as I could ask for from canon. Just imagine him without the scar and a white streak in his hair and you’re practically there XD

*dreamy sigh*