#this is specifically about new 52 roy and jason. their red hood/arsenal era

[fishfission-dc]

I think Roy Harper is the personification of all those “my unemployed friend on a Tuesday” memes. Even if he was employed. Like you’d walk into his home and it’s just full of Contraptions. He just does Things and the purpose is unintelligible

Jason is like this too but in a less noticeable way. Roy is like “I welded a toaster oven to my assault rifle to see if it would do anything when I zapped it with a taser” and Jason is like “I read four textbooks and wrote an academic paper about the Mesopotamian grain economy”

“what did you guys do today”

“we liberated a country and then I built a motorized couch that’s technically street legal and then Jason blew up the road couch”

[alicepooryorick]

hey there! you recently reblogged one of my posts with a question about roy’s character (the op is fishfission-dc, this acc is my main.) i just wanted to let you know that the account you asked (elioherondale) is someone who goes around tumblr harassing anyone that draws or writes jason and roy together, with the characterization of the New 52 (2011-2016ish) run of their comics. (and I do say in the original tags that it’s specifically about this run!) So if you get a hateful or strange answer from them I just wanted to warn you :)

But if you wanted my answer to your question about how Roy is characterized differently, you can read this monstrous essay below.

In the older comics he’s more of a serious “asshole” who’s a ride or die for his teammates and daughter. (The new Green Arrow is a little more like this Roy, I know you said you’ve been into that recently :) ) He had an era in like the 80’s or smth where the writers gave him alcohol and heroin addictions, where Oliver was super unsupportive for a while, it was a whole thing. But Lian and his teammates and eventually Oliver helped him back to being a standup guy and the comics just stopped mentioning the addictions. When the DC universe was jumbled with the New 52 2011, he was a member of the Outlaws in Red Hood and the Outlaws and then when Kori left the series Red Hood / Arsenal followed just him and Jason. These series made him more goofy, the funny man to Jason’s callousness. But Roy would still kick it into gear and be serious as hell when needed, and he was competent, intelligent, all that jazz that’s true to his character. He just makes jokes now and actually tells his friends that he loves them.

this era also brings back the concept of Roy being an addict, which writers tries to shove under the rug for a while after the edgy 80’s arc that created it. Elioherondale and his jayroy harassment goons like to say that the New 52 comics “regressed Roy to being an addict” or that his friendship with Jason did it, but that’s not true!! In the New 52 he’s not actively using, he’s been clean for a long time, it just addresses the fact that heavy addictions aren’t something you can just get over and forget about. You struggle with them for the rest of your life. It’s a super serious topic and I think this contributed to why they made Roy more lighthearted and silly outwardly, because they focused so heavily on this inner struggle he has, and had a lot of serious moments around it.

the characterization in the New 52 comics also implies to change Jason’s and Roy’s ages to be more similar, making them “best friends” and “partners” whereas in the old comics Roy would’ve been probably 6ish years older than Jason, and would have met him at least 18 years old when Jason was 13. There is also so much romantic implication and just general good friendship and loyalty and all that good stuff in this era, even if the writing might suck at times (often).

so anyway, I love the characterization in this goofy little New 52 comic era of Roy and Jason but it makes Roy have a funny disaster personality and reintroduces the idea that someone with a heavy addiction can’t just get rid of that. so sorry this was so long, I just wanted to give you a more objective take on the question!!

The squeal of joy I let out when you said this was along message. Thank you so much for taking the time to give me such a thought out response!

Also thanks for the warning, I just got a notification that they rb'd my question. It felt like this kinda situation but i also wondered if this was a Barbara Gordon situation, as I am a batfan. So it's not inconceivable that Roy got a similar n52 treatment as Barbara did.

I own like... one issue of the n52 redhood // Arsenal run. #9 I believe. I love Jason and Duela's relationship in the book.

But again, thank you for this message it was so fun reading through that, the new green arrow run is my first time reading a green arrow run and it's easily one of my top 5 along with Wonder Woman.

Hope you have a great day bestie!