Jason Peter Todd is a character appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. Created by writer Gerry Conway and artist Don Newton to succeed Dick Grayson as Robin, Batman's partner and sidekick, the character first appeared in Batman #357 (1983). Jason initially had a similar origin story to Dick, being an orphan adopted by Bruce Wayne—Batman's alter ego— after his circus acrobat parents were killed by criminals in Gotham City (Dick's parents were killed by a local mob boss while Jason's were murdered by Killer Croc). Following the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover event and subsequent reboot of the DC Universe, Jason's origin was changed and he was reinterpreted as a street urchin and petty thief whom Batman adopted after catching him attempting to steal the Batmobile's tires; this origin has since become the standard for subsequent iterations of the character.
Following Max Allan Collins's revamping of Jason's origin story in Batman #408–411, the character was written by Jim Starlin, who had him become increasingly aggressive and reckless. This led DC Comics to conduct a telephone poll concerning the 1988 storyline "A Death in the Family" to determine whether the character should die at the hands of Batman's archenemy, the Joker. The poll ended with a narrow majority of votes in favor of killing Jason, resulting in his death. Subsequent stories dealt with Batman's guilt over failing to save him. The character was resurrected in the 2005 "Under the Hood" story arc, which saw him become a murderous supervillain known as the Red Hood. In the current New 52/DC Rebirth continuity, Jason is depicted as an antihero who maintains a tense, albeit partially mended, relationship with Batman and has been accepted as a full member of the Batman family.
Jason has made several appearances as Robin and Red Hood in other forms of media outside of comics, including television series, films, and video games. The 2015 game Batman: Arkham Knight reimagined Jason resurfacing with a new villain identity, the Arkham Knight, after being trapped in Arkham Asylum for years and tortured by the Joker, who conditioned him to despise and turn on his former mentor before assuming the Red Hood identity near the end of the game.
Publication history By the time Len Wein took over as editor of DC Comics' Batman titles in 1982, Dick Grayson had largely moved on to starring as the leader of the young superhero team the Teen Titans in DC's New Teen Titans title. However, with the character no longer featured in Batman comics, the disadvantages of telling Batman stories without the character to act as a sounding board for the protagonist became apparent. Jason Todd was created to become Dick Grayson's replacement as Robin. The character debuted in Batman #357 (March 1983) and made his first full appearance in Detective Comics #525 (April 1983), but it was not until later that year that he would appear in costume as Robin in Batman #366 (December 1983) when he showed up towards the end of the story to help Batman fight the Joker.
Following the 1985 limited series Crisis on Infinite Earths, DC took the opportunity to reboot many of its properties. The character was completely revamped. According to Dennis O'Neil, who took over as Batman editor in 1986, "[The fans] did hate him. I don't know if it was fan craziness—maybe they saw him as taking over Dick Grayson's position. Some of the mail responses indicated that this was at least on some people's minds."
"A Death in the Family"
In 1988, Dennis O'Neil suggested that an audience might be attracted to the comics by being offered the opportunity to influence the creative process.Daniels, p. 160 Settling on the idea of the telephone poll via a 1-900 number, O'Neil had decided due to discussions with DC Comics president Jenette Kahn that the poll should not be wasted on something insignificant. O'Neil settled on using the poll to determine the fate of the second Robin. O'Neil said, "The logical candidate was Jason because we had reason to believe that he wasn't that popular anyway. It was a big enough stunt that we couldn't do it with a minor character."Pearson; Uricchio. "Notes from the Batcave: An Interview with Dennis O'Neil". p. 22 Even though Jason Todd was unpopular with readers, O'Neil could not decide what to do with the character, so he opted to present the choice to the readership.
The vote was set up in the four-part story "A Death in the Family" that was published in Batman #426–429 in 1988. At the end of Batman #427, Jason was beaten by the Joker and left to die in an explosion. The inside back cover of the issue listed two 1–900 numbers that readers could call to vote for the character's death or survival. Within the 36 hours allotted for voting, the poll received 10,614 votes. The verdict in favor of the character's death won by a slim 72-vote margin of 5,343 votes to 5,271.O'Neil, Dennis. "Postscript". Batman: A Death in the Family. DC Comics, 1988. The following issue, Batman #428, was published featuring Todd's death. Years later, O'Neil said hundreds of votes in the "Jason Dies" line might have come from a single person, adding a large degree of uncertainty to the honesty of results regarding a poll designed to determine the character's popularity. "I heard it was one guy, who programmed his computer to dial the thumbs down number every ninety seconds for eight hours, who made the difference", O'Neil said in a Newsarama interview conducted alongside writer Judd Winick during the "Under The Hood" arc.
O'Neil would later repeat the claim with further specifics: "I heard it was a lawyer who was using a Macintosh and lived in California—I obviously don't have hard information on this, but I heard someone out there programmed his computer to dial it every couple of minutes, and since there was only about 65 votes that made the difference if that story is true, that guy, that guy killed Jason Todd!"Batman: Under the Red Hood Blu-ray featurette, Robin's Requiem: The Tale of Jason Todd
Despite the poll results, O'Neil noted, "We did the deed, and we got a blast of hate mail and a blast of negative commentary in the press."Daniels, p. 161 A few comics creators voiced their displeasure at the event. Writer/artist Frank Miller, who had worked on Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One, said, "To me, the whole killing of Robin thing was probably the ugliest thing I've seen in comics, and the most cynical."Sharrett, Christopher. "Batman and the Twilight of the Idols: An Interview with Frank Miller". The Many Lives of the Batman: Critical Approaches to a Superhero and His Media. Routledge: London, 1991. , p. 41 However, DC stood behind the outcome of the poll. O'Neil was quoted on the back cover of A Death in the Family trade paperback collecting the story with Todd's death as saying, "It would be a really sleazy stunt to bring him back." A Death in the Family trade paperback O'Neil would later regret his comment."If I had to do it again, I would certainly have kept my mouth shut."—Dennis O'Neil, Who Killed Robin? An Interactive Whodunit, from DC Comics: A Celebration of the World's Favorite Comic Book Heroes, by Les Daniels
There was a degree of discontinuity between the Batman and Detective Comics titles with regards to the portrayal of Jason. A lot of adventures occurred post-Crisis which fit with the circus acrobat era and in some cases ran simultaneously in Detective Comics as the street kid origin was being laid out in Batman. This led to a blackout of almost any Robin appearances in Detective Comics. This became especially apparent after his death. Eleven months passed between Jason's death in Batman #428 and the first mention of his passing in Detective Comics #606.
In 1989, Denny O'Neil, Marv Wolfman, and Pat Broderick would introduce Tim Drake as the third Robin. Mindful of the poor reception Jason received from readers, O'Neil arranged for a more nuanced introduction in which Tim first introduced himself to Dick Grayson and impressed the former Robin with his skills, and was revealed to share a history with Grayson. Batman himself would slowly grow to accept Tim as his new partner, although the memory of Jason would play a heavy part in how Batman trained Tim in the months building up to his official appearance as Robin. Batman #457 (December 1990)
"Hush" and reintroduction Before the release of Batman #617 (September 2003), a page of art from the issue by artist Jim Lee circulated on the Internet, apparently revealing the mystery villain Hush, who was the focus of Lee and writer Jeph Loeb's "Hush" storyline, as a resurrected Jason. The following month's Batman #618 (October 2003) revealed that the appearance of Todd was a ruse by the villain Clayface under the direction of the Riddler and Hush. Loeb explained, "I always liked Jason, liked the idea that Batman had a Robin who died in the line of duty and how that would motivate anyone to continue their quest. It would also be the most recent, most painful thing he had to endure. That's why Hush played the card—to get inside Batman's head... But 'Hush' wasn't about Jason—Jason was a pawn to be moved around the table... If someone else wanted to tell another Jason story or bring him back and we at least opened the door, that's great!"
In 2005, writer Judd Winick began the Under the Hood storyline that revolved around the mystery of the identity of the new Red Hood. The character's identity was revealed as Jason Todd in Batman #638. Winick explained that after his initial arc on the Batman title, he suggested doing "something big" to his editors. Specifically, he wanted to bring the character back from the dead. Winick said, "I was less interested in the how and the why and the what of Jason Todd returning from the dead than I am about what Jason's return will do to Batman. Now."
The explanation for the character's return was revealed in Batman Annual #25 (2006). After a storyline in Nightwing as part of the One Year Later event where Todd took the mantle of Nightwing for himself, the character reappeared in his Red Hood persona as one of the focal characters of DC's year-long weekly Countdown series starting in May 2007.Countdown #51 (May 2007)
"Battle for the Cowl" In the Batman R.I.P. follow-up storyline Batman: Battle for the Cowl (2009), Jason Todd is featured as a gun-wielding vigilante. Commenting on the direction and utilization of Jason Todd in the storyline, writer and artist Tony Daniel has stated that, from this point on, Jason is a "bona fide" villain:
Timothy Drake eventually takes up the bat mantle when Dick Grayson refuses to and sets off to fight Jason, who easily defeats him. Dick then comes to the rescue and refuses to believe Jason when he claims he has killed Tim (which he had not since current Robin Damian Wayne rescued Tim at the last moment). The two battle and Dick eventually defeats Jason, who says that he will be seen again.Batman: Battle for the Cowl #3 (July 2009)
The Outlaws On June 6, 2011, as part of DC Comics' line-wide revamp initiative, it was announced that Jason Todd would headline his title in the guise of the Red Hood. Todd acts as leader of the Outlaws, a group of antiheroes that "have several different exciting characters from the DC Universe – some we've seen before and some we haven't," Batman Group Editor Mike Marts said. The group included Roy Harper and Starfire. Red Hood and the Outlaws debuted in September 2011, written by Scott Lobdell and with art by Kenneth Rocafort. The series focused on Jason Todd's redemption and introduced a simplified version of his origin story as the Red Hood in Red Hood and the Outlaws #0, a special prequel issue between #12 and #13.