I have personal beef with Lobdell's "hence the name, Red Hood" panel when Jason picks up that poor, abused dog in RH:O. Which logically I know is an off the cuff joke but 1. Lobdell likes to simplify Jason and his motives all the time (which he could’ve been doing here) 2. I’ve seen a lot of people say they don’t get why/the connection/deeper meaning/etc. Jason picked his name or 3. people who want Jason to drop RH & pick up a new vigilante identity without (or before) Jason getting his full circle closure
(First: can Jason please have a companion again. And can they be given a real name this time? Not Lobdell’s lazy out? Give that man another dog or fuxk, let him pick up a cat that was abandoned in the rain. Please???)
Within that spread, Scott Lobdell wrote that Jason picked the name because he's awful at naming things and went with the most basic, obvious choice, Red Hood. This is an incredible disservice to why Jason chose to take his mantle specifically.
Imagine you're Batman, a fledgling vigilante who abides by a strict no-kill moral code. It's your first or so year manning the streets of a massive, corrupt city--Gotham--and you still aren't fully sure of what you're doing. The criminal underworld still isn't even convinced you're real. One of the first big cases you bust, a man who calls himself the Red Hood, dies. you play accomplice to the man falling into a vat of chemicals even as you try to save him. He dies. You killed a man due to your own mistakes.
But you didn't. Not really.
The man comes back under a new name--the Joker--and becomes one of your most prominent enemies. The guilt eats you alive. You dub him your greatest failure. The guilt complex and strengthened moral platitudes refuse to let him die, let alone kill the man. Only "saving him" will relieve you of the grief. Your guilt, your grief, God, your god complex, something is too big for you to admit you can't save everyone including the problems you inadvertently create.
You take in a boy, a ward--Dick Grayson--because the city won’t let a single bachelor like Brucie Wayne adopt him. You’re his brother, you’re his spandex-wearing partner, you’re not his father (he has a father, he doesn’t want you to be his father) but you’re also not not his father; it’s complicated. You didn't want him to turn into you and he creates his own mantle--Robin--to honor his parents.
You and him are partners for many years--Batman and Robin: The Dynamic Duo. Until, one day, The Joker shoots him in the shoulder and he falls off a building on live TV. The city’s populace is upheaved, believing Robin is dead. Demanding Batman be held responsible for his negligence, for even having a underaged partner in the first place. You agree. The field is no place for a child, you decide to keep him so. Robin, the child, is dead, killed by the Joker. Dick Grayson, now a man, is alive and blazing his own trail--Nightwing.
So one child-to-man moves on. And one stays behind. Weeks, months, pass and, you refuse to admit it, you're lonely.
You find another boy--Jason Todd (found in the same location and on the anniversary your parents were murdered in the part of town you only visit once a year)--stealing your tires. Not Bruce Wayne's tires. Batman's tires. He makes you laugh, audaciously so. He takes you down with a tire jack and, God, he’s fast and feisty. (He thought you were going to kill him. You don’t loiter on the thought: it makes your stomach turn). You track him down to retrieve your tires. He tells you he doesn't want to be a criminal, he takes what he needs to survive. He's starving.
You try to stay out of it (all you do is check what happened to his missing dad--murdered--and sick mom--heroin was what got her in the end). You push him towards education. He doesn't trust the cops. He doesn't trust the system. He doesn't trust adults. He hardly trusts you. He tells you about a case, that the school is bad, but believes you only half listen--brush him off like every other person in his life. You follow up. He follows up.
You ask him to be Robin. He accepts.
Dick's mad at you for giving away his title without asking, to a child nonetheless. (“You said the field was no place for a child!”) You snap at him, say you missed him. (You keep telling Gordan that Jason's no child. That he's seen too much, is more experienced than either of them combined. You don't say this to Dick).
He leaves but he gives Jason his number and his blessing. The kid's torn up about it, you can tell (see the doubt eat him alive of if he should be wearing those colors. Your butler? Your father?--Alfred--tells you to stop comparing the boys--good or not).
That doubt sticks with him. That past experience sticks with him. He urges you to help the poorer parts of the city, especially the places where Batman only visits once a year (The first time he goes back after getting Jason isn’t as bad as all the times before). He fights for his people. He’s tied to Gotham in ways you aren’t. Sees things you don’t. Knows things you don’t. People who can’t stand you, love him.
You keep hearing him crying over his dead mother and watch him lose it against rapists. He advocated for the woman that killed the man who murdered 12 women including her sister even though Batman and Robin aren’t supposed to endorse extra judicial work like that. He breaks a man’s collarbone for taking pictures of naked children. He thinks the “Dress-ups” won’t ever stop because Batman’s only weapon is fear and they aren’t afraid. He once said life’s a game. Monopoly, Bruce assumes he means.
Drugs are easier than rape to catch a man on, and the boy is furious that the perpetrator is only being sent back to his home country. ("he'll just hurt the women over there! He won't stop!" He's in hysterics).
A young woman is dead. The boy found her body. A man falls to his death a man is pushed to his death is dead. The boy was the last one to be with him. You bench him, but you forget that you asked him to be Robin first and a son second.
He runs away. A birth mom--Shelia Haywood, you eventually learn. He's missing. It has to wait. The Joker's out again. You have to prevent your greatest failure from becoming bigger. (He shot Barbara earlier this year)
You leave the boy with his birth mom by the warehouse. You have to go after the Joker. The Joker has killed and killed and killed. Will continue to kill. The boy is dead. He killed the boy. The mother says he was good. He's nothing more than broken bones and mangled limbs. She's...not.
Your greatest failure murdered your boy. His body’s already getting cold when you find hi—the body. The corpse. You hold it. Because it’s an it now, not a him.
You go after the Joker. The pilot is shot. You don't try to kill the Joker, but you don't bring him with you as you jump. The helicopter crashes. You don't even think he's dead; unresolved as per usual.
You failed to protect him. You failed. And he’s dead.
Superman pulls you from the ocean.
You go home and Alfred meets you once you get off the plane. He tells you it's not your fault, the boy had it coming. The murdered boy--a Good Solider, buried next to his bio-mother in Gotham Cemetery--is dubbed your new biggest failure.
Dick's in space and would miss the funeral, so you decide instead to not tell him there was a funeral at all. At least someone will still think Jason’s alive. At least someone will keep Jason alive through their belief. It’s not like Dick’ll find out. They weren’t that close anyway (Dick & Jason or you & him?)
When Dick does eventually find out, because of course he obviously does, he's furious. It's the first time you punch your first Robin. (You don't know it yet, but it won't be the last time, not for Dick and not for some other so-called family members.)
Robin is dead. Far deader than Dick Grayson ever was. He did it to himself. He thought it was a game. Dick doesn’t get it. He was better. He was alive.
(You can’t admit he’s become your son out loud. Hardly even in your head. It’s fine. Dick is the same about your fatherhood. Like father, like son)
You blame it on Jason's death. It changed you. He changed you. It's his fault. Everyone follows suit.
You leave the Joker in a body cast for six months. He gets out again. Luckily you have a new Robin--Tim Drake. He's not Jason. You can see it in his eyes that he knows that's a good thing. Gotham doesn’t even know the second one is dead. They believe Tim’s second one. Gordan even asked if he’s finally hit his growth spurt. 4’6 the death certificate said. That’s okay. No one needs to knows.
(Park Row Crime Alley knows. They know who’s theirs and who isn’t. Batman and Robin aren’t welcomed down there anymore)
(The first anniversary you visit your parents yours and his first meeting spot after Jason’s death feels like Ethiopia all over again)
A blonde girl is Robin now--Stephanie Brown. You tell her she's like Jason. She can tell you mean it as a bad thing but never processes it through her mind. You're trying to lure Tim back. A city-wide gang war wrecks Gotham. She's dead. Tortured by Black Mask and died on the operation table.
There's talk around the underworld, unified under Black Mask, a new gang leader's been making waves for months. You just heard about him tonight (a duffle bag full of heads told you): The Red Hood. You know that name. It’s a punch to the gut. Your first failure.
(“You’re getting slow, old man!)
He did what you've been trying to do for years in a matter of weeks: He overtook the entire Gotham underworld. He’s running circles around everyone. He pits you against the underground, keeps you busy, and he gets what he needs to be done Scot-Free. You hardly ever see him around. Only when he wants you to see him, do you. You don’t like things you aren’t in control of.
He doesn't want anyone dealing to kids. He likes bombs, but they're contained. Implosions, not explosions. He kills and is on par with Batman himself (he cut himself free of your line). Red Hood hangs around Crime Alley ("Park Row!" Jason would always respond), but no one there will rat him out to The Batman. They won't talk to you. Some of them even seem to...like having the Red Hood around.
He’s managed to bring down the crime rate of the entire city. Somehow.
It's raining. You can't tell. Jason's alive.
Jason'salivejason'salivejason'salivejason'salivejason'saliveason'salivejason'sal--
And he's killing people. And he's spitting in the face of your "sanctimonious" moral code. He laughed at you when he murdered someone in front of you. ("Just be happy I only killed the Nazi!") You tell him he doesn't get it. He responds the same.
(“You can't stop crime," he says along the lines of "Not with fear. But me...I'm controlling it.")
Jason's never had enough fear.
And now he's crying with a gun to his murderer's head. He says he’s not talking about the other rogues, just him. Just the Joker. He throws you a gun. You won't do it--can't do it. You need to save the Joker. To prove that you can. You need to save Jason. To show him this isn't the way. You can't have any more failures.
Jason's going to do it himself, he says. "If you want to stop me, you're going to have to shoot me. Right in the face."
You can't let anyone die. You can't let the Joker die. It's your mission. There's so much blood. The batarang had to have had to knick the carotid artery in his neck. No one could survive it. The Joker is cackling with glee. You hear it in the walls of your skull. The bomb goes off. You don’t hear that at all.
Oh God. You killed your so—
You’re still gone, you think
You see Jason on patrol sometimes. High collar and still branding himself as Red Hood. There’s a red bat on his chest now. You don’t think it’s a compliment. The East End loves him. Jason still can't let the Joker go. Can’t—won’t move on.
Not till he's dead he says.
Take a moment to imagine yourself as a fledgling vigilante--Batman.
Anyway my meta turned into a 2nd POV fic????? but like that's not the point. The point is: That’s the impact of why Jason chose the name he did. It’s important to me that you all recognize these full-circle story beats. Do you see my vision?
Jason planned everything when he made his big debut. You don't think that dramatic-ass bastard thought about the name? Jason is mocking Bruce: both his fears and failures as a vigilante.
But that throwaway line is one of those really minor details that really bug me because it's so easy to throw out a panel and say “Jason's bad at naming things Haha" It's much harder to commit to "show, not tell" where writers have to trust their readers to get between the lines and figure out long-term connections.
As well as it's just another way Lobdell undermines Jason's goals in UtRH by saying "He couldn't think of anything else" compared to Winick's Jason who is laughing and mocking Bruce by taking up the mantle of Red Hood. Showing he's not afraid of what happened to him. Spitting in the face of the world that burned him and yelling “I’m still here!” Owning it. He's not afraid of Bruce. And he's definitely not afraid of the Joker.
I want Jason to get a new identity one day too but to do so before Jason ever gets his joker closure cuts his story short. (Which is a creative way of saying it’s never gonna happen unfortunately). I think if he gets one before he finishes the story and closes the cycle, it would be the final nail in the “Jason’s a batfamily member” coffin as it would probably be written as “Jason seeing the error of his ways” rather than for himself moving on to heal for himself.
