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    Jason Todd

    Character » Jason Todd appears in 1742 issues.

    Jason Todd was the second Robin, until he was brutally murdered by the Joker. After he was resurrected, Jason learned Batman didn't avenge his death. Anguished and seeking vengeance, he initially turned against his mentor and father figure and took on the Clown Prince's former identity: the Red Hood. He eventually returned to the Bat-Family and assembled a team of anti-heroes known as the Outlaws.

    Jason Todd: Super Villain, Anti-Villain, or Anti-Hero?

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    Sinestro2828

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    #1  Edited By Sinestro2828

    Yo, I'm sorry to say I'm not as familiar with the comic version of Jason Todd as I am with the animated movie version that appeared in Batman: Under the Redhood.  The animated Jason struck me as a Supervillain with delusions of being the ultimate hero despite his obviously brutal and grisly methods, and irrational hate for Batman.  How is he in the comics?  Is he an Anti-hero like Marvel's Punisher or is he just a brutal monster who thinks he's doing good by being as brutal as the villains he fights?  I mean, he obviously has it in for Batman and all the Robins before and after him (especially Dick, Robin numero uno), but has he been seen doing real good too?  To me, based on what little I've seen so far, he's as bad as the Joker and all the other rogues only his attacks focus on other bad guys and members of the Batman family rather than the general public.  What say the rest of you?

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    PowerHerc

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    #2  Edited By PowerHerc

    Cleary he's an anti-villain super-villain.  lol.

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    Amegashita

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    #3  Edited By Amegashita

    @PowerHerc said:

    "Cleary he's an anti-villain super-villain.  lol. "

      This pretty much sums him up.

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    InnerVenom123

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    #4  Edited By InnerVenom123
    @PowerHerc said:
    " Cleary he's an anti-villain super-villain.  lol. "
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    Primmaster64

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    #5  Edited By Primmaster64

    Anti-hero, kind of now anti-villain.

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    FadeToBlackBolt

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    #6  Edited By FadeToBlackBolt
    @Primmaster64 said:
    " Anti-hero, kind of now anti-villain. "
    More anti-hero though. He just has a vendetta against Dick; which isn't entirely his fault, he's a little nutty after being subjected to the Pits.
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    ComicStooge

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    #7  Edited By ComicStooge

    Anti-Villian.
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    saiyan_earthling

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    #8  Edited By saiyan_earthling

    I'd say more of an anti-villain or anti-hero. Clearly he's not a real bad guy. He's just been misunderstood.

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    OldIdiotAccount

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    #9  Edited By OldIdiotAccount

    Anti-Hero.

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    imaginaryman

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    #10  Edited By imaginaryman

    he's all of them when you think about it.
     
    supervillain - he tried to be a crime lord in gotham 
    anti-villain - he tried to be a crime lord, in order to control crime in gotham, and even lessen it
    anti-hero- he tried to be a crime lord, he did and he even hurt(killed)  a lot of people to become one, and he continuous to be a pain for batman and robin

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    IsabellaRoth

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    #11  Edited By IsabellaRoth

    Supervillian...>Not more a Robin forcing himself to be someone who he really never was.! I mean...a good guy. He is bad..and I like him in that way. Dick is Dick. Tim is Tim.  
     
    And no one can be like the other..just because they all have special personalities. But Tim and Dick are quite similar...Well, Tim wouldn´t sleep with an orange, bitchy alien..so he is more intelligent. =P. Sorry! hahah I just want to see Bruce again...(a little more) =)

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    daredevil21134

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    #12  Edited By daredevil21134

    He's an anti hero when written correctly hopefully the lost days will show writers how to write him

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    Primmaster64

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    #13  Edited By Primmaster64
    @FadeToBlackBolt said:
    " @Primmaster64 said:
    " Anti-hero, kind of now anti-villain. "
    More anti-hero though. He just has a vendetta against Dick; which isn't entirely his fault, he's a little nutty after being subjected to the Pits. "
    And Bruce
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    saiyan_earthling

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    #14  Edited By saiyan_earthling
    @Primmaster64 said:
    " @FadeToBlackBolt said:
    " @Primmaster64 said:
    " Anti-hero, kind of now anti-villain. "
    More anti-hero though. He just has a vendetta against Dick; which isn't entirely his fault, he's a little nutty after being subjected to the Pits. "
    And Bruce "
    It's always about his rivalry with Bruce and Dick. 
    Bruce, for letting the Joker go after he killed Jason, and Dick, for who's the better Robin and more suitable to wear the cowl
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    Primmaster64

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    #15  Edited By Primmaster64
    @saiyan_earthling: Yep and yes
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    deactivated-5d1828448d5f0

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    @Fortanono said:
    "Anti-Hero. "
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    daredevil21134

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    #17  Edited By daredevil21134

    yup
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    johnnythejokingnightwing

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    Hes a hero whos not afraid to get hos hands dirty when need bé hes been seen in a room with batman as an alli and he is a known member of the batman family

    If he was a bad guy would batman not have arested him

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    HighlyEvolved

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    None of those fit him in the New 52. He is now a hero.

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    daredevil21134

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    #20  Edited By daredevil21134

    He's a hero now.It's no question

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    Batmanx2005

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    #21  Edited By Batmanx2005

    He is not much of an anti hero or anti-villian. He kinda more little bit of tragic villian since he wanted to be better than batman

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    oompers

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    He's had one great story (that has been rehashed over and over again) as a villain, and several mediore-to-terrible stories as an "anti-hero". He's basically another Mr. Freeze or Hush, a one-story villain with limited staying power.

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    deactivated-57dd84d2af8d3

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    Some people may say he's an anti-hero, some may say hero, but I like to think he's better off dead.

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    deactivated-5d3f071d30d9f

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    Well he can all 4 options but he could be better hero, if he stopped killing people and help some people. Maybe using electic bullets and some non-lethal equipment instead of lethal weapons.

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    oompers

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    #25  Edited By oompers

    @playswithsquirrels said:

    Some people may say he's an anti-hero, some may say hero, but I like to think he's better off dead.

    Very true. Usually, I think it's a good idea to keep a character "in continuity" even if they're not being used. But with Jason, he brings a lot more value to the Bat mythos dead than he does right now. Under the Hood should have just been an AU story.

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    Slonewolf

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    Pre-Flashpoint: Anti-Villain

    New 52/DCYou: Anti-Hero

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    deactivated-57dd84d2af8d3

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    @oompers: While I do really like the Red Hood film and love what Morrison did with him in B&R, like you said, he has more value dead. Jason dying and staying dead is huge for the character of Batman.

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    oompers

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    @oompers: While I do really like the Red Hood film and love what Morrison did with him in B&R, like you said, he has more value dead. Jason dying and staying dead is huge for the character of Batman.

    Right. As a dead Robin, he was emblematic of Batman's greatest failure. It was something that weighed heavily on Bruce, Dick, and Tim. What UTRH and Morrison did with him was a logical extension of that failure, as not only was he the Robin that Batman failed to protect, he also became a perversion of everything Batman stood for. Now... he's just an emblem of terrible writing.

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    Aahz

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    I don't think Jason would work on the Batman villain on the long run. For several reasons (and Hush and the pre 52 bane had similar problems).

    1. He had his one big story with Under the Red Hood, which will be hard to top, since the big reveal only works once
    2. His obsession with Batman, his Knowledge and his Skill makes him much to dangerous, to have him run arround
    3. And he isn't allowed to kill any major Batman villains, what even more problematic when he real villain opposed to an antihero

    In the end could never be as Badass as in UtRH and there would be a high probability that he would turn more into a "Joke" than in to a real thread (like it happend to Killer Croc or KGBeast). Espesially if you would continue to the way Morrison wrote him (a whiny woobie, in a laughable costume and a stupid retconned hair colour).

    The whole perversion of Batman thing works in my opinion only in else world storys or alternate universes.

    And the whole dead Robin thing was, is now after two other Robins died and came back (and other failures of Batman) also not such a big thing anymore.

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    oompers

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    #30  Edited By oompers

    That's why he really should have stayed dead. He's a one-note character with one story worth telling. Bane at least had a good run as an anti-hero, but that's because Gail Simone is a far more competent writer than Scott Lobdell, who somehow made Jason into an unintentional 90s Image caricature.

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    Aahz

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    @oompers: But this is more a problem with the writer than with the character. I still think that he could be a great character for darker more street level stories.

    And in my opinion "Batman and Robin" and "Batman Eternal" damaged the character far worse than anything Lobdell wrote.

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    oompers

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    There really isn't much left to do with Red Hood that hasn't already been rehashed dozens of times with other characters. Morrison made the natural progression of the character, turning him into an unlikeable villain with only a shred of decency (looking out for Scarlet). Tomasi made the most of what he had to work with in Batman and Robin. Tynion's writing of Jason in Eternal was bad, but it was more damaging to Eternal and the Batfamily than it was to Jason himself.

    Lobdell literally wrote the worst long-running series of the New 52, next to Suicide Squad (which had 4 good issues under Ales Kot) and Teen Titans (which is just mediocre under Will Pfeifer). That's very damaging. Green Arrow and Catwoman both recovered from Nocenti and got excellent writers eventually. Starfire got salvaged because DC wanted to push another female lead. Jason and Roy are pretty much stuck with Lobdell, unless DC moves him to another team book.

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    Nathaniel_Christopher

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    @oompers said:
    @playswithsquirrels said:

    @oompers: While I do really like the Red Hood film and love what Morrison did with him in B&R, like you said, he has more value dead. Jason dying and staying dead is huge for the character of Batman.

    Right. As a dead Robin, he was emblematic of Batman's greatest failure. It was something that weighed heavily on Bruce, Dick, and Tim. What UTRH and Morrison did with him was a logical extension of that failure, as not only was he the Robin that Batman failed to protect, he also became a perversion of everything Batman stood for. Now... he's just an emblem of terrible writing.

    Agreed. Jason Todd and Uncle Ben have always been exactly the same as far as i'm concerned. Characters that hold incredible importance to their respective families/franchises, but are now just better off dead. All they ever should've really done with Jason is written some stories featuring him as Robin before he died. Under the Hood was great, everything after wasn't and was unnecessary. At the same time, I understand the position the company is in, because its not like you can just kill him again now after everything that's happened.

    Funnily enough, DC recently put out a new volume collecting Jason's post-crisis origin and early days

    No Caption Provided

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    Aahz

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    #34  Edited By Aahz

    @oompers said:

    Tomasi made the most of what he had to work with in Batman and Robin. Tynion's writing of Jason in Eternal was bad, but it was more damaging to Eternal and the Batfamily than it was to Jason himself.

    Lobdell literally wrote the worst long-running series of the New 52, next to Suicide Squad (which had 4 good issues under Ales Kot) and Teen Titans (which is just mediocre under Will Pfeifer). That's very damaging.

    But Lobdell portrairt iirc Jason never in a bad way (at least not in the issues I read). In RHatO he is was still the cynical badass (anti)hero he should be.

    In Eternal on the other hand he didn't had one badass action, but and was only used as punching back and damsel in distress. My biggest problem with Batman and Robin was actually his fight with Damian in the "War of the Robins" storyline (his portrait in the rest of the series wasn't optimal but not negative).

    And since "Batman and Robin" and "Batman Eternal" have more readers than RHatO they have an bigger effect on Jasons "image".

    I really hope the writers have a better concept what to do with Jason and Tim in Eternal 2 and that they were not just used to show how much more badass Dick, Harper Row and Cass are.

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    oompers

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    Actually, I think if you take UtRH as the start of a greater narrative that continues with Morrison's B&R, you'd find a tragic villain arc for Jason that could easily be written to end with his death. He returns to Gotham and tries to apply his own brand of justice that involves killing criminals on sight. Eventually, he'd make himself into public enemy #1 from both police and from criminal organizations. The police don't like him because he's a murderer that doesn't play by the rules (a point brought up in Morrison's run), and the criminal organizations wouldn't be happy working with him (and would eventually turn on him) since he's a trigger happy killer. Eventually, he'd pay the price, and serve as a tragic lesson to the "Punisher" archetype will never work in Gotham. Of course, none of that would work now thanks to Lobdell's blunders.

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    Aahz

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    @oompers: This narrative wouldn't have worked, because of the stuff that happened in between UtRH and Morisson (like Count Down). And the stuff that Morrisson introduced, like the over the top costume and a sidekick (something the Jason should never have) didn't help.

    And Jason was no "Punisher" in UtRH, he was about controlling crime not about killing every criminal (just the ones that didn't play by his rules).

    And the general direction of Jason becoming a hero in the new 52 was probaly given by someone higher up at DC then Lobdell. And it was Morrison who brought Jason back in the Batfamily as Wingman, before the only one who was speaking with him was Tim.

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    Dark_Tzitzimine

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    #37  Edited By Dark_Tzitzimine

    @oompers: You are aware that is LITERALLY Morrison's "Revenge of the Red Hood" arc, right?

    Plus, as @aahz points out Jason becoming an ally of the batfamily is the direction editorial has settled for him. Countdown Batman & Robin is proof of that.

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    LewisIsTs

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    I'd call him an antihero, until you piss him off

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    deactivated-5b84aca03eae8

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    Jason's definitely an anti-hero.

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