Morrison's Depiction of Jason Todd in Batman & Robin

[The Dark Knight]

Am I the only one who was less than impressed with the way Morrison handled Jason Todd in the pages of Batman & Robin?

The character seems to have lost a good deal of his moral ambiguity and be demoted into a regular ol' "villain with a connection to the protagonist" characterization. Furthermore, Morrison's perplexing idea to retcon Jason's dark hair into red hair seemed silly to the point of lunacy. I understand the superficial need to provide an easy distinction between Jason and Dick or Tim without the masks on, but surely there was a more elegant solution than "I no longer dye my hair dark like Batman told me to in order for me to look more like Dick Grayson." Ugh.

While Under the Hood wasn't perfect (and, really, the worst offending portion of it -- the Superboy Prime punch -- was a result of editorial pressure rather than creative inspiration), Judd Winnick seemed to imbue the character with a moral ambiguity I found quite compelling.

Winnick used the character to expose some of the inherrent logical flaws within Batman's modus operandi. He challenged Batman's unwillingness/inability to kill the Joker in a way that had me (a long-time purist Batman fan) completely agree with his position on the matter!


I understand that Winnick is currently doing some more work on the character. I for one hope that he vindicates the harm that I feel Morrison inflicted on the character.

[Jeff]

Yeah - I agree with you DK - I wasn't a fan of what Morrison did with Jason other than him using a red hood costume similar to the Joker's original.

[The Dark Knight]

Yeah, I liked it that Morrison had Jason studying how to create a marketable logo in hopes of emulating some of the success of the Bat. I also very much enjoyed the sidekick he gave Jason (her name escapes me, but it's the girl whose face was disfigured by Pyg ...).

Other than that, I think it's the lack of respect and reverence for the character that annoyed me. For a couple decades even the mention of Jason Todd was an interesting idea that reminded both the audience and the Batman character of one major point -- Batman can fail, and when he does, lives are lost. It emphasized the extremely precarious line these characters walk across in each issue. When he was "brought back" in Hush, I was glued to the page. And, as mentioned above, I enjoyed the Under the Hood story. These respected the "legend" that Jason Todd was and what his death represented.

Morrison's take accomplished none of that.