Batman himself was largely untouched by the Crisis on Infinite Earths, but the same thing cannot be said for those around him, notably Jason Todd, Selina Kyle and Leslie Thompkins. Batman didn't even get an officially labeled "Crisis" crossover issue; it was over circa #392. He got a revamped origin a year or so later (#404-407), but his backstory wasn't altered nearly as much as Catwoman's. Jason Todd's origin was revised immediately after Batman's, and Lesluie Thompkins' around the same time in Detective. Issues #408-416 of Batman were designated "The New Adventures," but been more accutately called "The Revised Adventures." Until then, Jason Todd was the the third Robin, but "The New Adventures" makes him "#3b."
- 1. Earth One Robin - Dick Grayson (becomes Nightwing)
- 2. Earth Two Robin - Dick Grayson (dies in the Crisis on Infinite Earths)
- 3a. Pre-Crisis Jason Todd ("circus" origin)
- 3b. Post-Crisis Jason Todd ("street" origin)
That's not to say that that version "#3b" was featured only in Batman #408-429 (when he was killed); certainly the Robin who appeared in #392-403 was, by definition, post-Crisis. Beyond that, I suspect some (if not most) of Jason Todd #3a's stories "happened" in some form. I'll offer a very specific example of what I mean by that in a later post, but right now I'd like to take a closer look at that post-Crisis origin story.
"The New Adventures of Batman" begins with a version of the story of Dick Grayson giving up his "Robin" identity that is somewhat at odds with the one presented in New Teen Titans #39. [ASIDE: Worse still is the "Nightwing: Year One" version from Nightwing #101-106. I still recall the vigorous debate on this board at the time regarding the relative merits of that steaming pile of crap. (If you weren't here then or don't remember, you can guess which side of the debate I was on.)] But I digress...
Batman #408-409 is largely a continuity implant. It opens with Robin (i.e., Dick Grayson) being shot (in the arm) by the Joker and nearly dying (by falling from the roof of a building but landing on a ledge). This situation leads Batman to "fire" Robin, paving the way for Dick Grayson to become Nightwing. The entire incident was caught on tape by a television news crew in a helicopter. Robin "disappeared" after after that, leaving the media to speculate, "Did Robin Die Tonight?" Batman answers that question for Commissioner Gordon ("Literally? No. To all intents and purposes? Yes."), but is not particularly interested in what the press has to say about the matter.
Vicki Vale tries to get Bruce Wayne to contribute to "Ma Gunn's School for Boys" in the heart of "Crime Alley." This is the sixth year Batman has visited Crime Alley on the anniversary of the night his parents were killed. It will soon be established that Dick Grayson became Robin during "Batman: Year Three," so I suppose we can speculate that Bruce Wayne has been Batman for six years at this point, and that Dick Grayson was Robin for three. Batman pays a visit to Ma Gunn and likes her. after leaving her school he discovers that the Batmobile's two front tires have been boosted. He confronts the young thief returning for the other two and follows him back to the abandoned building where he lives.
The boy's name is Jason Todd. His parents are both dead. Batman agrees not to turn the boy over to social services if Jason will agree to attend Ma Gunn's school. He agrees, but soon learns that the school is a front for training young criminals. Meanwhile, Bruce Wayne tracks down Catherine Todd and learns that she died of a drug overdose about six months ago. Batman learns that Willis Todd is believed dead, believed killed by his boss, Two Face, whom he double-crossed. Batman thwarts a mugging, but when he is clipped from behind he realizes how much he has come to rely on Robin watching his flank. Batman returns to the school to find it empty; Ma Gunn and "her boys" are out pulling a job. Nearby, a man's tires have been stolen. Playing a hunch, Batman returns to the building where he initially found Jason.
Jason is there, and admits to having stolen the man's tires. He also tells Batman about the job Ma and her boys are pulling, then follows Batman to the scene. Working together, Batman and Jason round up Ma and her gang, and by the end of the night Batman calls Jason "Robin." As unlikely as that seems, I find I much prefer this revised origin of Jason Todd; his original origin was too similar to that of Dick Grayson.
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I had forgotten that just prior to "A Lonely Place of Dying" which not coincidently started exactly one year after "The Diplomat's Son", came "Batman: Year Three" written by Marv Wolfman with covers by George Perez. I can see them wanting to rehabilitate Dick Grayson's image and that of the Robin identity and they had the pull at the time to do so.
That's a joke, as I actually like the Damian Wayne Robin. All of the problems with adding Jason Todd, Tim Drake and Stephanie Brown don't exist with him. He's well trained, he doesn't really answer to Batman and he's got enormous resources of his own, independent of Bruce Wayne. He would be doing something with all that training and money, and all Batman can do is desperately try to guide him to the right side of the tracks. If we could just skip from Dick to Damian in the next linewide revamp, I would be most pleased.
To me, this issue was DC's way of saying that they were done with Jason Todd and wanted a new Robin.
You could be right about that. "The Diplomat's Son" certainly foreshadowed the kind of recklessness Robin would display in "A Death in the Family." Batman describes him as "very moody" and "resentful," and on page three of part one narrates, "That attitude is about to get him killed." He later tells Alfred, "He dived into those thugs like someone looking to die."
...had the vote gone the other way, might have had the character either retire from being Robin, or maybe have his beating give hims some sort of change of heart.
I can see that. I really liked the Mike Barr/Alan Davis run of Detective; too bad it didn't last longer than it did.
Starlin was made into a sacrificial lamb for the Death of Robin idea...
Yeah, he wrote the story, but I think Denny O'Neil is at least as much to blame. I see his editorial hand on Jason's shoulder from "The New Adventures" through "A Death in the Family."
That's an interesting thought. I wonder how often Denny O'Neil used Robin in his stories and how often he used him well?
By "sacrificial lamb," I don't mean he took the blame of fans for the story. I mean that when the higher-ups at Warners found out that DC had killed Robin (a character they used in merchandising), not only did they want the problem fixed (new Robin soon!), but also Jim Starlin was fired* to placate them, as way of saying it won't happen again.
*Or the freelancer equivalent of fired -- he lost his regular gigs with the company.
"Someone had to explain why there wouldn't be Robin on all those thermoses, so they basically looked at me and said, `It's his fault.' " Starlin told the Deseret News in 1990.
And in this interview with Mark Belkin in 2018, he says "...everybody got mad, and they needed somebody to blame -- so I got blamed. And within 3 months all of my work dried up.... Y'know, everything just sort of fell apart at that point at DC for me, and I went back with Marvel."
I certainly agree that O'Neil deserves his share of the blame (or credit) for the death or Robin... but it's Starlin who got the career blowback. (Of course, back at Marvel he went on to do Silver Surfer and The Infinity Gauntlet, so at least he landed butter-side up.)
Jim Starlin was fired*
*Or the freelancer equivalent of fired -- he lost his regular gigs with the company.
Ah.
I certainly agree that O'Neil deserves his share of the blame (or credit) for the death or Robin...
You know, I almost said "blame... or credit."
"A Death in the Family" really is a good story, well told. And killing a sympathetic character is a time-honored tradition in fiction in general and comics in specific. It is, I think, the "crassness" of the "1-900 death line" that draws such harsh criticism today. Frankly, getting killed is the most interesting think the Jason Todd Robin, #3a or #3b, has ever done. More on this tomorrow.
Not unlike the way Gerry Conway was blamed, by some, for the death of Gwen Stacy. Marvel made sure everyone on staff knew what was going to happen and there was no marketing angle. I agree that the telephone poll was a grotesque idea.
More on this tomorrow.
Is it tomorriow already?
"A DEATH IN THE FAMILY"
Honestly, I don't know what I'm going to say about "A Death in the Family" that hasn't been said a zillion times before, except maybe to look at it from Jason Todd's POV. First, to address the elephant in the room, I've got to be honest with you: I am and always have been complete indifferent to the 1-900 marketing campaign... not ambivalent but indifferent. I honestly couldn't care less. Back in the day I wanted to participate, but I didn't want to influence the result in anyway. So I called twice: once to kill him off, once to let him live, just to cancel myself out. The "death line" was a controversial move even then, but I saw it then as I see it today: a successful marketing campaign. Today it's rarely ever thought of kindly, but as the cliché has it, "There's no such thing as bad publicity." Here we are, still talking about it, 37 years later. Sound like a successful campaign to me. I very rarely ever hear anyone mention the story, unless it is to say "it's the one in which the Joker beat Robin to death with a crowbar." I hear that almost as often as I hear that Hal Jordan wiped out the Green Lantern Corp in "Emeral Twilight." (That didn't happen, either).
That story opens with Robin being extemely reckless taking down a kiddie porn ring, so reckless, in fact, that the Batman immediately takes him off active duty. Jason blows his cool and storms out of the mansion. Meanwhile, Joker has escaped again after having crippled Barbara gordon in The Killing Joke. Things are so hot for him, not only in Gotham City but the entire United States, that he plans to leave the country for a while. He is short on funds but happens to have access to a nuclear cruise missile ("through a friend of mine in the military who owed me a big favor") which he is going to try to sell overseas. Batman later has to decide whether to track down Jason or the Joker.
Jason, meanwhile, has wandered into his old neigborhood. His parents' backstory has changed somewhat since fist introduced in #408. His father is still a petty criminal who was killed by Two Face, but his mother died, not of a drug overdose, but "by a disease that just didn't care now much love she had in her heart." He is spotted by a former neighbor, Mrs. Walker, who has been holding a box of his parents' belonging for him. Among the verious photographs and report cards and whatnot, he also finds his birth certificate. It is water damaged, but although his name and his father's are clear, his mother's in illegible. He can see, however, that her name began with "S--" something, and the woman he thought was his mother was named "Catherine." Also in the box of his parents' belonging is his father's address book. He searches for names that might match, and finds three. From there he sneaks back into the Batcave and uses the compter to track down their current whereabouts. they are...
Using credit cards given to him by Bruce Wayne, Jason buys a ticket to Israel. Once there, he learns that Sharmin Rosen is working undercover in Beruit and which hotel she's staying in. He's there by noon of the next day, but doesn't know how to proceed from there. Just then he is accosted by Bruce Wayne, who is trailing a man named Peter Brando, who works for the Joker. Jim Starlin explains: "There aren't many hiding places in Lebanon, so [this] isn't really much of a coincidence." After comparing notes they see Sharmin Rosen arm-in-arm with Peter Brando, so they're both working the same case after all.
They follow the pair to a clandestine meeting where Joker is selling the cruise missile to a group of Arabs. When Batman and Robin appear, the Arab leader tries to fire the missile at Isreal, but it blows up on the launcher. (The nuclear warhead did not detonate, obviously.) The Joker gets away and B&R learn from Sharmin Rosen that she is not Jason's mother. Shiva Woosan is somewhere in Beruit, and Batman decides to "stick around" to "make sure that you don't get yourself in trouble." They soon learn that Shiva was apparently kidnapped by four men with machine guns. They track her to the camp where she is apparently being held and take out all the guards only to learn that she has been training them. they learn from her that she is not Jason's mother, either, but they had to drug her with sodium pentathal to do it.
Next they are aff to Ethiopia to find Sheila Heywood, but the Joker is already there. In his quest for financing, Joker is blackmailing her to obtain drugs to sell on the black market. Back in the states, Dr. Heywood botched an abortion, her teenaged patient died, and Heywood lost her license to practice medicine in the U.S., so she's been helping out here every since. When Bruce Wayne and Jason Todd arrive, they find out immediately that Dr. Heywood is Jason's mother. Bruce leaves them alone, but Jason soon learns that the Joker is there. Joker has substituted the real medicine with enough Joker venom to spread over four acres. Knowing he is in over his head, Jason rushes off to find Bruce.
They arrive at camp just in time to see the venom on it's way to kill helpless refugess and famine relief workers. Following the more immediate threat on his one-man copter, Batman begs Jason not to confront the Joker on his own. No sooner has Batman departed, however, than Jason goes to his mother's tent and reveals his identity. she tells him that the Joker has already left camp, then leads him directly to... the Joker! She has been embezzling from the relief effort all along. "If you blow the whistle on the Joker," she explains, "the ensuing investigation would certainly uncover my embezzling." So she sacrificed her son to the Joker. What a peach.
It is at this point that Joker beats Robin with a crowbar. But the beating does not kill him. He then double-crosses Sheila Heywood and leaves her tied in the storehouse with her son and a bomb. Robin revives and unties his mom, but it is too late: they are both killed in the explosion.
And that is the last we see of Jason Todd.
Ever.
Trust me on this.
For those who might not know, Shiva Woosan (real name Sandra) is really LADY SHIVA created by editor Denny O'Neil in Richard Dragon Kung Fu Fighter #5 (Ja'76) as the "Deadliest Woman Alive". He also used her in The Question.
Imagine had she'd been Jason Todd's mother!
I did know that, but can anyone here tell me when she first encountered Batman?
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