Dc can keep trying to tell me that Damian and Jason didn’t know each other when Jason was newly resurrected but I will continue to ignore them bc this dynamic is everything to me
Okay, building off what I’ve been bitching about in my reblogs for the last few days about how no one ever allows Jason to center his trauma and instead push themselves into the “spotlight”: Another way writers will tend to do this is by telling the readers about how “what a bad robin Jason was” (to make us feel bad for everyone else who had to “deal with him”)
Writers tend to retcon Jason’s OG run because they never read it and are mean want us to empathize with Bruce(or whoever) and/or prop up their preferred character. It’s to show what a struggle it was to work with Jason, how emotionally volatile he was, how he couldn’t do anything right, had no work ethic, etc etc. We lose the heartbreaking, tragic story of a young boy who had nothing and no one who then gained the entire world only to have everything he cared about ripped away from him with one of the most gruesome deaths in comic book history. These retcons center around the idea that:
A. Bruce failed to save Jason(in life and, when he comes back, morally which further pushes the idea that Jason was always destined to be who he is as The Red Hood)
B. How Jason was Just a Bad Kid and there was Nothing anyone could do about it
C. Jason couldn’t be saved, he was destined to die, yet Bruce tried his hardest to steer Jason away from “becoming a criminal”(ignore the fact that Jason said he didn’t want to partake in that lifestyle, The Rich Man savior complex and the classism in the idea that all poor people are/will be criminals rather than on the that poverty is the real enemy and is what breeds crime(rather than the people themselves), and the fact that vigilantism is literally illegal making every single mask a criminal. I digress, go batman *woo*) so readers feel bad about Bruce not completing his “mission” and how that makes him feel rather than he lost his and for the dead kid
D. Etc. Etc. You catch my drift. The retcons are to push the idea that Bruce has the most emotional turmoil surrounding Jason’s death, to martrize and destroy the memory of a 15 year old boy, and to make readers sympathize with Bruce for ever taking in Jason to begin with because he got nothing out of Jason expect a loyal soldier(who is either God’s greatest warrior or the worst sidekick ever bc both are “true” at the same time) and absolute misery
The thing is, these retcons don’t make me feel sympathetic towards Bruce(or whoever) at all but towards Jason. Bruce narrating in Hush “all Jason had was rage” and “…saw being Robin as a game…”, Dick in Dixon’s Nightwing: Year One “Maybe [Bruce] hired him before Joker could”, Alfred in UtRH “had a mean streak…Jason was dangerous”
(Keep in mind, all those statements are Pre-Jason’s-resurrection about a 12 to 15 year old child, my god. Don’t even get my started on non-canon compliant comics like Batman: The Adventure Continues mmmmm rage)
Anyway, my point being is, if Jason was so bad at being robin then why did everyone allow him to fight crime? As Bruce is Jason’s primary caretaker then that would mean he knew Jason was unprepared and unfit to fit crime, yet he still sent Jason out in spandex anyway. This reads as him being a shit batman and an even worse father who’s ready to put a kid who never had anything in harms way for the advancement of his own mission. Rather than addressing the issues that Jason’s emotional outbursts and (so-called OG) violence stems from with therapy and healthy outlets, Bruce actively made those issues worse by only giving Jason Robin as an outlet for his trauma (such as Bruce does for himself). Bruce takes a traumatized boy and places him back in a position to watch those same events that traumatized him happen to other people, every night, with no emotional support, meaning he never got to leave the survivor’s mode he lived in for the first ~13 years of his life.
Furthermore, all these retcons are trying to relieve Bruce of guilt over Jason’s death as Jason “had it coming” and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it meaning Bruce can in no way be at fault. But as seen in these retcons, Bruce says Jason was unfit, but neglected parenting him, neglected helping him in any long (or short) term manner. He doesn’t see Jason as a son, Bruce sees Jason as a Job. A Mission. A Chore. Something he needs to Fix and recreate in his own image. This leads Jason to run off to find Sheila making Jason’s death inherently Bruce’s fault. Which is counterproductive to what writers are trying to do, yet that’s what comes across in these retcons. Jason’s only outlet is robin, he is made to believe that his only worth is in how well he can take & throw a punch, Bruce takes away Robin, Jason realizes that Bruce thinks he’s not good enough as a sidekick therefore doesn’t need him anymore, believing then Bruce is going to send him away back to the streets because he needs a solider & Bruce never actually loving him, finds out he has a living bio-mother, runs away to find her so she can protect him and so he’s not alone again(even though she’s the one who abandoned him at birth) who then sells Jason out, and, finally, *Boom*…. literally
Here is a man who supposedly has a plan for everything and then a back up for in case those go wrong. Bruce says Jason was distraught over what he saw as Robin and how he was getting angrier and angrier, but he Bruce is never shown to be helping Jason work through those problems. Jason’s left to deal with them on his own which he doesn’t know how to do. He’s a child who’s never been offered solid guidance before. Children aren’t born with common sense, how is Jason supposed to fix a problem on his own when he’s never been offered guidance on how to do so? So the emotions fester, and the story being written is that Jason doesn’t even like being Robin, but Bruce continues to place him out in the position and Jason believing he has to take up that role so he can stay in the manor. This further pushes Jason’s mentality into all his worth is in Robin and once more pushes the “Good Solider” complex. The memorial in it of itself, as Jason comes back into the folds, also pushes the idea that Bruce only cared about Jason in what he could offer Batman; Jason couldn’t just be enough as himself. The continuous standing of Jason’s glass coffin and half-assed epithet further humiliating Jason with the “knowledge” that no parent has ever loved or wanted him.
We move from a tragic story of a hopeful, yet traumatized homeless boy who was given the opportunity to do an array of things he never thought possible (sleep in a warm bed, three meals a day, help others like him, go to school) who then had all of that ripped away because he just wanted to meet his mom to a story of severely abused, powerless boy turned miserable child solider who had been beat around all his life, having no say or choice in being robin, never given the time, attention, patience, support or help he desperately needed and deserved, dying alone without knowing what being lovedorhappy even felt like
Because in these stories, Bruce doesn’t love Jason. He has no faith in him, he sees him as a problem and mistake he should have never taken in, he sees Jason as a failure, he regrets, not Jason dying because he had so much more life to live, but him existing in Bruce’s life to begin with. This is a Batman I would, and do, blame for Jason’s death. You have a boy who only wanted safety and love and is trying to find it in any place he can, even if that person’s a random stranger who has already abandoned him.
Therefore, I don’t feel bad for these characters when they bag on Robin Jason in these retcons because clearly no one helped him. No one cared. And he spirals, and in these retcons, never knowing a day of peace, safety or happiness till his infamous murder leading him to even more scorn from everyone. He had nothing only to gain nothing of anything except heartache. And authors will write these stories like “Don’t you feel bad for Bruce? Aren’t you glad we have shiner, better robin with less problems? Aren’t you glad that that terrible kid died? I sure am!” They give Jason so much more trauma, he wants to be back in this family(as RH) who is written as not even wanting him around to begin with, because that’s the most loved he ever felt. And that love is So Abusive, and yet, this heartache of Jason’s, in these retcons, is written as “He causes so many problems for me!” These retcons aren’t written to show Jason being angry at Bruce for not being there. These retcons are written so we hate Jason for being “unloved”and “unlovable” and to center how much of a struggle that is for everyone else rather than for the child.
Once again, no one cares about how Jason feels or how this would effect him, just like how people only care about Jason’s death in relation to themselves and their struggles rather than how that trauma would effect the murder victim.
okay okay I love the idea of Dick telling “When I Was Robin” stories and being really annoying and just never shutting up about his Robin days. but like wouldn’t it be even funnier if he’s talking to Bruce and then just says “Well when I was Batman…” and Bruce literally feels his soul leave his body
Didn’t know John Constantine flirting with Bruce Wayne was something I needed in my life, but turns out it absolutely is. Give me more flirty Constantine, please
Dick comes to visit at the manor for the weekend. He begins to settle down in his old bedroom when he hears a pulsating, grinding sound in the distance. Music.
Dick: uh oh
Duke, passing by in the hall: Oh hey Dick. How’s—
Dick: Shh. Wait. Do you hear that?
Duke: what
Dick: It can’t be. Nonono. I can’t live through this again, please— *sprints toward the Batcave with Duke following behind him*
Duke: Dick, what’s wrong? I’ve never seen you like this
Dick: *running down the stairs to the cave* Nooooooo please God no—
The music grows louder. The sound of an electric guitar tears through the cave.
Dick, covering his ears:Nooooo
Duke: The fuck is this—
Bruce, hunched over in a corner and smearing greasepaint around his eyes:MCR released a new single Dick can you believe it it’s almost been a decade Dick listen
Dick, flashing back to Bruce’s emo phase, replays a few key memories from his childhood:
Bruce sitting on the roof in the rain while Dick yelled at him to help with his homework
Bruce crying after Dick stomped his headphones to pieces
Dick trying to get Bruce to wash the makeup off his face before attending a parent teacher conference
Bruce “I am a Bat. I am a Shadow. I am Darkness” Wayne trying out an even longer cape and tripping over it while Dick cringed in the background and Joker actually looked embarrassed
Dick putting on ABBA during training and Bruce threatening to ground him
Bruce playing the electric guitar at 3:00 AM on a school night
Dick cutting the strings of said guitar just before he moved out, leading to one of the greatest blowout arguments Wayne Manor has ever seen. (Alfred had had to spray both of them with a fire extinguisher)
Duke, tapping Dick’s arm: Hey. Are you okay, or..?
Dick blinks and comes back to the present. He glances back at the corner and sees this as the song comes to a crescendo:
Dick:Nope. I’m not dealing with this again. I’ll see you all in a few months. Duke, good luck.
