Warning! Spoilers for Suicide Squad: Get Joker! #1!
It’s a well known DC Comics fact that the second person to hold the mantle of Robin, Jason Todd, was killed off after an extremely close public vote amongst fans calling for his death, and now it’s clear that Jason has an inkling as to why he was murdered in the first place — at least in a meta sense, that is. Reliving the trauma of his death even after being revived has no doubt left a mark on Jason for decades, and now it’s abundantly clear that his character knows a bit more about why that happened than fans originally thought.
Touched on in the opening pages of the latest DC Black Label series, Suicide Squad: Get Joker! #1, by Brian Azzarello and Alex Maleev, Jason is musing over his time as the second Boy Wonder to Batman’s Dark Knight as he sits in a grimy prison cell inside Belle Reve Maximum Security Penitentiary. Talking directly to the reader as he goes about his internal monologuing, Jason lays down the groundwork in regards to his time as Robin, declaring that, “You used to know me as Robin. No, not the happy one,” in reference to the first, bubbly Boy Wonder, Dick Grayson, while simultaneously drawing attention to the general unhappy demeanor Jason’s version of the hero brought to the role.
Going on to let readers know that, “Being Robin was a dream come true, no lie,” Jason continues to list off the reasons as to why a kid from the streets enjoyed his new gig so much. Thinking that he “lived in a mansion” aka Wayne Manor, “had a cool dad” aka Batman, “had a cool mom” aka Alfred, and got to “kick @#$” on top of it, Jason had it all, even asking himself, “what wasn’t to like?” with the answer being something that lines up with the real reason he was killed: himself.
Delving deeper into the idea of what his version of Robin meant to readers and the fictional people of Gotham, Jason thinks, “Like I said, I was the second Robin, and though I liked being that, other people — a lot of other people — didn’t,” Jason starts to allude to the idea that powers greater than himself (like DC Comics fans) contributed to his death more than anything else. Turning the page, readers are greeted by a striking image of Joker standing over a bloody and beaten Jason, with Jason’s thoughts following up his last comment by saying, “So, I died. Died. What a nice way of saying I was murdered,” directly and succinctly calling out disgruntled fans who voted for him to be murdered in the first place.
Broken, beaten and blown up by The Joker, Jason Todd’s Robin career came to an abrupt end in the iconic 1988 bat-story, Batman: A Death In The Family, by Jim Starlin and Jim Aparo, but not necessarily due to either creators’ doing. Infamously asking fans to call in and vote to decide the fate of Jason, DC Comics ended up following fans’ wishes after a narrow majority voted for his demise and killed Jason off, leaving the character untouched for almost two decades until reviving him back into continuity proper.
So while this series will see Jason and the Suicide Squad finally get a chance to take down the psychotic clown that murdered him, realizing the real reason as to why he was killed in the first place — even in a meta way — is a thought that will haunt the character for years to come. And even though ever since his death and resurrection Jason Todd has found his place in Batman’s extended Bat-Family, it can’t be denied that the most brutally iconic moment of his Robin life was all because a bunch of fans didn’t like him, and now he knows it.