Jason Todd’s brutal murder at the hands of The Joker is one of the darkest moments in Batman’s mythos, but The Clown Prince of Crime may have killed the second Robin to destroy what is left of his conscience. In the post-Crisis DC Universe, Jason Todd was tortured and killed by The Joker in the infamous “A Death in the Family” storyline, and while Todd has been resurrected since then (either by Superboy-Prime tampering with reality, or Talia al Ghul using a Lazarus Pit), it remains one of the Dark Knight’s most tragic moments (and one of The Joker’s cruelest). Batman comics have not always been so melancholic, however, and DC Comics now suggests that The Joker’s horrific murder of Robin was an attempt to end the Dark Knight’s lighthearted era.
Batman is not only one of DC’s most popular and enduring superheroes, but he is also perhaps the most malleable character in the superhero genre, with every new era and adaptation creating a novel new interpretation of the Caped Crusader. While Batman is generally seen as a darker hero with darker mythos, his stories were notably at their most lighthearted in the late Golden Age through the Silver Age, and this family-friendly iteration of the Dark Knight is not only as much a part of the character as the darker eras, but it also inspired famous Batman adaptations like the 1960s television series, the Joel Schumacher films, and the Batman: The Brave and the Bold animated series.
DC’s current, post-Rebirth, continuity acknowledges this lighter era of Batman’s history as canon and offers an in-universe explanation for it in the second story of issue #128 by Chip Zdarsky and Jorge Jiménez. While speaking to Commissioner Gordon, Batman notes that The Joker (and the rest of his rogue’s gallery) became “lighter” following the introduction of Robin (Dick Grayson in this story), while Gordon fears that The Joker, who has returned to his pre-Robin style of brutality, may “infect” Robin. This further implies that perhaps The Joker would go on to murder Jason Todd as a way to solidify his return to his darker crimes.
The Joker Does Not Care Who Is Behind The Mask
Dick Grayson and Jason Todd are each markedly different people, even their respective Robin identities. Grayson was the original and easily the most lighthearted of Batman’s sidekicks, likely having the strongest effect on Batman’s rogues. Jason Todd, while still a hero, was a far angrier and more brutal Robin. None of this matters to The Joker, however, as he’s far more concerned with costumed personas than the ordinary people underneath them, so to him, killing Jason Todd was as much an attack on his and Batman’s lighthearted era as killing Dick Grayson would be.
Why Killing Robin Changes The Joker
The Joker, both in-universe and in the real-world history of Batman comics, begins his villainous career as a ruthless and nightmarish killer before going through a long phase of lighthearted antics that render him more of a trickster than a gangster. Dick Grayson debuted in the midst of Batman’s earliest (and one of his darkest) eras in the comics and Jason Todd debuted after Batman’s lighthearted era ended, but DC’s current continuity has nevertheless found a clever way to make all eras fit together in-universe by having the different Robins represent Batman’s various eras. The Joker became a lighter villain thanks to Dick Grayson’s influence, but he regained his potential for pure evil by killing Jason Todd, changing Batman and the rest of his villains in the process.