Almost no one else in DC Comics can rival Red Hood when it comes to having physical and emotional scars to spare. As seen in an exclusive from Entertainment Weekly, a variant cover dedicated to the second Robin, Jason Todd, from the upcoming Robins series illustrates this fact to steamy effect. The variant for Robins #2 by artist Nick Robles features a shirtless Jason Todd with dramatic Y-shaped scar on his torso and a white streak of hair. The direction and shape of the scar is consistent with incisions performed during an autopsy, being a dark reminder of the second Robin's violent death during Batman: A Death in the Family.
Red Hood has never officially been shown with an autopsy scar in comics until now. It has never been formally stated in the comics if Batman ordered an autopsy to be performed on Jason's body after his death. His appearances in the Batman: Under the Hood storyline and the series, Batman: Red Hood: The Lost Days from writer Judd Winick both depict him without a scar from an autopsy. That said, he is frequently shown in fan art with the combination of the white streak of hair and the autopsy scar, which Nick Robles has drawn in the past.
Robles's cover does not shy away from the fact that Red Hood has as many physical scars as he does emotional ones, and his demise helped redefine how death worked in superhero comics. With fans having narrowly voted to kill his character off in 1988, Jason had remained as irreversibly dead as Spider-Man's Uncle Ben for years up until his brief appearance in Batman: Hush in 2002 and subsequent return with the Under the Hood storyline in 2004. Though his character has come to grow beyond the gruesome details of his murder and the shocking effect that it had on both characters and fans alike, Robles's inclusion of the autopsy scar literally puts this history onto his character design.
While it is debated whether or not Jason Todd would still have such a noticeable scar after emerging from the Lazarus Pit, its inclusion on Robles's cover speaks to not only his character's journey, but also the role that fan interpretations can play in a character's appearance in comics. For many Red Hood fans, the autopsy scar is at once a reminder of the horrible death that Jason experienced at the hands of the Joker, while also being a testament to the growth and healing that his character has experienced in the wake of his resurrection. Red Hood's appearance on the cover of Robins #2 is thus a nod to how Jason Todd has been reinterpreted by fans over the years, reflecting the qualities that they are drawn to most about his character.
With Jason Todd's autopsy scar becoming an official part of comics canon in Robins #2, DC has the opportunity to reconsider how his character design can reflect not only fan interpretations, but the legacy that Red Hood has in a more general sense. Jason Todd is one of the most high profile examples of death's impermanence in superhero comics, and the inclusion of his autopsy scar on Robles's smoldering cover will undoubtedly remind fans of this fact.