The death and return of Jason Todd as Red Hood is one of the most shocking arcs in DC Comics, one that the HBO Max show, Titans has brought to life in its third season. As Batman's second Robin, Jason Todd was murdered by the Joker with a crowbar in the original storyline from Batman: A Death in the Family, an event which severely tested Batman's belief to never kill, not even the murderer of his adopted son. Titans changed the terms of Jason Todd's death, pulling the emphasis away from his relationship with Bruce Wayne in the comics to delving more into how his death and subsequent rebirth left him alienated from the rest of his Titans cohort. And while the show is intended to be gritty, it has skirted away from showing one of the darkest moments in Jason Todd's publication history, one that was instrumental in his journey to become Red Hood.
Red Hood: The Lost Days followed Jason Todd in the years between his death and his official return as Red Hood to the DC Comics canon. In issue two of the series, a teenaged Jason learned from Talia al Ghul that Batman had not avenged his death at the hands of the Joker, filling him with an uncontrollable sense of betrayal and rage (written by Judd Winick, art by Pablo Raimondi and Cliff Richards, colors by Brian Reber, letters by Pat Brosseau). Running away from Talia, Jason made his way back to Gotham City, where he made a concerted plan to kill Batman by blowing up the Batmobile. In order to bypass the Batmobile's security systems, Jason had to crawl across the hood of the car over the course of three hours to remain undetected as he placed the bombs onto the car. Once Batman showed up, Jason nearly detonated the explosives before deciding against it, stating that Batman would've never known that it was him who did it.
The Lost Days puts Batman's two greatest motivators, rage and grief, into new light as it explored them from Jason Todd's point of view. The most painful aspect about Jason Todd's decision to kill Batman here is that he could have been reunited with his adopted father years before he officially returned as Red Hood in the Batman: Under the Hood storyline. But the violent manner of his death and distressing news that Batman had done nothing in response to his murder sharply changed Jason's outlook on everything he knew, making Bruce Wayne an enemy instead of a parent. Coupled with the fact that Jason was still a teenager here, The Lost Days provides a darker look at Jason Todd's return to the DC Universe because it delves into the minutia of his relationship with Bruce Wayne, making their later conflict even more crushing to consider.
Violent parental death is a recurring theme in the Batman mythos, and here Jason turns that on its head by nearly killing his own adopted father, thereby orphaning himself once more. As The Lost Days shows, losing a parent and being lost from a parent severely impacts one's ability to feel safe from the violence of the world. Jason was helpless as he was beaten to death by the Joker, and tries to remedy the fact that Batman could not protect him from everything by taking matters into his own hands and trying to kill his mentor himself. In other words, Jason sees the destruction of his father and of the entire Batman mythos as a way to free himself of his previous life all together, when it really is the piece that links him back to a common experience within the Bat-Family.
Red Hood: The Lost Days provides a look at the emotional costs behind Batman's most central theme, familial loss, as Jason Todd is unable to work through his feelings of abandonment outside a language of violence. And this is perhaps the most damaging part of the Joker's legacy–not only did he kill Jason, he also destroyed his ability to ever feel protected by someone other than himself. By downplaying the relationship between Jason Todd and Bruce Wayne, Titans loses the most tragic part of Red Hood's character.