In this session, the Renegade Robins Club will look at Jason Todd’s encounters with the Joker during the Death of the Family storyline! If you have not read the main issues of this event from the pages of Batman (2011), then be sure to check out this recent session by the Dick Grayson Fan Club alongside our readings! Discuss this story in the comments below!
Poll Question: Should the Outlaws work with the Titans more often?
Yes, please!
Nah.
Only if Jason can lead the Titans!
0voters
The @RenegadeRobinsClub will rejoin the Outlaws in two weeks as Jason joins the League of Assassins! Next week, join Damian Wayne for Dark Knight vs White Knight!
I’m not a fan of the way they made Joker responsible for Jason becoming Robin. It makes Joker seem almost clairvoyant. How could he have possibly known things would play out like that. I haven’t finished all the readings yet; I just wanted to chime in about this.
Yeah, I never cared for that either. I was glad they restored the original version in Rebirth. I choose to interpret this as the Joker lying to Jason to try to get under his skin.
Oh, yes: I’m never a fan of the “major villain from a later story is retroactively made into a major villain in the origin story” approach to storytelling. It’s irritating enough to see the Joker getting excessive nods in post-Killing Joke Barbara Gordon origin stories, but this is ridiculous.
I was NOT a fan of that particular addition to Jason’s origin story. Personally I treated the whole ‘story’ Joker told as being something he fabricated in his own mind and that he maybe believed but wasn’t actually what happened.
That’s always how I took it – for one thing, if Joker, in his mind, can have multiple origins, why not other people? For another, that was a common thread in a lot of the Death of the Family tie-ins, where Joker would basically invade the Bat-Family members and play with their heads, essentially telling them, “You wouldn’t be here without Batman, and Batman is lesser for having you.”
And really, even if it’s true, even if Joker did a lot of things he said he did…in the end, it’s a nature vs. nurture thing, really. Joker may have set the field, but Jason was the one who actually did it all. Bruce is right in the end of #17 – Joker didn’t make Jason, he didn’t make Jason, Jason made himself.
I agree. Jason was the one who was responsible for his own choices. Not Joker. Not Bruce. Jason. Those choices shaped his life and Joker had absolutely no control over them.
