As much as I hated the near-fridging of Onyx, OH JASON. Him resurrected is like one of the very few characters that make me go "bweeee" and "ouch" while he's stabbing people and blowing up buildings as the Campy Crimeprince. It's a "bweeee" and an "ouch" of the batshit insane.

Theory time! Maybe Jason being written shittily was an editorial decision to discredit him, because the reasoning behind his vendetta and the place he was trying to make for himself in Gotham along with his methods were, you know, actually quite valid. I think it's a conspiracy. I have seen the secret handshakes.

And ahaha Tony Daniel, no. Seriously, stop that.

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I know what you mean. I bought vol.1 and 2 as my first ever things to buy that got me into it and while hooked, it didn't have make me go OUCH sometimes. It's a very Joker-style mania and I think that's deliberate.

I've been wondering about that. The first time Tim appears to be using a more Jason like tone, he gets bitch slapped a lot as well so you could be right about it being editorial. I think for Jason, this was a great move and one that was forgotten about. They could have played it off with escalation but it feels like they took a cheap way out (extra-traumatised psycho boy) instead of a meaningful (long term effects of killing on him and the city). That's my theory, anyway.

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I first properly encountered Jason in the thing where I got my icon from (which is I was a little baffled that anyone could dislike him, much less pay to have him textually killed), but yeah, I've been giving a huge benefit of the doubt to Winick ever since Under the Hood and beyond. Love it or hate it; I thought it was excellent, and all the more reason to be bitter now that Winick remains the only writer at DC who genuinely likes the character. Or so it seems.

It's a complete mystery to me how anyone would think that Jason (hello, massive brain damage and psychological trauma of sodding dying!) needed any more angst to justify his bouts of crazy. A well-written redemption arc could even lampshade/handwave his behaviour in BftC! (Where is my Jason redemption arc, DC.)

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Where is your icon from? It's really lovely. I give Winick a lot of leeway because I enjoy his Jason so much.

Dying, grave breaking out of and that's just the bloody beginning. He does not need more angst. I want a good arc for him so badly.

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"It's a complete mystery to me how anyone would think that Jason (hello, massive brain damage and psychological trauma of sodding dying!) needed any more angst to justify his bouts of crazy. A well-written redemption arc could even lampshade/handwave his behaviour in BftC! (Where is my Jason redemption arc, DC.)"

I know, right?

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Very much motto.

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Not to mention the known effects of using the Lazarus Pit = homicidal. I'd imagine after the Lazarus!crazy wore off (if it actually does, not sure) you'd see a decline in the sheer amount of rage for Jason. I think he'd still have tons of issues that would make a violent and angry young man, but I would think you'd see an even more cunning Jason instead of the out of control personality he sported in BftC. As much as I liked Winick's writting of Jason specifically (he's the only one who handled him with even the slightest bit of understanding for the character) I do not support his depiction of Batman or Nightwing upon Jason's resurrection. From what we have seen in post-Jason stories where villains (Neron in particular) taunt Batman with the idea of Jason coming back, you'd think that once his initial mistrust of Jason's identity was gone (when Jason proved he was in fact Jason, giving Batman the DNA samples he needed) he would have really stopped at nothing to have Jason back into the fold (Batman, for all his harsh impersonalization, would never let someone he cares about just tear off on a killing spree or even be let out of his sight if only for tons of examinations to find out why they came back = think of Oliver Queen's resurrections and Batman going over him with a fine toothed comb while he was unconscious) But instead we get unrealistic reactions form both Batman and Nightwing (Nightwing may not have been super close to Jason, but Dick's a marshmellow when it comes to family, he wouldn't abandon someone he cares for either no matter what they've done = think Bruce Wayne: Fugitive story arc) The fact that there wasn't a redemption story arc of some kind while Bruce was still alive and kicking is a huge f-up on the part of the writers and/or editorial. You could have milked this concept for two complete arcs: Jason's redemption then Jason trying to get back into the 'family business' and finding out who he is. You could make a another where he goes evil again (the writers love to do stuff like that, look at Raven and Jericho) Jason's character is complex - there's a lot that could be done with him finding out who is apart from the Batfamily - coming to terms with what he's done and if he feels any remorse - and with what a f-cked up childhood this guy must have had before and after Bruce found him. But I suppose that would take too much effort for the writers/editorial folks nowadays to write a successful look at Jason instead of using him as a evil crazy measuring stick for the other boys to work off of.

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Actually, Tony Daniel did admit in an interview that he made Jason black-and-white Evil^TM on purpose because he didn't like that many readers had agreed with Jason's shades-of-grey attitude and he wanted to discredit it.

http://comics.ign.com/articles/972/972153p1.html

IGN Comics: Anytime you work with an anti-hero character I think you always run the chance that some fans will embrace his or her willingness to go the extra mile and actually kill. When I was talking to Judd Winick about his initial run resurrecting Jason, he mentioned he was a bit surprised at fans' willingness to get behind Jason. By pushing him further towards the side of villainy than ever before, were you purposefully trying to make it clear that Jason is not a good guy and is in fact off his rocker?

Daniel: Yes. At this point he is beyond the point of no return in terms of ever being considered even remotely a hero. What I wanted to do here is put him in a place that he can't come back from. The things that he does here in Battle for the Cowl are things that can never really be forgiven. The only outcome would have to be imprisonment or something worse. But from this point on for Jason the gray area between good and bad has disappeared. It's crystal clear now that he is on the dark side.

Truly, nothing says "good writing" like purposefully derailing a character and making him Rape The Dog in a blatantly OOC manner to shove anvilicious morals down the readers' throat.

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Yes, I remember reading that and it made me facepalm like WHOA. I'm hoping it gets reconned as trauma or something.

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I particularly like milleniumrex's explanation

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I don't know what's more horrifying, my off-hand conspiracy theories coming true, or Tony Daniel's bogus shit. Whoa.

So, basically, what we learn from Tony Daniel:
- there are no shades of grey, and mainstream DC's target audience should never kid themselves that there are
- there is apparently something wrong with you if you're sympathetic towards a morally ambiguous character?
- extensive emotional and psychological trauma? Pffft! He's Evil, it doesn't matter his psyche was probably wrung through a paper shredder!
- bad people cant even be good, full stop.

Thanks, Tony Daniel, for the reality check!

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bad people cant even be good, full stop.

Not only that, but even the offspring of bad people can't ever be good, because evil is hereditary. If you are the child of an evil person, then you must be evil.

It doesn't matter if you try to be good, it doesn't matter if you were raised by good people, it doesn't matter if you are part of a team of heroes and have already proved your heroism time and time again. You have Evil DNA, therefore you will eventually become a villain, there is no fighting nature.

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Sorry, I'm with Tony Daniel on this one; Jason has no trace of anything I'd call remotely heroic in him. He's gone WAY over to the darkside and is still accelerating. He murders (and it IS murder) without qualm, he's tried to kill the Batclan more times than most villains have, and sees nothing wrong with his actions. That's not someone I would call a hero.

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He kills those who would hurt others. He could have easily killed Tim in Teen Titans but instead, leaves and admits he's good. I don't think it's heroic but I don't think it's villainous to want to destroy the evils in Gotham by getting down and dirty with them. I can't call that villainous.

Especially not when he tells Bruce that the line should be people like the Joker and he's willing for it to be the line. I kind of agree with him there. There should be a line drawn on what you can and cannot do and in the end, they do all know that Batman will never kill them so more and more people will die. While his methods need work, I think his theology is spot on.

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Of course he's not a hero, and I agree with you. (Personally, I'm fond of the term anti-villain, because anti-hero still does seem like a bit of a stretch even in Winick's run.) He is a murderer, he's batshit crazy, and he's broken. I don't think Jason doesn't see anything wrong with his actions -- it seems to me more like he thinks someone has to do what he does, so he does it. We may, of course, disagree on how we read his actions, but I am definitely behind the idea that Jason's "I'll make a better Batman" wasn't referring to making a better person, but a figure more competent/suited/something for Gotham in Jason's estimation, which, again, is not the estimation of an emotionally stable person.

The thing is, I absolutely loathe cheating Jason out of any moral ambiguity and turning him into a murdering, psychopathic maniac in a way that in no way resembles his previous characterisation -- I highly doubt, for example, that Winick's Jason would shoot or try to shoot a child. I also absolutely loathe all the implications of what Daniel said: that Jason is Evil, and therefore irredeemable, and also unlikeable. (Which is totally a word.) That's just ridiculous, and damaging to the character. And, as I said above, a well-written redemption arc could easily establish Jason as the full-fledged black sheep of the Batfamily, who would still most definitely not be a hero -- but I recognise that that could be seen as potentially bad for the kiddies; maybe Tony Daniel was thinking of the kiddies.

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Oh, I wouldn't call him a hero either.

But the thing is, I definitely wouldn't call him an irredeemable and unforgivable villain, either.

It's the difference between the Punisher and Bullseye. Both are ruthless, both are murderers, and yet I don't find their deeds and souls even remotely comparable.

My big problem with Daniel, the reason he makes me so angry, is that he completely denies the existence of shades of grey. It's all black-and-white to him, all "either you are a sinless hero or you are a complete monster", he refuses to acknowledge anti-heroes and anti-villains.

In UtH, Jason killed deadly criminals, and in particular he targeted those criminals who harmed women and children, shooting and/or beheading them (which, gruesome as it is, is still a quick death); in BftC, Daniel has Jason kill relatively harmless criminals (apparently one of the guys he hung was just a thief), shoot children, and chain random mooks up to make them starve to death slowly.

Do you seriously think that the former and the latter are equally bad? Do you seriously think that UtH!Jason is the same person as BftC!Jason? If so, then we'll just have to agree we completely disagree.

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Jason has no trace of anything I'd call remotely heroic in him.

His ideals still are pretty heroic to me, when he's decently written. He wants to protect the innocent and he wants to save Gotham. I'm not arguing his methods, but it seems like a noble goal. His definition os 'innocent' is not completely skewed either, so there's still that.

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*sighs* Yeah, I remember reading that. I don't think I've ever wanted to strangle a writer more.

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Ahahaha

Oh man, it's almost precious seeing writers use phrases like "point of no return" and "ever being considered even remotely a hero".

GUYS. COMICS.

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I think he mistook empathizing with a character for agreeing with his methods. While he saw nothing but a monster most fans saw a lost little boy that needed to be saved by his family.

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I would say 'some fans.' Or 'many female fans, but not all.' Because I see him pretty much like TD does.

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Of course the writer might not consider them anvilicious. And if he's willing to cross one line why wouldn't he cross another? At what point do you decide it's OOC?

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When a character who's made a goal of killing the dealers who sell drugs to kids ('kid' in that context including 'high-school students' as well) shoots a ten-year-old without so much as an explanation, he's clearly OOC.

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He's not been derailed. I've always considered Jason to be evil from the time he was retconned into his current origin. He was just being watched too closely when he was Robin to really get away with much, yet he still managed to push a guy off a ledge and other stuff. Once that leash came off, though, we see his true colors: he's a thug, a murderer and a sadist who likes to dress up his wallowing in his basest instincts as 'justice' or 'going the extra mile' when all that really is is behavior just as sick and criminal as anything the Joker does.

Really, anyone that gets behind the 'yeah, some people just deserve killin' without a trial or any of that pussy stuff' deserve to be reviled. I think it would have been better for Daniel to come out and say 'you guys know Jason is and always has been a /bad guy/, right? Right?'.

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This makes me sad and very disappointed.

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