Red Hood has always struggled to relate with the other members of the Bat-Family, ever since his revival. He struggles to live up to Batman’s ideals, he has issues with Tim Drake being his replacement, and his relationship with Nightwing used to be far darker. While Red Hood and Nightwing are able to work together now, there’s no denying that originally,, Red Hood was Nightwing’s own personal Joker.
Jason Todd was Robin for four years, before fans voted to have him killed off in 1988’s Batman #428, where he was brutally murdered by the Joker. The character returned over fifteen years later, in Batman #638, as the villainous Red Hood.
Red Hood was an antagonist for Bat-Family for some time, before rejoining them, but in that time, his relationship with Nightwing came to mirror the dark one between Batman and Joker.
Jason Todd’s Relationship With The Bat-Family Will Always Be Complicated
Jason Todd was the second Robin, having replaced Nightwing after he either left, or was fired from the role, depending on the interpretation. While killing him off won the fan vote by a very narrow margin, Jason was nonetheless killed by the Joker. This was one of the biggest victories Joker ever got over the Bat-Family, and would alter the character trajectory of Jason forever. After being dead for quite a while, Jason eventually returned as the Red Hood. During his return, in the iconic Under the Hood storyline, Jason disagreed with Batman’s methods of handling crime and sought to use his own, while still wanting revenge on Batman and Joker.
Grant Morrison Paralleled The Killing Joke With Nightwing And Red Hood
Subsequent appearances saw Jason become progressively more unstable, from becoming a gun-toting Batman in Battle for the Cowl to the absolute maniac he was in Grant Morrison’s Batman and Robin run. The darkest version of Red Hood and Nightwing’s relationship was perfectly shown in Batman and Robin #6. In his most unhinged state, Jason played a very important role to Nightwing’s Batman: his Joker. After Final Crisis, it was presumed that Batman was dead. With no other choice, Nightwing took up the mantle and began defending Gotham City. This led him to fight some classic enemies, like Two-Face, but the one villain Nightwing never fought as Batman was the Joker.
Joker simply wasn’t interested in fighting a Batman that wasn’t Bruce Wayne. This is where Jason surprisingly filled that role. Jason was only Robin because Nightwing left the role, which gave Nightwing a sense of responsibility over how Jason turned out. Just like Batman is often responsible for creating Joker, it was Nightwing who put Jason in the position to become Red Hood. Their relationship was perfectly shown when they mirrored the events of The Killing Joke. At the end of that story, Batman reaches out to Joker, begging Joker to let Batman save him, but Joker only responds that it’s too late for that.
At the end of Batman and Robin #6, Dick Grayson did the same. He reached out to Jason, begging Jason to let him save him, only for Jason to respond that it was too late. One of Jason’s biggest fears in the current continuity is that he’ll eventually become the Joker; Morrison’s story played on this with its Killing Joke parallel – however, unlike the Joker, Jason Todd, in the guise of Red Hood, continues to fight against the pull of darkness. He has largely remained a Bat-Family ally, but with the Gotham War looming, he may make some hard choice that once again put him in the role of antagonist.
This story originally appeared on Screenrant
