there’s a pattern in 80s comics when it comes to jason (his origin story, barr’s run, his meeting with dick, his meeting with his possible “mothers”) and it’s that jay trusts relatively easily. he is usually hostile and cocky upon meeting people, simply because he is looking out for danger, but in some cases it lasts literally moments before he easies into smiles. this does not mean, of course, that he trusts people with everything right away; that he trusts them not to leave him behind for example, that he trusts them to take care of him; for that, he still needs to develop an actual relationship as any other person. he still has attachment issues. but it’s so important in his storyline that he was quite trusting and easy to impress and that he desperately wanted to connect with people. that’s the whole thing. that his innocence survived so far. and that it costed him everything when he met sheila.
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“weird how corps will hire you for missions right after you kill a bunch of their own soldiers for their rivals, like do you think they know?”
bro that’s so crazy it’s almost like capitalism alienates us from the product of our labor so in a future where murder is sanctioned under capitalism nobody would even think to hold you accountable when you murder their friends and comrades because it’s “just a job, 621” and it’s literally not your responsibility, you didn’t make the call, you don’t have any agency, you’re just the unlucky dog who did the job and assumed all the risk and put your life on the line bobbing and weaving through enemy artillery and also paying for all your own ammunition and mech repairs cause they don’t even give you that cause you’re an independent contractor, it’s just a job, it pays the bills, specifically the bills from when you literally lobotomized yourself to become an inhuman killing machine for the sake of your career advancement. it’s like nobody holds you accountable because
under capitalism nobody even sees you as a human
y’know?
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i have this weird headcanon of percy and annabeth getting married. they says their vows through sobs, hard for the audience to understand, but they hear each other clear as day. the words tattoo on their skin since they kissed underwater all those years ago. chiron officiates and announce them newly weds. they kiss. percy cries into her shoulder and annabeth holds him amid the crowds tearful applause. sally's awaiting by the door with a pistol in her hands in case a monster wants to try her. it's a beautiful sight really. and i should write this.
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grief is the defining force in "batman" as a title, but one thing that has always been utterly engrossing to me is that jay was once an outlier in what place this theme occupied in his narrative. for both bruce and dick, grief was motivational; grief was what pushed them into vigilantism. while they later utilised it in completely different ways; bruce became more stagnant and "frozen" in that moment, and for dick it was an impulse that made him more dynamic; they both viewed grief as a form of resolve (even if constituting a sisyphean task).
this is not the case for post-crisis robin jay.
jay enters the role of robin after standing up for justice that was based completely on his own moral intuitions and distaste for the criminal authority figure (the ma gunn' plotline). and while grief was there, it never served as an inspiration during his first missions.
the first time grief becomes entangled with his role as robin, it's in the two-face storyline ["batman" (1940) #410 – #411], when jay learns that bruce hid the fact that willis was murdered from him. he spends a day in his bed, before they encounter harvey on patrol, and jay tries at revenge. later, he merely cries, accusing bruce of "sparing him" knowledge of his father's demise– in other words, sparing him grief, while allowing him in the field at the same time. this is crucial in so far that jay doesn't seem to make a connection between combat and his grief. however, in response, bruce lectures jason about how grief inspires revenge, and how revenge has to be tempered into justice.
then grief becomes an important theme in the beginning of 'a death in the family,' something that i find to be often overlooked. first of all, jay is grieving after gloria. second of all, from the dialogue that is nowadays ignored because of all the retcons to the todd family story, we learn that jay is also still grieving after his parents. in "batman" (1940) #426 alfred informs: “i’ve come upon him, several times, looking at that battered old photograph of his mother and father, crying.” to that, bruce contends: “in other words, i may have started jason as robin before he had a chance to come to grips with his parents' deaths.” and so bruce realises that the role of robin has not been beneficial for jay in grieving at all.
after years of mourning without closure, jason looks for the solution for his grief in moving on by finding a new family; since he thinks along with the role of robin, bruce is dismissing him as his son, he goes on the journey to find his biological mother instead. in my eyes, this has always been a salient moment. it shows that jay is still searching for relief in mourning in civilian life. this is his first intuition. of course, it does not stop him from turning to his secret identity when he realises sheila is in danger; it does not protect him from his death either.
but the lesson that bruce tried to teach jason in his early robin days was not lost. it was very much learned, and the consequences are tragic; the plot of the utrh is evidence of that. there, the narrative regarding grief aligns with what it has always been in "batman": it becomes a drive to vigilantism. jay is no longer pursuing closure in the civilian dimension. grief becomes something to be "tempered" into justice. and as bruce knows, the line between justice and vengeance is very thin.
so just as bruce is forever frozen in the loop of the memory of his parents' death, jason is now stuck in the moment of his death (and of the loss of his father.) both of their pleads are: no one else, never again. both of them seem to consider themselves exempt from this rule, subjecting themselves to reliving their pain to keep fighting.
still, the defining difference remains; jay's grief not only motivates his vigilantism. vigilantism is also the primary root of this grief. and years ago, he has not seen grief as a matter to be solved by vigilantism at all.
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