Batman has always had the longstanding trope that he collects angsty teenage orphans, trains them and sends them out at nighttime in the brightest outfit possible in little skimpy shorts to be the bullet magnet while he runs for cover in the shadows. I can count 7 Robins, but I’m sure there's still more out there.
Jason Todd has taken over the mantle of Robin from Dick Grayson and has been serving as Robin since batman 368, that all came to an end in batman 428 when ROBIN DIED!
Jason Todd was so unpopular at the time that DC planned to write off the character and had even suggested giving him AIDS, but instead they opted to do a poll.
In Issue 427 batman pulls up, and the building explodes with Robin inside, which ends on a cliffhanger... But on the back cover there is an ad to save Robin.
Readers were left with a choice, Save Robin or turn him into Crispy Fried Robin.
When the poll finished the votes stood at 5,343 to 5,271 and that equates to 72 people that would rather kill Jason. And they did!
The issue shows the building destroyed and Jason lying in the remains and cold to the touch, Batman pronounces him dead to the readers… This all after he has been mercilessly beaten by Joker with a crowbar in the last issue.
It didn’t take long for DC to replace Jason as Tim Drake appeared on the scene in issue 436. But this isn’t the end of Jason's story because he makes a surprise return in batman 635 when a new criminal shows up to Gotham claiming to be the Red Hood, which we all know was the jokers original mantle before falling into Ace chemicals and becoming the clown we know. The Red hood is revealed to be Jason Todd resurrected. The under the red hood story has become iconic to DC readers and red hood, a beloved character in the DC universe.
But have you ever wondered What if red hood never existed? What if Jason hadn’t died? Well, in 1988 they had both endings sitting ready to be sent to the printers, so DC announced they were going to release the alternative ending in a one-shot called Robin Lives. The premise is the same up until that scene where batman sees robin in the rubble and runs over to find Jason's corpse, but instead Bats lifts Jason and shouts “he’s alive”, it’s a bit on the nose, but that’s it.
Not much else happens.
I’m glad they killed Jason when they did, he was a crap character, and the robin lives one-shot is not much over than a gimmick, until DC announced that they were going to carry on the story in a 4-issue miniseries of the same issue. The series will explore the repercussions of trying to kill robin, with Batman and Robin getting revenge on the clown prince of crowbars.
