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I'm assuming you at least kind of know who Jason Todd is, but if you have absolutely no idea, read on. I broke my usual M.O. and wrote way more than necessary for this page. It even involves quotes and pictures. If it had footnotes I think it'd be more detailed than half of my school papers.

Jason Todd

Jason Peter Todd was born and raised in Gotham City... and it showed from the moment Batman encountered him. On a night in crime alley, Batman found two of the tires missing from his signature vehicle and it wasn't long before the culprit returned for the rest. It was only by chance and a series of coincidences that Jason was even able to remove the tires -- it seemed as if he and the Dark Knight were fated to meet.

Jason became the second Boy Wonder, filling Robin's pointy green shoes after Dick Grayson had graduated to his own hero and taken up the mantle Nightwing. Like Batman's first protege, Jason made the nights of crime fighting and battles with deranged madmen lighter by doing the one thing his mentor never did -- he talked. He joked, he taunted, he rubbed it in.

But one fact put a world of difference between both of Bruce Wayne's sons. Where Dick Grayson was strong-willed but undeniably kind, Jason Todd was different. He was no less righteous, but he was harder and colder. He wasn't afraid of giving criminals what he thought they deserved -- he worked on his own moral code, one that was influenced by an early life on the street.

Bruce: You shattered his collarbone! There were at least ten different ways you could have ended that -- none of them had to involve that kind of damage.
Jason: He's a drug-dealing pimp. I didn't think I had to fluff up some pillows before I took him out.
Bruce: We needed him. He could have talked. He couldn't talk because he was going into shock from the injuries you inflicted.
Jason: You're right. I'm sorry. That was dumb. But that doesn't mean he didn't deserve it.

Where Jason and Bruce would have gone as the Dynamic Duo is unknown, partly due to the Joker but mostly due to a 1-900 number. Jason learns his mother is not his biological one and sets off to find his birth mother. Unfortunately, all he finds is the Joker and a crowbar. His mother has sold him to the Joker and is then double-crossed herself; the Clown Prince of Crime leaves them both incapacitated as a bomb ticks.

Batman does not arrive in time and both Jason and his mother are killed. A case containing Jason's Robin gear is constructed in the Batcave, serving as both a tribute to Batman's lost partner and a reminder of his own failure.

But Jason proves he really is a superhero under the smart mouth and bad attitude by rising from the grave. I wish I could explain to you how exactly this happens since you've read this page so far but all I can say is it involves an evil Superboy punching the crap out of space/time or something. The point is, six months after Jason Todd was murdered he woke up gasping for air -- inside his own coffin.

Though he escapes his grave, Jason was still suffering from wounds inflicted by the Joker. He falls into a coma and no one is even sure if he is brain dead or not. No living relatives can be found; not when crimefighters are not allowed to have fingerprints. It is years before he reawakens with the help of Talia Al Ghul and her dad's favorite hot tub.

The Jason that rises from the Lazarus pit is not the one that went in -- and it is certainly not the one that Bruce Wayne remembers. Jason learns the Joker, the man who brutally beat him and left him to die, Batman's greatest enemy and the murderer of untold numbers... is still breathing. He thought -- he thought -- that his murder would spur Batman to murder just this one criminal, this one unredeemable madman.

Realizing he was wrong twists Jason's heart. He challenges Batman as part of Hush's intricate plot and is destroyed further when his adoptive father and mentor has no visible reaction to his return from the grave.

In the aftermath, Jason rises once again -- this time as Red Hood, the gun-toting anti-hero who will fight Gotham's crime in ways Batman would never allow himself. Red Hood will not only kill and maim the various citizens of the city's underworld, he will also deal with them in their various "businesses".

Jason strengthening work-place relationships with sensitivity and understanding.

Jason made himself into everything he thought Gotham needed. He is as ruthless and unforgiving as any of Batman's various rogues but he is also as clever and rational as any of Batman's allies. He makes enemies of the biggest names in town -- the Dark Knight and the Black Mask. He will do whatever it takes to fulfill his goals, regardless of who it puts him at odds with.

Which, more often than not, is everybody who isn't Jason.

The father had lost a son, and now the son had lost the father. His own mortality had become a wedge between them. And his path was clear. He is Jason Todd. Make no mistake. It is him.

As of my most recent knowledge, Jason is travelling with heroes Donna Troy and Kyle Rayner through the many alternate universes that make up DC Comics' Multiverse. He has taken on the title Red Robin.