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There's been a lot of discussion about Jason Todd showing up in the latest B&R with red hair. Which means that Judd Winick has decided to go with Grant Morrison's retcon about Jason's hair color. I didn't feel passionately about it either way, but having now read the issue I will say
Morrison's retcon was pretty much about meta, as far as I can tell. Because that's what Morrison usually writes about. His Joker, for instance, isn't so much someone who is funny as someone who bases crimes on his knowledge of jokes that exist. Characters talk about their relationships to other characters by describing their roles in canon as Morrison wants them to be etc. Jason has red hair, as far as I can tell, because it's a reference to the original Jason Todd who was retconned out. That Jason was a Dick Grayson clone (not literally--he just had a way too similar backstory) with strawberry blond hair--until marketing rebelled. So Jason dyed his hair--in fact, I seem to remember it was his idea.
Morrison grafted some of that onto the post-Crisis Jason, who always had black hair and was a different kid. And he added a symbolic twist to it. Now, according to Jason, Bruce forced Jason to dye his hair to look like Dick. He said it was so that people would still think of Robin looking the same way, but really it was about Bruce symbolically wanting Jason to be Dick, which is the basis of much of Jason's angst.
I don't have too much trouble with this retcon, though I don't see it as fact given all the stories where he's got black hair while in a coma or black hair before he's actually met Bruce. But reading the issue every time I saw Jason I saw somebody who was more likely Roy Harper's brother than Dick Grayson's.
And more importantly, it seemed like it was actually making a weaker symbolic point. Some people think making Jason red-haired is playing into a bad stereotype of the red-headed stepchild etc., and I don't see it that way or have a problem with his hair being red in itself. But the Wayne boys all having black hair is already making a point. It means they're all Robins but you have to find subtler qualities that distinguish them. This is why people get annoyed when they're drawn looking too much alike. Not just because they don't imagine them looking alike, but because their physical differences are usually tied to character: Bruce is tallest and brawny. Dick is lithe and dancer-like. Jason is the bulky brawler. Tim's shorter and less defined by his physicality. Damian's a trollish looking child.
Jason looking like the rest of them stresses that he is one of them. He's a Wayne boy. He's a Robin. He's Dick--but not. He's Tim--but not. Making him a red head is just sort of...it's so much of a physical difference it undermines the different personality. I think some people see it as saying "See, Jason should never have been a Robin--his hair color showed he was a wrong choice." But Jason was never a wrong *enough* Robin to warrant something that obvious. And anyway, there's little interesting in Bruce making a completely wrong choice in terms of how Jason relates to the others. It's a cop-out, really. This isn't Bruce using Stephanie to get to Tim or missing who Jason really was. Sure Bruce was not in the best frame of mind when he chose Jason II and that did play into Jason having problems (setting him against Dick, Dick not being involved enough), but that history is more obvious when Jason looks like everyone else than it is when he looks like Roy's Big Brother. Since the similarities are established, you want those funhouse mirrors up whenever the Robins relate to each other.
One other note, having read Gates of Gotham I also miss the Cass that had communications issues. Not complaining about her appearance at all, but I still always associate Cass with her original origin and limits of communication. When she just drops in with a bare midriff and reports on suppliers she seems like anybody. Though her line about "I should have been able to stop it" is in character. But then I am biased, I like less verbal Cass. Obviously it's only one scene and I'm not going to judge the character completely on that, but her entrances used to be more dramatic.
Morrison's retcon was pretty much about meta, as far as I can tell. Because that's what Morrison usually writes about. His Joker, for instance, isn't so much someone who is funny as someone who bases crimes on his knowledge of jokes that exist. Characters talk about their relationships to other characters by describing their roles in canon as Morrison wants them to be etc. Jason has red hair, as far as I can tell, because it's a reference to the original Jason Todd who was retconned out. That Jason was a Dick Grayson clone (not literally--he just had a way too similar backstory) with strawberry blond hair--until marketing rebelled. So Jason dyed his hair--in fact, I seem to remember it was his idea.
Morrison grafted some of that onto the post-Crisis Jason, who always had black hair and was a different kid. And he added a symbolic twist to it. Now, according to Jason, Bruce forced Jason to dye his hair to look like Dick. He said it was so that people would still think of Robin looking the same way, but really it was about Bruce symbolically wanting Jason to be Dick, which is the basis of much of Jason's angst.
I don't have too much trouble with this retcon, though I don't see it as fact given all the stories where he's got black hair while in a coma or black hair before he's actually met Bruce. But reading the issue every time I saw Jason I saw somebody who was more likely Roy Harper's brother than Dick Grayson's.
And more importantly, it seemed like it was actually making a weaker symbolic point. Some people think making Jason red-haired is playing into a bad stereotype of the red-headed stepchild etc., and I don't see it that way or have a problem with his hair being red in itself. But the Wayne boys all having black hair is already making a point. It means they're all Robins but you have to find subtler qualities that distinguish them. This is why people get annoyed when they're drawn looking too much alike. Not just because they don't imagine them looking alike, but because their physical differences are usually tied to character: Bruce is tallest and brawny. Dick is lithe and dancer-like. Jason is the bulky brawler. Tim's shorter and less defined by his physicality. Damian's a trollish looking child.
Jason looking like the rest of them stresses that he is one of them. He's a Wayne boy. He's a Robin. He's Dick--but not. He's Tim--but not. Making him a red head is just sort of...it's so much of a physical difference it undermines the different personality. I think some people see it as saying "See, Jason should never have been a Robin--his hair color showed he was a wrong choice." But Jason was never a wrong *enough* Robin to warrant something that obvious. And anyway, there's little interesting in Bruce making a completely wrong choice in terms of how Jason relates to the others. It's a cop-out, really. This isn't Bruce using Stephanie to get to Tim or missing who Jason really was. Sure Bruce was not in the best frame of mind when he chose Jason II and that did play into Jason having problems (setting him against Dick, Dick not being involved enough), but that history is more obvious when Jason looks like everyone else than it is when he looks like Roy's Big Brother. Since the similarities are established, you want those funhouse mirrors up whenever the Robins relate to each other.
One other note, having read Gates of Gotham I also miss the Cass that had communications issues. Not complaining about her appearance at all, but I still always associate Cass with her original origin and limits of communication. When she just drops in with a bare midriff and reports on suppliers she seems like anybody. Though her line about "I should have been able to stop it" is in character. But then I am biased, I like less verbal Cass. Obviously it's only one scene and I'm not going to judge the character completely on that, but her entrances used to be more dramatic.
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I haven't read it yet--either of them. I do like the Inmate 357-428 joke but yes! He looks way too much like Roy and making him a redhead makes him another character all together. I don't like it and it looks to me like it would very much feel as though I wasn't reading about Jason at all. A hair color change isn't that big of a deal except when it makes the person look like an entirely different person AND that we are supposed to imagine that he was this entirely different person all along. And it doesn't make sense and his coloring itself is all different and he dyed his eyebrows, too? Did Talia dye him while he was unconscious?
But Jason was never a wrong *enough* Robin to warrant something that obvious.
I think you've got a really good point about him now looking too unlike the other brothers. It's like it's now about accentuating their differences physically when the differences have all be emotional differences, always. I mean, true, he was always the bulky brawler, Dick is more like a dancer, etc. But even though, say, Dick and Bruce do not have the same physique, they are close enough that Dick can become Batman and it's like he's really Batman to Gotham. (Not Bruce or Dick, just Batman.) Their major differences are emotional and now they've just made him physically VERY different, both from his former self and from his brothers.
That is really too bad about Cass being more generic these days. I really did like that the language thing was so interesting about her. (And of course she's got a bare midriff. Of course.)
Also, lol Damian IS a trollish-looking child.
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Cass was very generic, it seemed to me. She could have been anybody. And I didn't get the bare midriff thing.
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Whoa, that's kind of creepy actually.
And mostly unrelated, but Patricia found this the other day and you know I always send you my weird Batman stuff so: Holy Homoeroticism, Batman!
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