YMMV / Red Hood

• Base-Breaking Character: One of the biggest in Batman media, thanks to his Replacement Scrappy status to Dick Grayson, and the fact that he was deliberately written as insufferable by writers have him gain this status to the readers. Even after his resurrection, his inconsistent portrayals make fans wish that he was never brought back or at least stick to Winnick's interpretation. This has gotten worse ever since the New 52 began and the comics started portraying him in a more consistently sympathetic light with a closer (though still a bit strained) relationship with the Batfamily: Some like the idea of Jason getting some positive character development and healing from his trauma, others think that the new direction does nothing but make him a Karma Houdini and a canon example of Draco in Leather Pants and a third group likes the concept but finds that vast majority of his stories to just be poorly written.
• Broken Base:
  • Grant Morrison's direction for Jason Todd in Batman and Robin can be divisive. Some, particular newer readers who are familiar with Jason mostly through Red Hood and the Outlaws, don't like that he's a villain. Many others, however, consider it to be a unique and fresh direction that cleverly consolidates all of Jason's history into a single character arc, and makes him an interesting foil to Dick Grayson. A prolonged period of poor-to-mediocre Jason Todd stories has left several fans wishing that Morrison's direction was followed up on.
  • Between readers who prefer Scott Lobdell's version of Red Hood and those that prefer Jason under the pen of Morrison, Zdarsky or anyone other than Scott Lobdell. Since Red Hood and the Outlaws and Red Hood/Arsenal ran for almost a cumulative decade, there are many fans who were introduced to the character through these runs and are dismissive of any other interpretation of the character that stray too far from it. Meanwhile, fans of other writers writing Red Hood stories tend to be dismissive of Lobdell's version because of his writing style and questionable choices in characterization.
  • One thing of much content is appearent Adaptational Wimp and Adaptational Dumbass Jason has received since rejoining the Batfamily. Pre-New 52 Red Hood was a dangerous and competent antagonist that gave a genuine challenge to the batfamily. Meanwhile his post-New 52 characterization has largely relegated him to be a tagalong for the other bat-characters, as he lacks any consistent solos that would allow him to be a more independent character.
• Can't Un-Hear It: Jensen Ackles is the definitive voice of Red Hood, thanks to his portrayal of him at Batman: Under the Red Hood to the point that fans are begging for him to be cast in future works. An alternate choice is Troy Baker, thanks to Batman: Arkham Knight.
• Cargo Ship: Jason and crowbar. It’s become a Running Gag that Jason would always get beaten with a crowbar or use the crowbar against someone else. Not to mention he uses one as his main weapon in Outlaw.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Jason has brutally killed criminals and yet he had garnered a lot of fans willing to overlook his past transgressions and even justifying his actions as if he is only killing criminals who deserve it. Never mind that he has threatened to bomb innocents, attempted to kill Bruce, Dick, Tim, and Damian many times, and even tried to replace Bruce as Gun-toting Batman in Battle for the cowl. Red Hood and the Outlaws confirms he still tried to kill Bruce, Dick, and Tim at different points in the past; he's shown to be Easily Forgiven by them.
• Fandom Rivalry: A common occurence among Batfamily fans, especially among fans of individual Robins. Red Hood fans, in particular, have rivalries with Nightwing and Damian Wayne fans, even going as far as to review bomb their solo ongoings on review sites such as Comic Book Roundup.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Fandom loves calling him Jaybird, and later became canon in Red Hood and the Outlaws.
  • GunBats for his psychopathic gun-wielding Batman phase.
  • TentaTodd due to the weird Voluntary Shapeshifting abilities he had during Nightwing: One Year Later.
• Fan-Preferred Couple:
  • Jason/Roy became this in the New 52 due to Jason supplanting Dick as Roy's best friend and Roy and Kori's case of Platonic Writing, Romantic Reading in Red Hood and the Outlaws. They even co-starred in a comic together, called Red Hood/Arsenal, which amped up the Homoerotic Subtext full-force.
  • Jason/Artemis during the Rebirth run. Most fans prefer to ship Artemis with women, and Jason has a Friends with Benefits relationship with Isabela so the fact that this pairing managed to build a solid following is rather surprising. While they did have some ship tease in canon, it was ultimately sunk when they agree to be Just Friends.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Despite Red Hood and the Outlaws being Jason's longest-running title, most fans are happy to mentally excise it from continuity due to sloppy storytelling, as well as the fast and loose characterization with all characters involved.
• Fashion-Victim Villain: In his Anti-Villain days in Grant Morrison's Batman, his "superhero" costume gets derided by fans. It's understandable why as he looks like a walking pill medicine◊.
• It Was His Sled: Jason dying and becoming the second Red Hood is pretty well known to all hardcore and casual comic fans. The movie Batman: Under the Red Hood barely kept this a secret for long once it came out.
• Jerkass Woobie: Out of all the Robins, he has it the worst considering that he grew up on the streets, had his foster mother (drugs), his father (killed by Two-Face/Penguin), his real mother (Joker), and his adopted father (Batman, really lost in time but he didn't know that) all die on him, had his real mother betray him to the Joker when he tried to help her, was brutally beaten and then blown up by the Joker, was resurrected without his memories and forced to dig his way out of his grave and live on the streets, was dunked in a Lazarus Pit to regain his memories, found out that his adopted father had failed to avenge his death, was "betrayed" again when Batman attacked him to stop him from killing the Joker.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships: While not to the extent of Dick Grayson, his Estrogen Brigade means that Jason has quite a number of ships going for him.
• Memetic Mutation: "Red Hood fans hate good writing."^Explanation While Chip Zdarsky's Batman Urban Legends arc for DC Infinite Frontier is widely praised, especially in comparison to Scott Lobdell's mostly derided tenure on Red Hood and the Outlaws, some Lobell loyalists have vocally disparaged Zdarsky on Twitter, Comic Book Roundup, and Comic Book Resources forums for writing Jason as flawed and allegedly less capable in combat. This led to other DC fans mocking◊ them and making◊ memes◊ about them hating otherwise acclaimed works.
  • Fans from Reddit has started to describing Jason as the family jobber, on account of how Jason's skills have been severely diminished since The New 52.
• Misaimed Fandom: Like The Punisher, there is a sizeable section of the fandom who fails to realize that Jason's inclination towards killing is a tragic outcome of terrible things he's suffered in his life and that his lethal methods often fail to stop crime, sometimes even escalating them. Rather, they just see him as the reason why Batman would be "cooler" if he killed people.
• My Real Daddy: Although Jason Todd was created by Gerry Conway, Judd Winick set his status quo as the Red Hood and defined his character for the new millennium, including adaptations.
• Never Live It Down: His death at the hands of The Joker to all comic fans and even by other characters. He's got his general impulsive Jerkass demeanor that made him a solid Scrappy and is the very reason why he was killed.
• Periphery Demographic: He has a large female fanbase thanks to being a Darker and Edgier Pretty Boy with daddy issues (and many others) and was voiced by Jensen Ackles in his animated movie. Tumblr apparently loves him.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: After years of being dead, his return as the Red Hood returned him to relevancy and gained him new fans. He's been rotating in and out of this and Base-Breaking Character after his resurrection since writers tend to write him differently and see what sticks.
• Ron the Death Eater:
  • Batman often receives this treatment from the fanbase due to the strict code of morality that he imposes on Jason and his lack of trust. Sometimes, the writers get into it as well when writing from Jason's point of view, portraying Batman as a selfish Jerkass. Though at times, this gets Anvilicious to the point where Batman ends up coming off as Unintentionally Sympathetic instead, thanks to Jason's status as a Karma Houdini.
  • Jason is also occasionally on the receiving end of this from writers and fans who would downplay his sympathetic qualities to make him far worse than he actually is (Grant Morrisson being a pretty well-known example). For the longest time, Jason as Robin was depicted as being more of a Jerkass than he actually was in order to make it seem like he was never worthy of being a Robin.
• The Scrappy: Before his resurrection in Under The Red Hood, Post-Crisis Jason Todd was hated by quite a few readers to the point that fans eventually voted for him to be killed by the Joker. While an almost equal number of people voted to spare him (it is rumored that at least three hundred of the votes were from the same caller), a lot of people thought that the vote was for the first Robin, Dick Grayson, who was excessively popular amongst a lot of fans, and that's not a rumor.
• Self-Fanservice: Fan artists love to draw him with a streak in his hair despite it only appearing in a few arcs and having been forgotten in the New 52 era.
  • Editorial has acknowledged the fan preferences in recent years in a pretty curious way, while in the main canon Jason is still completely black-haired, his appearances in comics outside of the main canon tend to depict him with the stripe.
• Signature Series Arc: He has two: A Death in the Family, which tells the story of his tragic death, and Under The Red Hood for re-inventing him as a villain/anti-hero. Both stories are used as the main templates for adaptations and spinoffs.
• Squick: Talia kissing Jason and having sex with him in Lost Days is this to a lot of readers considering the age gap, the parent-child dynamic that both share, the fact that Bruce is Jason's adopted father, and who fans consider being Talia's love interest.
• WTH, Costuming Department?: The costume designed by Peter Woods for the Outlaw period has been widely reviled by the fans due to the fact of dropping the iconic red helmet and leather jacket and replacing it with a sleeveless red hoodie and a combination of a domino mask and red muzzle. As soon as the costume was revealed, comparisons with Scorpion/Sub-Zero started dropping everywhere. Strangely, while DC was quick to return Jason to his New 52 costume after people complained about the costume used in Red Hood/Arsenal, the Woods costume has been used for two years and counting, with no sign of being changed anytime soon. To further confuse things up, stories set outside the main continuity (bar Batman: Three Jokers, that uses a costume specially designed for it) always depict Jason in his Rebirth costume.

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