The Jason Todd Chronicles #3 & #4. Detective Comics #525 & Batman #359.

Yes! It's time for the most reviled feature on this entire blog, The Jason Todd Chronicles! Seriously, the first two of these posts have gotten like NO views! But they're fast to do, and amuse me, so yeah, here's another. Plus I only have one more new comic to review(Annihilators #4) and I REALLY don't want to read it, so here we are. In order to increase the awesome factor of this post, I'm going to post not one, not three, but TWO old Batman issues!! I know, this is crazy!!!

Detective Comics #525(April 1983):

Apparently some stuff happened in Batman #358 involving Batman and Killer Croc. But since Jason Todd(supposedly) wasn't in that issue, I(supposedly) didn't read it. From Batman's explanation, he fought Croc in Batman #358 and the fight ended with Batman thinking Croc exploded or something... Thanks, Batman! After wandering aimlessly around Gotham City as Bruce Wayne(which you'd think would be kind of dangerous since he's a billionaire and all, and Gotham is filled with all kinds of crazies), Bruce realizes that Croc hadn't exploded as he thought, but was chilling in the sewers. After a quick change to his Bats costume, Bats heads into Gotham's wonderful smelling sewers... What? There must be SOME reason people stay in Gotham, why can't it be the pristine sewers?Jeez, that's a really tacky suit for a billionaire to be sauntering around in...


From that macabre scene(okay, so it wasn't really “macabre”, but I wanted to work the word macabre into this post somehow...), we head to Dick Grayson, who was in the twilight of his Robin days. It seems Dick had learned that Killer Croc's goons were shaking down the circus the Flying Todds were working at, and had enlisted Jason's parents to keep an eye on things and report back to him. We also get the first conversation between Jason and Dick here(to my knowledge), as Dick tells Jason he reminded him of somebody he knew a long, long time ago... Foreshadowing much?Huh, so Jason has always had a thing for Donna Troy I see...


And that about wraps up the Jason Todd segment of this comic... Dammit!! Oh well, I might as well blitz through the rest of this issue... Killer Croc jumps Bats in the sewer system and toys with him for a bit. Bats is afraid of Croc for some reason(which I don't get... The Joker is WAY scarier than Croc!), but manages to break free of a Croc choke hold by falling out of the sewers into some murky Gotham waters. And that's a wrap.Bats really talks to himself an awful lot, doesn't he...


Final Thoughts: You know, for a feature titled, “The Jason Todd Chronicles” this post was awfully short on Jason Todd... I guess I could hang my hat on the fact that it featured the first time Jason and Dick talk to each other(to my knowledge...), but it was mainly more of Killer Croc being pushed as a huge menace. Too bad Croc became... you know, whatever it is he became nowadays, because he started off looking awesome! As opposed to Jason, who sat around in pink spandex lusting after Donna Troy... But hey, even the best of us have to start off somewhere, right?

Batman #359(May 1983):

Having killed Batman in Detective #525(or so he thinks), Croc calls a bunch of mobsters and thugs together to pronounce himself the new kingpin of Gotham's crime scene. The criminals tell Croc that they're still loyal to Gotham's imprisoned kingpin, Tony Falco, so Croc decides he'll do something about that... Oh, and he sends his top goon to the circus to collect the protection money he was extorting from them. That'll be pretty important later on... Trust me on that... Seriously! Why would I lie?Those are some nervy criminals in Gotham! I sure as hell wouldn't be talking back to Killer Croc!


Batman is acting all melancholy after his repeated failure to defeat Killer Croc, while Killer Croc breaks INTO jail to kill Falco. That plan goes perfectly, unfortunately for Croc, his escape from prison leave something to be desired and he sets off the alarms. Bats hears the alarms and heads to the jail, discovering Croc sneaking around on the rooftop. Bats attacks Croc and gets his ass handed to him... AGAIN!So much for all that, “Round three will belong to me!!!” stuff from Detective #525. Oh, and I found that, “Are you hurt?” “Only my pride...” line flat out hilarious... “Bats am sad now...”


Over at the circus, Jason Todd's parents spot Croc's goon strolling out of the circus owner's tent counting money and decide to follow the guy... Um, you two are acrobats, NOT cops!! The Todds follow the goon as he gets into his car and decide to tail him, but the goon spots them and continues to his destination. I'm sure hilarity will ensue and the Todds will get off with a stiff talking to...Poor Jason... His pre-Crisis parents were idiots...


While Commissioner Gordon is telling Batman the sad, sad story that is Killer Croc's origin, the Todds are walking into Killer Croc's trap... Idiots...Um, why isn't Croc wearing any pants?!?!?


Final Thoughts: You know, Detective #526 is the final part of this storyline(I'll review it eventually...), and has Jason donning a costume for the first time... That's kind of surprising to me because Jason was barely in these past few issues! The story revolved around Dick's relationship with Jason's idiot parents and Bats getting his ass kicked by Killer Croc(AGAIN!). You'd think DC would have built Jason up more before killing his parents and sticking him with Batman, but instead they just kind of thrust him into the spotlight all of a sudden. I remember reading the first few comics Tim Drake appeared in, and his eventual path to becoming Robin was more steady than Jason's, “Whoops, your parents are dead! Now you're Robin!” story. If nothing else, I'm glad these first few Jason comics are out of the way, because they hardly featured him doing anything. From this point onward it should be clear sailing as Jason moves from random circus acrobat/Dick Grayson clone to Robin #2... At least until DC decides to retcon Jason's history and I get to chronicle the origin of black-haired Jason Todd... Who is the actual Jason Todd... Well unless your name is Grant Morrison that is, in which case Jason is a bizarre combination of both versions of Jason Todd... Ugh, DC history is SO confusing...

The Jason Todd Chronicles #2: Detective Comics #524

Since I'm not in the mood to do a full review of a new comic right now and with yesterday's surprisingly good DC news(which I shall get to in a moment), I figured I'd bust out another edition of the Jason Todd Chronicles. Shockingly, the NEW BEGINNING!!! of the DCU in September looks like it'll be FINALLY giving us the Jason Todd/Red Hood series all of us Toddaholics have been waiting for. It stars Jason as the Red Hood and is being written by Scott Lobdell, who's work in the X-books I grew up on. It also features everybody's favorite 6 foot tall alien bimbo, Starfire, and Roy Harper as Arsenal... Huh, that actually sounds like a really bad sitcom... Anyway, on the plus side, Roy had both his arms on the cover image I saw, all he needs now is Lian, and I'll be JUST about ready to forgive DC for all of their slights against me, imagined or otherwise. I still won't read ANYTHING with Hal Jordan or Saint Barry Allen in it, nor will I read anything written by Chairman Johns, but hey, at least for today, the news coming out of DC was good for a change. Sure half of their new comics sound TERRIBLE(I'm looking at YOU, Batgirl), and WAY too many are being written by artists(I guess the real writers are avoiding DC), but for now, my anger towards DC is sated. So there's the good news. The bad news is that I have to do a post about a comic starring the goddamn Squid. But hey, you can't win them all...

Detective Comics #524(March 1983):

Well this was a rather brisk comic... It was only 17 pages long... Whatever, let's get to it. We pick up from Batman #357(which was BRILLIANTLY reviewed by yours truly a day ago) with Batman having been tossed into a fish tank with a squid by the Squid. Yeah, I know... Lame, but I MUST soldier on and complete this post! Calling upon his vast knowledge of lame deathtraps, Bats manages to break free of the squid's death grip(that's squid with a lowercase “s”, not Squid with an uppercase “S”) and escape the aquarium and the Squid's warehouse, with only Killer Croc noticing Batman slipping away. The Squid is shocked(shocked I tell you!) that Bats managed to get away, and Killer Croc, thinking what any sane homicidal maniac would be thinking in this situation, tells Squid that he wanted nothing to do with him.Hot DAMN is that one fugly bastard!


Meanwhile, Dick Grayson throws a party at Wayne Manor and invites clowns and stuff to celebrate the Flying Todds circus act. Oh, and for some reason, Commissioner Gordon is there... You'd think he'd have better things to do with his time, but apparently not. Anyway, while Dick is introducing the Todds to the guests, Bruce Wayne sneaks in and motions to Dick that he needed to see him... Alone... Uh-oh! Get the bottom lotion ready!And this ladies and gents is Jason's ONLY appearance in this issue... Standing mutely behind his parents... Yeah, THIS was WELL worth whatever it was I paid for it...


Dick and Alfred go to check on Bruce, who decides to disrobe in the room RIGHT next to the party, holding his Batman shirt in his hand while Dick and Alfred tend to Bruce's squid inflicted wounds. Yeah, I bet that's not gonna come back to bite Bruce in the ass... Oddly enough, Alfred tells the gang that he'd seen similar wounds before on a sailor in England, making England that much scarier to me... I mean are there widespread squid/octopus attacks happening all over England?! Anyway, Jason's mother Trina bumbles into the room while Alfred is patching Bruce up... Whoops! Dick spirits her out of the room, but unless she's a blithering idiot, she's probably figured out one of Bruce's many dirty little secrets.If I had just blown the secret identity I'd held for YEARS to some woman I didn't know, I think my reaction would be a bit stronger then, “Oh.”...


While Bruce is busy sitting around slack jawed, Killer Croc is busy doing what I've wanted to do since I first saw the little creep, blowing the Squid away with a high-powered sniper rifle... Yes, I DID so want to sniper the Squid the moment I saw him!So long fatboy!!! BWA-HAHAHAHAH!!!!


This issue ends with Bats and Commissioner Gordon investigating the scene of the Squid's “tragic” killing. And no, I'm not posting a picture of their conversation because it really wasn't that interesting.

Final Thoughts: Yeah, I'm sure glad I brought THIS comic... So in Jason Todd's first two appearances, he's said a grand total of NOTHING, and appeared in THREE panels... In TWO comics! Well I will say this much, if you were reading these Batman books back in the day, there's NO way you'd ever think Jason would become the character he is today unless you were a) the guy writing these comics, or b) had access to a time machine and traveled forward in time. All I know is this, Jason had BETTER have some major face time in the next Batman comic I read! Dammit!

The Jason Todd Chronicles #1: Batman #357.

Hey gents and gentettes, new feature time... Kind of/sort of... With the impending end of the DCU NEW BEGINNING!!! for the DCU, and with me just ordering a mess of old Batman comics, I figured now would be as good a time as any to do a few Retro type posts on the old blog... All of the Bat-comics I snagged feature Jason Todd, the second Robin. Jason is one of those characters who you either love or hate. There's no real middle ground. I happen to be on the “love” side of that argument, which you probably figured out by the fact that I already stated that I recently picked up a mess of old Batman comics featuring Jason... Hmm... I seem to be rambling again... That usually means I should start wrapping this introduction up... Before I do, two things... The first thing is that I won't be giving these old Batman comics scores. Since they all contain Jason, and they're all old, I figure I'm going to like them, so scoring them just doesn't make sense. If I don't like them, trust me, you'll know from the tone of the post... As for the second thing... Huh, how about that! I completely forgot! Oh well. If I remember what it is I'll just delete all of this and replace it with whatever the second thing was. Okay! Let's get this roving carnival of horror started!!!

Batman #357(March 1983):

Yes, that's right, Jason Todd/Robin/Fake Nightwing/Red Hood/Fake Batman/Gatman/Hair-Dye Man/I think that's all of his nicknames, first appeared in a comic simply titled, “Squid”... I guess it could have been worse. His first appearance could have been in a comic titled, “Cockroach” or “Rat-Bastard” or something similar.Hey, Batman must read my blog!


This one gets stared in earnest with Bats discovering that the deadly, dangerous, incredibly dumb sounding former spy known simply as “The Squid” was making a move to take over Gotham's underworld since Tony Falco(Gotham's former top mob boss) was heading to prison. Naturally Bats tells his BFF Commissioner Gordon this grim news.I guess Bats was still perfecting his whole, “Sneak out the window without Gordon seeing it” act...


Hey, check it out, on the same page we get the first appearance of Killer Croc AND Jason Todd! Cool!Croc is the one in the trench coat. Jason is the kid flipping around on the trapeze. X is the guy typing this. You are the person reading it.


Yes, THIS is the Squid... Not only does he sound like an idiot, he looks like one too! Yeah, if I'M a criminal in Gotham, I'm not taking orders from some goof in purple checkered pants... “Yes I'm the Sqwid, and I weally, WEALLY suck!”


Bats figures that the Squid would try to kidnap and then kill Tony Falco as he left the courthouse(don't ask me how Bats figured the Squid was going to kidnap Falco as opposed to just, oh, I don't know, sniper Falco as he exited the courthouse), so Bats sneaks into the courthouse with the help of a female reporter and switches places with Falco.Um, as the world's greatest detective, you'd think Bats could tell the difference between a man and a woman, but apparently not...


So the Squid kidnaps Bats masquerading as Falco, but Bats sucks as an actor or something and Squid knows it was Bats the whole time. With his cover blown, Bats tears off his fake Falco costume and face, revealing himself, in FULL Batman attire, cape, cowl and all! Now THAT is pretty impressive! “Riiiiiip!” I want to know how he hid those pointy ears under the fake Falco mask!


The Squid sends his henchmen after Bats, and for once, the goons don't attack Bats black ninja style, but attack en mass, beating Bats down. Instead of shooting Bats in the head, unmasking him or something equally smart, the Squid instead instructs his men to toss Bats into a large aquarium containing, you guessed it, a giant squid!! Oh the humanity!!! Bats will NEVER escape THIS deathtrap! That Squid is a tricky customer indeed!Will Batman be able to escape the duel threat of the Squid and his pet squid? Will Bats end up fish food?! Will Jason Todd appear in more than two goddamn panels?!? Tune in next time, same Bat time, same Bat... um, blog.


Final Thoughts: So Jason Todd appeared in a grand total of TWO panels!!! And he didn't speak ONCE! GAH!!!! That means I just spent a mess of money on a comic starring THE SQUID!!!!! I suddenly feel rather ill... Here's hoping Detective Comics #524 has Jason... Oh, I don't know, saying and/or doing SOMETHING!!!What the hell, I might as well post the other panel Jason appeared in too...