Jason Todd

Jason Todd is a character in the DC Comics Universe, he was the second person to assume the identity of Robin, the superhero Batman's partner. Initially a superhero, he was killed off in 1988 as a result of a telephone poll in which readers voted to have the character die at the hands of Batman's adversary, The Joker. In 2005, he was resurrected as the antihero Red Hood, a vigilante who uses more lethal methods than his mentor.

Batman: Under the Hood

 * That looks like it's gotta hurt. Well, I say that like I'm speculating or something. I know it hurts.


 * I seem to have made myself an enemy of all the bad guys.


 * (after Batman tries to redeem him)"It's too late...you had your chance...and I'm just getting started." - Under the Red Hood


 * (confronting Batman at the Ace Chemicals building) "Hard to forget that night, huh? In a way, Batman, this was the site of your first great failure. Maybe your greatest, but certainly not your last, right? Ah, memories.


 * You can't stop crime! That's what you never understood! I'm CONTROLLING it! You want to rule them by fear but what do you do to those who aren't afraid?! I'm doing what YOU won't! I'm taking them out!


 * (after beating The Joker to a pulp) Now tell me... How does it feel?


 * (to Batman) Is that what you think this is about? That you let me die?! I don't know what clouds your judgment worse. Your guilt or your antiquated sense of morality. Bruce, I forgive you for not saving me. But why, why on God's Earth..." (kicks open a door, revealing the Joker.) "...IS HE STILL ALIVE?!?


 * (to Batman, about Joker) Ignoring what he's done in the past-blindly, stupidly disregarding the entire graveyards he's filled, the thousands who've suffered, the friends he's crippled. And I thought...I thought I'd be the last person you'd ever let him hurt. If it had been you that he'd beat to a bloody pulp, if he had taken you from this world, I would have done nothing but search the planet for this pathetic pile of evil, death-worshipping garbage...and send him off to hell!!


 * (after Batman explains why he never killed the Joker) Why? I'm not talking about killing Penguin or Scarecrow or Dent. I'm talking about him. Just him. And doing it because... Because he took me away from you.


 * Hey...It's going to be hard to learn a great many things about me, but one I'll give you for free... I am no one's son.


 * (to Onyx) "What do you think this was all about? We were going to rough these guys up and teach them a lesson? Welcome to planet Earth, baby! These dead sacks of meat on the floor made their living by beating, raping and devouring! Fear isn't the answer!"


 * You son of a b****." (about Batman, after returning from the dead and seeing that the Joker is still at large)


 * Yeah, well if you want answers to questions beyond reason...there is a guy in Arkham Asylum who wrote the book on crazy
 * Countdown

From Outlaws series

 * My name is Jason Todd. Or better known to the NSA, CIA, Homeland Security, FBI, KGB, Mossad and Interpol as the Red Hood. (Red Hood and the Outlaws Vol 1 32, 2014; by Scott Lobdell)


 * We were friends, helping each other pick up the pieces of our lives. We were OUTLAWS! (Red Hood and the Outlaws Vol 1 40, 2015; by Scott Lobdell)


 * It might not be a popular thought but not everyone wants to be alive (Red Hood and the Outlaws Vol 2 3, 2016; by Scott Lobdell)


 * My best friends are a Superman clone and a stray Amazon. I like to think I'm an open-minded guy. (Red Hood and the Outlaws Vol 2 15, 2017; by Scott Lobdell)


 * Listen to the city on the other side of the walls. The cars racing to places people don't want to go. The ambulances racing from horror to hope. Listen to the people shouting and laughing and loving and fighting and giving birth and taking lives. Listen for the heartbeat among the chaos of Gotham City... like I did when I was a kid and slept on the sidewalk on more than one night. There is a world out there in this one city. Can you hear it? (Red Hood and the Outlaws Vol 2 4, 2017; by Scott Lobdell)


 * My name is Jason Todd. In my short lives, I've been a homeless kid --...and an outlaw. To name a few. Now? God help us one and all... I'm a teacher. (Red Hood: Outlaw Annual Vol 1 3, 2019; by Scott Lobdell)


 * Funny, I actually escaped death...but one life later, the past keeps dragging me back (Red Hood: Outlaw Vol 1 48, 2019; by Scott Lobdell)


 * I may not have been the best sidekick in the world... I was craptastic as a super-villain... but I'll be damned if I wasn't a hell of an Outlaw. (Red Hood: Outlaw Vol 1 50, 2020; by Scott Lobdell)

Other

 * See, now? If Bats were here, he'd have explained that I wasn't probably supposed to do that. He'd say there are better ways to spend your energy. "You're a Robin. Be a Robin." That's what he'd say, if Bats was here. (Robin War Vol 1 1, 2016; by Tom King)


 * This is Red Hood and Red Robin broadcasting on all Spyral satellite communications. The following message is for Agent 37. We have discovered the truth behind Mother's signal and are inbound to your location. Mother's children aren't evil. They're not monsters. They're victims of programming, abuse, and trauma. And they can change. Which means they're not the enemy. Fact is, they're just like us. We may have began as the soldiers Batman built for his crusade. But we became something else, something he never expected. We started as an army. We chose to be a family. And if there's hope for us... there's hope for anyone. (Batman & Robin Eternal Vol 1 16, 2016; by Jackson Lanzing, Collin Kelly, James Tynion IV, and Scott Snyder)


 * Really? You don't think I understand what it's like to be abandoned? Forgotten? To be the Robin nobody trusts? (Batman & Robin Eternal Vol 1 7, 2016; by Genevieve Valentine, James Tynion IV, and Scott Snyder)


 * None of us Robins were ever as good as Batgirl. We knew it. Drove us all crazy... I think it was because she didn't do what she does for revenge. Not like ol' dead Nightwing or me. She doesn't fight for some ghost. She fights for someone alive. (Batman Eternal Vol 1 18, 2014; by Tim Seeley, James Tynion IV, Scott Snyder, Ray Fawkes, and John Layman)


 * The world's greatest detective, and you still haven't figured it out? Life's just a game, Batman... and this time, you lose. (Batman Vol 1 617, 2016; by Jeph Loeb)

About

 * At this point [Jason] is beyond the point of no return in terms of ever being considered even remotely a hero. What I wanted to do here is put him in a place that he can't come back from. The things that he does here in Battle for the Cowl are things that can never really be forgiven. The only outcome would have to be imprisonment or something worse. But from this point on for Jason the gray area between good and bad has disappeared. It's crystal clear now that he is on the dark side.
 * Tony Daniel in "Behind Batman: Battle for the Cowl Part Two", Dan Phillips, IGN, (April 13, 2009).


 * If only Jason could have reached out to us. Any one of us. He could have saved himself. But you know what? Some people don't want to be saved. Because saving means changing. And changing is always harder than staying the same. It takes courage to face yourself in the mirror and look beyond the reflection. To find the you that you should have been. The you that got derailed by cruel childhood events. Events that took your life's natural trajectory and twisted it. Changing it into something unimaginable … or even incredible
 * Dick Grayson as Batman in Batman: Battle for the Cowl #3, 2009; by Tony Daniel


 * His name is Jason Todd. A lot of people say he's crazy. Like, say the entire staff of Arkham Asylum. Maybe they're right. I'm hardly in a position to judge. Anyone. But as he pops out of his disguise--blows my chain off my ball--and gives me my bow and quiver? Let's just say Red Hood is my kind of crazy!
 * Roy Harper Red Hood and the Outlaws Vol 1 1, 2011; by Scott Lobdell


 * To me the whole killing of Robin thing was probably the ugliest thing I've seen in comics, and the most cynical.
 * Frank Miller, in "Batman and the Twilight of the Idols: An Interview with Frank Miller", The Many Lives of the Batman: Critical Approaches to a Superhero and His Media, by Christopher Sharrett, Routledge: London, 1991. ISBN 0-85170-276-7, pg. 41


 * It would be a really sleazy stunt to bring him back.
 * Dennis O'Neil, Batman: A Death in the Family trade paperback