Batman: Urban Legends just revealed the heartbreaking truth about Jason Todd’s first kill that informed his evolution into the Red Hood.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for the story “Red Hood and Batman: Cheer Part 2” from Batman: Urban Legends #1, by Chip Zdarsky, Eddy Barrows, Eber Ferreira, Marcos To, Adriano Lucas and Becca Carey, on sale now.
The first issue of Batman: Urban Legends offered new insight into the recesses of Jason Todd’s dark mind when he killed a man he deemed an unworthy father and abusive husband. It resulted in Jason taking that man’s son, Tyler, back to his lair as he struggled to cope with the guilt and ensuing grief over the fact he’s a murderer, just like the very monsters he tries to stop on a daily basis.
And in Batman: Urban Legends #2, the shock of what he’s done starts to set in, we understand a bit more why Jason makes this decision to act so rashly thanks to a very heartbreaking flashback that shows how his first kill scarred him for life.
As Jason bonds with Tyler, he has no clue how to let the kid know what he did. Tyler thinks he’s a hero, so Red Hood’s wrestling with that and the notion Batman will eventually find out the truth. As a result, his conflicted psyche starts to weigh on him, and he recalls how his mom, Sheila, had drug problems much like Tyler’s dad years ago. He was neglected, often seeing her with dealers and in inappropriate relationships, foreshadowing why she’d sell him out for drugs years later in the Joker incident where he died.
Jason recalls verbally sparring with a dealer as he left his mom’s place. The man has no respect for Jason and his mother, demeaning them as if they were nothing, which sets Jason off. As the man tries to go down the steps, Jason runs up from the back and pushes him off the flight.
He tumbles to the bottom and dies, leaving Jason in a panic as he’s robbed of innocence. As he internalizes everything, Jason admits to himself this awakened something deep within him, which would later transform into a bloodlust when he got older. It explains why he hates people who take advantage of others, capitalizing on their weaknesses, which places into context his ruthless aggression.
However, Jason doesn’t want death to define Tyler the way it did him. That kill sealed his fate, and with or without Bruce, he feels he was meant to walk a macabre path. Ironically, as he processes it, Batman arrives and Jason begins brawling with him. While he hates Bruce’s brand of justice, Jason thinks that he was always meant to be a criminal, not just jacking cars, but taking lives as he felt it was the only way to balance his tragic life. And in Tyler, he sees a reflection of that past and how one rash moment took away so much from him.
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