A New Boy Wonder for Batman ...... JASON TODD Part One

When Robin aka Dick Grayson gave up the identity of  Robin to become Nightwing in the early 1980's this gave the editors at DC a chance to invent a new BOY WONDER to partner BATMAN. The Batman character worked well as a solo act, BUT now Dick was gone, and Barbara was no longer BAT-GIRL, Batman's only sounding board was Alfred. And as Alfred was never in the field of play, their conversations were only by Radio or back in the Bat Cave, therefore divorced from any real connection with the action.. Batman needed more interaction, Batman needed a new Boy Wonder ! This new Dick would be called Jason.

Jason Todd was the name that the new Robin would be known as was not a lots different from the original boy wonder. Jason's back story was nearly completely identical as Dick Grayson's. They were both orphaned sons of Circus Acrobats, who would be adopted and would live with Millionaire Bruce Wayne.

The main difference between the characters was basically where Dick had Black hair, Jason was a Red Headed boy. Plus Jason was younger than the outgoing Robin, But older than Dick when he became Robin. The original Boy Wonder had been a pre teenager when he became Robin and this was the 1980's and the idea of a little boy fighting crime was not acceptable. Jason would be a young teen. Also he would originally be shown as a happy go lucky teen with a sense of humour and witty vocabulary . Just like the original Robin Character. In fact the writers at DC had NOT invented a New Robin, they had just re created a younger version of the Grown up Boy Wonder.

Like Dick, Jason discovered that Bruce was BATMAN, and tried to convince him that he could be his new partner. Bruce refused at first but relented and decided to train the boy.

Originally Batman did not want Jason to be the new Robin, BUT did allowed Jason to wear a costume that was made up of elements of both Dick Grayson's old Circus attire similar to that his late parents wore as the Flying Graysons.

Although Jason aided Batman, who was still then "working" sometimes with Dick, Jason's Hero character did not have a name.

JASON TODD "HERO IN TRAINING"

After a few months of training alongside BATMAN and with a little help from Nightwing, Jason was allowed to become Batman's official partner. With the Blessing of Dick Grayson and a present of a copy of his own Robin Costume Jason became the  New Boy Wonder.

Nightwing gives his blessing to his successor. 

So not to look out of character, Jason decided to dye his hair Black, so to look like the original Robin.

The Batman Family Alfred, Jason Bruce Dick & Babs.

Jason Todd the NEW BOY WONDER .





Next Time we will look at the changes that happened to the New Robin after the Crisis on Infinite Earths saga !





Until then ENJOY !