Dick Grayson & Jason Todd

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Gen Relationship
Relationship: Dick Grayson & Jason Todd
Alternative name(s): Nightwing & Robin II; Discowing & Robin II; 80s Robins; Nightwing & Red Hood
Fandom: Batman media, Titans (2018 TV series), Batman: Death in the Family (2020)
Type: Allies, brothers, enemies
Canonical?: Yes
Prevalence: Popular
Archives:
See also: Bruce Wayne & Dick Grayson
Bruce Wayne & Jason Todd
Dick Grayson & Damian Wayne
"Illustration, top half is Dick dressed as Nightwing carrying bridal-style a young Jason dressed as Robin. The bottom half has text that says '5 Years Later' and an illustration of Dick struggling to carry a larger Jason, now dressed in his Red Hood costume"
art by dsasworld (deactivated)
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Dick Grayson & Jason Todd are adoptive brothers, allies, and occasionally enemies in various Batman media. Dick Grayson is the superhero known as Nightwing, once known as the original Robin, sidekick to Batman. Jason Todd succeeded him as the second Robin, and later became the antihero known as Red Hood. They are brothers through their adoptive father, Bruce Wayne.

Overall, Dick has several closer, longer-lasting, and more significant relationships within the Batfamily and within the Titans—though Dick is one of the few notable characters with whom Jason has had a connection both before and after his death. Despite the relative infrequency of their meetings in canon, the Dick & Jason relationship is very popular among fans and in transformative fan works; on the Archive of Our Own (AO3) as of this writing, "Dick Grayson & Jason Todd" is the most-tagged gen relationship for both characters, and one of the most-tagged gen relationship within the "Batman - All Media Types" fandom tag, with over 6.5 thousand works as of this writing.

Canon

Comics

For an overview of their relationship Post-Crisis through Rebirth, see Re: "Do Dick and Jason get along in comics? I'm kinda new to the batfam and I'm just trying to learn more about characters and their relationships with each other." answered by hood-ex (10 October 2019).

Pre-Crisis: The Last Flying Grayson and the Last Flying Todd (1983)

Robin, Dick Grayson, encountered a family of acrobats called the Flying Todds at the circus. Mr. and Mrs. Todd are killed by Killer Croc; Dick, feeling responsible for their deaths, resolved to adopt the newly orphaned Jason Todd, but Dick's guardian, Bruce Wayne, decided to adopt the child himself. Dick later decided he had outgrown the Robin mantle and voluntarily chose to become Nightwing, passing the Robin identity down to Jason.[1][2]

Post-Crisis: Nightwing & Robin (1985)

In this continuity, Dick left Batman and Gotham on strained terms after being fired as Robin. After adopting the new identity Nightwing during his time with the Teen Titans, Dick is hurt to suddenly discover through the newspaper that Bruce had adopted a new son and trained him to be the new Robin.[2] While they were set up to a rough start, Dick ends his first visit with Jason on good terms, and the two have a positive relationship in their following interactions.

Robin II had few opportunities for adventures and team-ups outside Gotham in his few real-life years of Post-Crisis existence. Meanwhile, Nightwing rarely returned to Gotham, due to his strained relationship with Batman, establishing himself as an independent adult, and the busy careers of the Teen Titans. Thus the two characters had limited interactions within the short window of time before the Joker murdered Robin II in A Death in the Family (1988), though some later publications—such as Joker: Last Laugh and Nightwing: Year One—retroactively added a few more interactions through flashbacks.

Dick was very upset upon learning that Jason had been killed and buried while the Titans were on an off-planet mission (New Teen Titans #55 - 1989). He was haunted by Jason's death for years after, impulsively breaking his no-kill rule to beat the Joker to death temporarily for gloating about Jason's murder (Joker: Last Laugh)—and hallucinating Jason's ghost at various times, such as in Gotham Knights (2000) and in Nightwing: Secret Files & Origins (Dixon, 1999).

Bruce legally adopted Dick in Gotham Knights #20 and #21 (2001), making Dick and posthumously Jason into legal siblings.

Post-Crisis: Nightwing vs. Nightwing, DickBats vs. Red Hood (2006-2011)

Jason's return to life was not a joyous family reunion. Following the high-profile Batman: Under the Hood storyline (Winick 2005-2006), Jason—now the murderous Red Hood—popped up in various DC comics, with a different personality every time. Harsh words were exchanged, stabbings were attempted, explosions occurred, tentacles got involved (and not the good kind)… Suffice to say, things got ugly, though Dick continuously offered mercy to Jason,[3] and they did cooperate on some occasions such as Outsiders #45 (Winick 2007).

New 52 (2011), Rebirth (2016), and Infinite Frontier (2021)

In the post-Flashpoint timeline, Jason has been retconned to be more of an anti-hero and closer to the Batfamily, to mixed results. Thus, Dick and Jason have teamed up more frequently, often in big Batfamily events, such as James Tynion's Batman and Robin Eternal and Tom King's Robin War. Both stories involve the Batfamily battling threats to Gotham in Bruce Wayne's absence, Jason and the other Robins doing something stupid, and Dick having to bail them out.[4]

Dick and Jason are pretty much buddy-buddy and explicitly consider each other brothers.

Young Justice (2010 animated series)

Jason became the second Robin and died within the five-year time-skip between the first season and the second. Showrunner Greg Weisman has stated that Dick and Jason were "close".[5] The third season, Outsiders (2019), introduced a mysterious Red Hooded Ninja who recognizes "Grayson" despite suffering from amnesia, leading fans to anticipate that the two would have a dramatic reunion in a future storyline.

Titans (2018 TV series)

In the DC Universe/HBO Max show Titans, Dick is a very disgruntled Robin when he meets Jason for the first time while fighting Brother Blood's forces. Despite Jason being a little shit, Dick takes him in at Bruce's request when he reforms the Titans. Turns out that everyone ends up hating Jason for various reasons.[4]

Other

  • DC Animated Universe (1997) - Nightwing and his successor Robin respectively play the roles of a protective big brother and an eager younger brother in The New Batman Adventures and related media. Some fans argue that this version of Tim Drake is effectively an adaptation of Jason Todd, and point to this story as an example of how Dick and Jason's relationship would've naturally developed in the comics if the two were given more interactions. Others argue that having a good relationship with Dick is exclusively characteristic of Tim Drake comics.
  • Batman: Arkham Knight (2015) - Dick and Jason both exist in the Arkhamverse, but their relationship, if any, is not elaborated upon or explored. Still, the setting provides fodder for fan works.
  • Injustice franchise (2017)
  • Batman Ninja (2018)
  • Batman: Death in the Family (2020)
  • Gotham Knights (2022)

Fanon and meta

"i thought i lost you (again)" by mammutblog (2023) - Regret and healing are common topics in fan works about Dick & Jason.
  • Post-Crisis: In line with the rest of the present-day Batfamily fandom as of this writing, the Post-Crisis continuity is often considered the default canon continuity, unless otherwise noted.
  • Not Brothers - According to many fans, Nightwing and Robin II never managed to form a meaningful relationship. Fan works detail how Dick feels hurt by Jason taking his place as Robin and as a son, while Jason sees Dick as the golden child to whom he can't measure up. Dick's attachment to Jason's memory is based in guilt and nostalgia rather than a true personal connection.

I say that they were not close because they never lived together – regardless of whether you prefer your canon to be that Dick and Bruce hardly had any contact when Jason was Robin so they only met when Dick gave him a Robin suit and his phone number, or if you want to imagine that Dick came along for some Sunday dinners and helped Jason to train. I guess it’s like if your parent gets married and have a new stepchild once you’ve moved away from home – you can still become close with time, but it’s not going to be the same as if you’ve grown up together. And Dick and Jason didn’t have a lot of time before Jason was killed, though you can make cases for that Jason worked with the Titans for a mission or two, and that the two went skiing once.[6]

After Jason’s death, Dick was devastated, but it didn’t seem like a terribly intimate loss; he was upset because he thought he’d begun a bloody legacy that led to Jason’s death, not because Jason himself was a brother to him. During his blowout argument with Bruce shortly following Jason’s death, Bruce even accused Dick of faking concern for Jason altogether. His accusation was completely unreasonable, but does support the idea that Jason and Dick weren’t close and didn’t interact much. Even in Gotham Knights, when Dick was interviewed after it was suspected that Bruce Wayne had amoral reasons for taking in Jason, he clarified that he wasn’t close to Jason and didn’t know him well. There is a photo of Jason and Dick on a ski trip, and in Dick’s solo title, Jason occasionally showed up as a figure in his dreams, but that doesn’t lend itself to them having a close bond considering everything else.

Overall, I think Dick liked Jason just fine and harbored guilt over his death but didn’t know him well enough to love him or consider him family; he had a lot going on in his life with his new identity and the Teen Titans and his estrangement from Bruce while Jason was Robin. The Batfam was a weak concept back in the 80s, when Jason himself remarked that Dick was barely around and Babs had retired. It was really just Jason, Bruce, and Alfred back then.

I want to clarify that the two of them not being close isn’t Dick’s fault. He did nothing wrong. The timing just didn’t work out for either of them.[7]

I just don’t think Jason would have died the way he did if he’d had someone like Dick Grayson in his life.[8]

  • Instant family - Alternatively, many fan works portray an established brotherhood between Nightwing and the second Robin from the very start.
    • Commentators and meta analysis writers point out multiple occasions that show Dick feeling fondness for Jason, and grief and anger over his death, despite their sparse interactions compared to some of Dick's other deceased Titans comrades. Reciprocally, after Jason's disastrous attempt to reckon with Bruce in the Under the Hood storyline, Dick is the next target of Jason's twisted attempts at bonding.
    • Fan works may expand their interactions in canon; fans point to various pieces of evidence hinting at more interactions than were explicitly shown, such as a ski trip.
    • Even if they weren't particularly close during Jason's Robin years, the two may still deeply cherish what relationship did they have, as little as it was.

Personal preferences aside, I honestly do think it just opens up SO many more potential stories if you go with the idea that they did have a brotherly relationship before Jason died, just they didnt get together around Bruce because Dick was still hoping Bruce would make the first move in reaching out to him. Rather than just stick with the usual assumption that because it wasn’t seen on the page, they had barely any interactions and both resented each other for various reasons.[9]

  • Drama
    • According to a retcon in Batman: Year Three (1989), the Robin costume was designed with the signature colors of the Flying Graysons. According to a retcon in Robin Annual #4 (1995), Dick personally created the Robin identity using the pet name that his mother called him. Many fans explore the insensitivity of Jason appropriating the Robin mantle, or Bruce giving him the Robin mantle, without Dick's consent.
    • Fans exaggerate Dick's standoffishness and Jason's feelings of rejection in their early years.
    • Fans exaggerate Jason's brattiness and entitlement.
  • Hug Monster Dick Grayson and Tsundere Jason Todd - In canon, Dick isn't especially hug-oriented or emotionally open, while Jason—depending on the writer and circumstances—can be rather sentimental and receptive to affection. In fanon, Dick Grayson is very lovey-dovey with no sense of personal space when it comes to physically and verbally expressing affection and concern, while Jason Todd is a massive tsundere.
    • In fan works, Dick may serve as the catalyst or bridge for Jason finally reconciling with a Batfamily member (or with the Batfamily as a whole) armed with the patience, emotional competency, prioritization of family, and inherently lovable personality that Bruce apparently lacks. In return, Jason is fiercely protective of Dick.
  • Little Big Brother, Big Little Brother - Official publications list Jason as taller and heavier than Dick. Fan works use Jason's post-resurrection growth spurt for comedy and/or angst.
  • Nicknames - Jay or Jase, little wing, and Dickie and Dickie-bird are canon nicknames, though not always used affectionately.
    • As with other members of the Batfamily, fan creators go completely hog wild with the use of nicknames in fan works. In addition to constant use of the sparsely used canonical nicknames aforementioned, fanon Dick often refers to Jason as Jaybird, while fanon Jason rather rudely refers to Dick as Goldie (short for "golden boy"), Dickface, Dickhead, Dickwing, and—more affectionately—Big Bird.
  • Brothers in sister cities - Dick is often portrayed as protecting Bludhaven as a solo vigilante during Jason's Robin tenure, despite being based with the Titans in New York at the point of the timeline in post-Crisis canon comics.
  • "Fuck Batman!" - Dick and Jason bond over difficulties in their relationships with Bruce. Fan works may feature some degree of Bruce bashing, or at least Dick and Jason supporting each other in their shared experiences with Batman's parenting.

Fan works

Fan art

Example Art Gallery

Fan fiction

  • "Call Me Hopeless"WBM by incogneat_oh (2017) - 3k words, gala fic; “I used to hate these parties,” Dick says, and Jason’s startled into a laugh. At the older boy’s questioning look, he explains, “I just, figured I was the only one.”
  • "the long lost art of killing it dead"WBM by dustorange (2021, ongoing with complete standalone chapters) - 13k words, hurt/comfort, secret identity; Red Hood is a criminal, so it doesn't make sense why he would bother dragging Nightwing back to Dick Grayson's apartment and bandaging his potentially deadly gunshot wounds. What makes even less sense is why Hood keeps coming back. (a.k.a. another "Dick redeems Red Hood with the power of affection" fic but with even less mental stability.
  • "like falling water"WBM by naheka (2019) - 5k words, humor, Hurt/Comfort, family drama; All Jason wanted to do was take a nap and pull one over on Bruce. Trust Dick to go ahead and ruin everything.
  • "Always Someone Better"WBM by lowflyingfruit (2017) - 5k words; What Jason hadn't known when Batman scooped him off the streets was how much it sucked to be the second and second-best child. Five times Jason felt inferior to Dick, and a reversal he didn't savour like he thought he would.
  • The Art of Bird MetaphorWBM by lowflyingfruit (2017) - 26.3k words, AU; Batman works alone. Everyone knows that. What Jason's learning is that he also has a penchant for picking up strays. And while Jason's just your common or garden Gotham street rat, Bruce's other stray, Richard, is an ex-assassin for the Court of Owls. An ex-assassin for the Court of Owls who hates Jason's guts. Adjusting to life in Wayne Manor was hard enough already.

Meta

External links

Archives and Communities

Notes

References

  1. ^ Dick becoming Nightwing (pre-Crisis v. post-Crisis)
  2. ^ a b When Jason replaced Dick as Robin – the abridged version
  3. ^ Dick tries
  4. ^ a b https://old.reddit.com/r/DCcomics/comments/pfn3pp/characters_of_the_month_dick_grayson_and_jason/
  5. ^ https://www.s8.org/gargoyles/askgreg/search.php?qid=19092Archived
  6. ^ https://northoftheroad.tumblr.com/post/659375122993610752/just-wondering-how-is-dick-grayson-relationship
  7. ^ https://comic-commentary.tumblr.com/post/133894224124/hi-ive-started-reading-a-bunch-of-jason-todd
  8. ^ Y’know, there’s a reason why I’m such a hardass about pointing out that Dick and Jason were never close in canon.
  9. ^ I’m literally in love with the way you write Dick and Jason’s dynamic
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