Jason Todd was long believed to be the one dead comic book character who couldn't - nay, shouldn't! - ever rise from his grave. Reviled in life to the point that voters rang DC to vote for his demise, the second Robin wasn't greatly missed after he was killed off in the Death In The Family story. Which meant that when a mysterious new villain named Hush turned up to menace Batman, and it was heavily hinted that the bandages this master manipulator wore were concealing the visage of a resurrected, all-grown-up Todd, fans were rightly anxious. Or they would have been rightly anxious, if the actual reveal of Hush's identity hadn't been a total cop-out. Especially since DC had already surreptitiously leaked an image purporting to be Jason Todd in Hush's trenchcoat, sans bandages. Fooled you, fanboys! That was just Clayface pretending to be Jason Todd pretending to be Hush! The real culprit turned out to be Dr Thomas Elliot, a childhood friend of Bruce Wayne who had only been introduced a few months prior and so nobody would have seen this particular "twist" coming. Not only did writer Jeph Loeb totally botch this reveal by making fans feel even more naive than Armageddon 2001 had, but Judd Winick further salted the wound with his Under The Hood storyline that let slip that Jason had actually been brought back to life by a plot device/Lazarus Pit and aided Hush in trying to defeat Batman, only he did it in secret. And then took up the mantle of the Red Hood. Sigh.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
