Jason Todd might be everyone's least favourite Robin (come on, he even dyed his hair to look like Dick Grayson), but that doesn't take away from the kid's tragic origin, which DC managed to get right on the second go.
In pre-Crisis continuity, Todd's parents are acrobats who are murdered by Killer Croc. Understanding that that particular origin may have been just a smidge derivative, DC opted to use a completely different one after the reboot happened, reimagining Todd as a headstrong street-kid who Batman first encountered trying to steel the wheels off the Batmobile.
Post-1986, Todd's parents were never acrobats either. Instead, his mother was an addict who was presumed dead, while his father worked as hired muscle for Two-Face.
In the years following Todd's assumption of the Robin identity, it is revealed that his father Willis had been killed by his employer, and Batman - deciding that Jason shouldn't be in the business of revenge - kept it a secret for years.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
