Hi. I’m El, and I’m a Jason Todd-aholic.

Over the span of a few weeks, Jason Todd has wriggled his way into my currently overcrowded fangirl heart. Isa has always loved this guy, but I never really understood until I started reading Red Hood and the Outlaws a few weeks back.

Having been a bit out of loop with the DC Universe, the only thing that I knew about Jason was that he was killed by the Joker and that he was brought back to life by Superboy and a punch of reality-altering proportions (at least that’s how I remember it). I was having mixed feelings about Jason and Red Hood and the Outlaws in general after reading the first issue for a variety of reasons some of them including Roy Harper’s annoying attitude and the people who kept whining about Starfire’s gratuitous boobage, but I did, however, think that Jason Todd was interesting enough to look into further. So I went ahead and bought the second issue of Red Hood and the Outlaws.

Why do I like snarky, angry, arrogant guys in comics and fiction? I don’t know. It might be a weird sort of fetish. But this first panel really managed to grab my attention, and the rest of the issue really started to make me really, really interested in Jason. The whole back-from-the-dead thing never really appealed to me, but once I allowed my head to wrap itself around it, it really didn’t matter. Jason seemed very much like a character I’d like, and I wanted to read more.

Or watch more. Can you guess what I did next in my pursuit of Jason?

I didn’t have high hopes for Batman: Under the Red Hood, especially since Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill didn’t lend their voices to Batman and Joker, but it turned out to be one of the better DC movies that I’ve seen thus far. I felt that it provided a better, more believable explanation for Jason’s return from the grave, and it gave me just enough insight into his actions and his personality (this particular scene nailed me) to decide that he’s probably going to be one of my favorite comic book characters…ever.

So by the time I read Red Hood and the Outlaws #3 and saw this:

I pretty much melted into a glob of goo. MY FEELINGS, JASON. MY FEELINGS. I mean, we’ve got sick baby Jason and Bruce Wayne being all daddy-mode all in one go. MY HEART CANNOT TAKE MUCH MORE OF THIS. Maybe I should be glad Jason gave up that memory so it won’t come back and kick my emotional ass around in future issues.

To top off my month of Jason Todd/Red Hood stalking love, I finally got around to reading Red Hood: The Lost Days, and I loved watching my new baby Jason progressing from zombie to badass. The only thing that weirded me out about the Lost Days was that part where he slept with Talia. That “hurting Batman” argument was kind of flimsy, and Talia’s…I don’t know. I’ve never really liked her much, and she just seems so pathetic in this particular moment.

That aside, I can only assume that my new-found love for Jason Todd will keep growing the more I read about him. I’ve always been a sucker for characters who have tragic pasts and stand in that gray area between hero and villain to play the antihero. I regret never really getting to know Jason before the New 52 came out, so I’m currently catching up on a few more Batman titles involving him. My love for the Batman series has always started and ended with Nightwing’s fine ass Batman’s sexy voice Bruce Wayne, but at least now I’ve got more to look forward to in the Bat-verse thanks to Jason!