In his tireless war on crime in Gotham City, Batman has had many fan-favorite characters assume the mantle of Robin over the years. However, none of them were quite as impulsive and violent in their methodology as Jason Todd, the second Boy Wonder. Although he was tragically murdered by the Joker, Jason rose from the grave to become the brutal Red Hood, who openly employed lethal force as he continued to fight crime on his terms.
However, Jason Todd wasn't always the hard-edged, streetwise Jason Todd that DC fans know and love. Before Crisis on Infinite Earths, the character hailed from a much different background than the current version who's active in the DC Universe.
With Dick Grayson having left the Batcave to live his own life, Batman was without a regular partner for the first time since 1940 in the 1980s. To create a new crimefighting companion for the Dark Knight, it was decided to introduce a Robin that shared similar origins to the original while bringing back that youthful exuberance to the role that Grayson had gradually grown out of. As such, the original Jason featured the same happy domestic life, with him and his parents working as circus acrobats.
Nicknamed "Jay" by his parents, Jason was introduced in 1983's Batman #357 by Gerry Conway and Don Newton. The biggest physical difference between Jason and Dick was Jason's dirty blond hair, with some depictions having the hair color closer to red. Tragedy would similarly strike the young acrobat as it had Dick years ago, when Killer Croc murdered his parents. Using pieces of Dick's old costume, Jason attempted to fight crime on his own until being adopted by Bruce Wayne and officially inheriting the mantle of Robin. To help maintain his secret identity, Jason began dying his hair black to match Dick's, and his disposition was as cheery and optimistic as Dick had once been.
Jason would serve as Robin with his original origin for less than four years before the significant revisions to the DCU resulting from the Crisis on Infinite Earths. Jason's most notable adventure with original background would be accompanying Batman in Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' "For the Man Who Has Everything," in 1985's Superman Annual #11. After this, DC Comics editorial would take the opportunity that Crisis presented to come with a new origin for Jason in an effort to distinguish him from Dick Grayson and make him more appealing to readers who were vocally unhappy with a carbon copy of the original Robin running around the DCU.
Led by editor Denny O'Neil, the new origin for Jason following the Crisis was revealed in 1987's Batman #408 by Max Allan Collins and Chris Warner. This a naturally black-haired Jason was an orphan whose father had gone missing on a job gone wrong for Two-Face while his mother had passed away from a drug overdose sometime before his reintroduction. Caught by Batman attempting to steal the wheels off the Batmobile while it was parked in Crime Alley, the Caped Crusader senses potential in the wayward youth and adopts him while training him for six months to become the new Robin. Despite this training and Batman's guidance, Jason was a much more rebellious character, prone to violent outbursts and smoking cigarettes. The popularity of the character failed to reach expectations, and he was famously killed off by fan votes the following year.
Jason Todd has always been a character that has been revamped more than any other of his counterparts. Despite the changes that Jason Todd went through as Robin, the character wouldn't truly become a fan-favorite in his own right until he stepped out of Batman's shadow and took his approach to the war on crime in the DCU.