This is "Written in the Book," a brand-new feature where I will detail the chronological order of trade collections if you want to fill yourself in on the history of a particular character.

We begin with Jason Todd's journey to the present day.

Reader Mick T. inspired this feature when he wrote in to ask:

Hope this email finds you well. I am a quite green at reading comics, so I decided to start reading a comic about a week ago, and I chose Jason Todd, Red Hood, as my first comic. Since i really wanted to appreciate Jason Todd from the beginning, which includes his origin, why he was orphan, how did he become Red Hood, etc. I would like to read an elaborate history about him. Since I really did want to know about him I searched through the internet to know the chronological order when he was appeared first in the comics; unfortunately the internet did not help me very well, it left me with an unanswered questions... so today I searched the topic about finding the chronological order and I visited CBR. Then i found your email. If you could help me on that matter, I would be greatly happy for that.

Sure thing, Mick. I think that the best way to go about trying to read the history of a specific character is to look at the trade paperback history of that character. Nowadays, there are also plenty of back issues available digitally, as well, but those are a big less concrete (in the sense that the companies don't always maintain the same stories online, so a story might be on DC Universe Online today but not tomorrow, stuff like that). There are also digital back issues that you can buy outright, but, again, I think it's just simpler to point you to the trade collections, as that could help other people, as well, who want to follow Jason Todd's comic book journey.

First off, there is a huge caveat regarding Jason Todd's history. He was introduced in the early 1980s with a completely different origin than he later had. He was essentially a Dick Grayson clone (not a literal clone, but same basic background, right down to being part of a circus act). Those stories have not actually been collected. DC has collected two volumes' worth of Gerry Conway's Batman run during the 1980s, but the last one finished a year shy of Jason Todd's debut in Batman #357, so it is unlikely that that will be collected any time soon.

Doug Moench took over from Conway and it was Moench who actually made Jason Todd Robin, but Moench's first Batman run has also not been collected.

Therefore, I think it makes the most sense to just skip to 1986, when Jason Todd was given his modern origin. This took place during Max Allan Collins' run on Batman. These stories are collected in Batman: Second Chances...

During the same time that Collins' stories were coming out, Mike W. Barr and Alan Davis had a great run on Detective Comics starring Batman and Robin (Jason Todd). These are collected in Legends of the Dark Knight: Alan Davis, Volume 1...

Things take a turn for the worse for Jason soon after this...

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Jason Todd appears in some other Batman stories from this era, including the earliest work of Norm Breyfogle and also the Jim Starlin/Bernie Wrightson classic, Batman: The Cult, but Jason's roles in those stories are not necessary. Still, if you want to collect them, the Breyfogle stories are Legends of the Dark Knight: Norm Breyfogle, Volume 1 and the Cult is collected in Batman: The Cult.

The next big story for Jason, sadly, was his death in Batman: A Death in the Family...

Oddly enough, this story, for some odd reason, also includes "A Lonely Place of Dying," which features the introduction of the THIRD Robin, Tim Drake. Seems unnecessary to include that story in the collection of the death of the second Robin, but whatever, I guess it makes the price point higher, which is good for sales.

Okay, so Jason Todd remains dead for almost two decades. In the classic Batman storyline, "Hush," Jason APPEARS to return, but it is actually Clayface pretending to be him. He then returns for real (and I think they retcon it so that Clayface only substituted for Jason and that part of Jason's appearances in Hush were really him, but at the time, it was all Clayface) as the anti-hero known as Red Hood in the Batman storyline known as Under the Hood...

How Jason came back to life and became the Red Hood was recounted in Red Hood: Lost Days...

Jason briefly tried to take over Dick Grayson's identity as Nightwing in Nightwing: Brothers in Blood (Jason was going to actually become the new Nightwing during a period where Dick was going to die in Infinite Crisis. When that plan changed, suddenly there were was briefly one Nightwing too many)....

Jason was involved in the long storyline, Countdown to Final Crisis, but honestly, it is pretty skippable. He's in all four volumes of the series...

Next, Jason was the main villain in the Battle for the Cowl series, which saw Dick Grayson take over as Batman in the wake of Bruce Wayne's apparent death in Final Crisis...

Jason continues as an adversary in the first volume of Grant Morrison's Batman and Robin (starring Dick as Batman and Damian Wayne as the newest Robin)...

Morrison gives Jason a redemption arc in the follow-up series, Batman, Inc., but it is probably not notable enough for a chronology like this. Heck, you could probably skip Batman and Robin period.

In 2011, DC rebooted their continuity for "The New 52." Jason now stars in a new series called Red Hood and the Outlaws...

This series alters Jason's origins, so you could honestly just pick up Jason's story here if you wanted to simplify things. It ran for 7 volumes. It was then followed by a Red Hood/Arsenal series, which was collected into two volumes...

Jason was also featured in Batman Eternal and Batman and Robin Eternal, two weekly series. They're not quite as important for him, overall, as his solo series, which came out during that same period.

DC then did a slight alteration to their continuity called DC: Rebirth, which led to another relaunch of all of their titles. Red Hood and the Outlaws relaunched, as well.

This series lasted for four volumes. The latest one just came out in November. The book was re-titled Red Hood: Outlaw after that point. The first trade collection of Red Hood: Outlaw has not come out yet.

So there ya go, Mick!

If anyone else has a suggestion for a character they'd like to see be given the chronological trade treatment, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!