No matter what kind of stories he starred in, Jason Todd was bound to be a controversial character. He was, after all, the second Robin, taking over the role in the '80s from Dick Grayson, who had been introduced over 40 years before and gone on to become one of DC's most popular characters. That may be why the original version of Jason was a carbon copy of Grayson, right down to an origin that made him a circus acrobat whose parents were murdered.

After the DC Universe was restructured in Crisis on Infinite Earths, however, the decision was made to give the new Robin a darker edge, including a new origin that made him a street kid recruited by Batman when he was trying to steal the hubcaps off the Batmobile. While Detective Comics stuck with stories that followed the traditional Batman/Robin dynamic, the Batman title saw Jason going in a much more violent direction than his predecessor. That came to a head in Batman #424, when Jason was confronted with a South American criminal named Felipe who abused his girlfriend until she committed suicide, but whose diplomatic immunity kept him from being arrested. While Batman was out of sight, Felipe plunged off a skyscraper balcony to his death, and when the Dark Knight asked Jason point-blank if he'd been pushed, Robin simply said "I guess I must've spooked him. He slipped."

The story was left purposefully ambiguous, but reader interpretation was that Jason had absolutely murdered a criminal who was untouchable within the law. Reaction was mixed, with the letters pages filling up with arguments on both sides of the issue, and the story was even seen as a justification for why Jason was killed off only a few months later. When Jason returned 20 years later as the Red Hood, his more murderous nature was definitely a part of him, but some readers interpreted this story as the foundation of a more feminist version of the character.