Part of Series
The Dark Knight. The Boy Wonder. The Dynamic Duo. Together, Batman and Robin have kept the streets of Gotham City safe-while the boy beneath the mask, Dick Grayson, has kept Bruce Wayne from a lonely life of brooding darkness. But when a bullet fired from the Joker’s gun nearly clips Robin’s wings for good, their partnership is severed, and Batman resumes his war on crime alone. But he’s not alone for long. When Batman first meets a tough kid named Jason Todd, the boy is more criminal than crimefighter. But from that first encounter, a powerful new bond is forged. The Dark Knight sees Jason’s potential to be a hero-as well as the rage and revenge that torment him. The Batman has found his new Robin. Can Gotham’s greatest hero help his protege fly right? Discover the origin of one of comics’ most controversial characters in BATMAN: SECOND CHANCES-collecting the earliest adventures of Jason Todd, the second Robin, from the minds of legendary creators Max Allan Collins, Jim Starlin, Jim Aparo, Dave Cockrum, Denys Cowan, Norm Breyfogle, Jo Duffy and more! Collects BATMAN #402-403, #408-416 and BATMAN ANNUAL #11.
Authors
James P. "Jim" Starlin is an American comic book writer and artist. With a career dating back to the early 1970s, he is best known for "cosmic" tales and space opera; for revamping the Marvel Comics characters Captain Marvel and Adam Warlock; and for creating or co-creating the Marvel characters Thanos and Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu. Death and suicide are recurring themes in Starlin's work: Personifications of Death appeared in his Captain Marvel series and in a fill-in story for Ghost Rider; Warlock commits suicide by killing his future self; and suicide is a theme in a story he plotted and drew for The Rampaging Hulk magazine. In the mid-1970s, Starlin contributed a cache of stories to the independently published science-fiction anthology Star Reach. Here he developed his ideas of God, death, and infinity, free of the restrictions of mainstream comics publishers' self-censorship arm, the Comics Code Authority. Starlin also drew "The Secret of Skull River", inked by frequent collaborator Al Milgrom, for Savage Tales #5 (July 1974). When Marvel Comics wished to use the name of Captain Marvel for a new, different character,[citation needed] Starlin was given the rare opportunity to produce a one-shot story in which to kill off a main character. The Death of Captain Marvel became the first graphic novel published by the company itself. ( In the late 1980s, Starlin began working more for DC Comics, writing a number of Batman stories, including the four-issue miniseries Batman: The Cult (Aug.-Nov. 1988), and the storyline "Batman: A Death in the Family", in Batman #426-429 (Dec. 1988 – Jan. 1989), in which Jason Todd, the second of Batman's Robin sidekicks, was killed. The death was decided by fans, as DC Comics set up a hotline for readers to vote on as to whether or not Jason Todd should survive a potentially fatal situation. For DC he created Hardcore Station.
