What did Willis write ?

A follow up from my previous thoughts on the current plot. This is a deductive analysis of a rumor.


The rumor is that Bizarro is protecting Jason from something connected to his death and return to life. The only things we've seen Bizarro hiding from Jason are the kryptonite which theoretically is needed to maintain his smarts and the letters/Gunn's knowledge of the letters. The former being needed to help hide the latter. Now if the rumor is true the only conclusion I can reach with what we've been given is that Willis' letters contains information on something related to Jason's rebirth. Which raises a whole lot of questions on it's own.

First and foremost...why would Willis have this information? Especially during the pre-Robin period of Jason's life? Jason hadn't died yet and I don't buy that Jason is a meta. (*1) If he was it's very unlikely that Willis would know it and Bruce wouldn't. (Given Jason's later training under the All Caste I can't rule out the possibility of him having mystical connections.)

Was it something Willis did ? In the letter Gunn reads we only get two snippets outside of the greeting and ending. "Miss her more than" which we can only assume was Jason's mom although we don't know if that's Catherine, Sheila or someone else. For all we know it's a person that's not even a candidate for Jason's mother. The bit that stuck out for me was the next fragment Gunn reads out loud.

"Only hope at redemption..." that seems to suggest Willis did something he regrets. Is Jason his chance at redeeming himself, is he explaining his past actions or why he's did something risky to repent?

The pieces of information we got in the first volume of RHATO and RHA didn't paint Willis in a good light. Yet Lobdell has given hints that there's more to Willis and he did care about Jason. The first good thing we hear about him is Willis taking Jason to the circus but even that had him stealing the tickets from an elderly couple. A nice act tainted by the means he used. Which means it's not out of the realm of possibilities that he'd do something else for his son that's not so great in hindsight.

But how could Willis have access to something that could bring someone back from the dead? Well he did have criminal connections and depending on how much DITF is in canon he did know someone as infamous as Shiva. If he knew someone that had enough influence he could theoretically have access to anything. Talia told Ducra that they might never know how Jason came back yet she was terrified of Jason once she put him in the Lazarus Pit. Was that due to his unknown means of resurrection or something else?

I also have to ask why Willis would do this to his son and maybe to himself. Jason was in a lot of danger since he grew up with a mom that was usually to out of it due to her addiction to care for him and Willis was away. I suppose it could have been an accident but there's really no way of knowing at this point unless this theory pans out. If Willis is alive as the bullet suited man it may be a hint at his own strange survival as well as a nod to his supposed death by Two-Face.

The idea that Willis is involved and maybe responsible for one of the greatest mysteries of Jason's life (besides his mother's identity) is intriguing. It's also a great twist with Bruce not having the answers while Willis does.



*1 I believe Scott Snyder defined meta as people who gain powers thanks to having a special metal in their blood stream.