Teen Titans #29
Teen Titans #29 (Vol. 3, 2003 series) delivers the first direct confrontation between the resurrected Jason Todd — operating as the Red Hood — and Tim Drake's Robin on Teen Titans turf, making it the essential companion piece to Judd Winick's concurrent 'Under the Hood' arc in the Batman title. The issue crystallizes the poisonous psychological weight of Jason's return: rather than being celebrated, he was erased, and his rage at finding no memorial statue in Titans Tower's Hall of Heroes reframes him as a figure of institutional neglect as much as villainy. Simultaneously, the issue marks Donna Troy's formal reintegration into the main Teen Titans series after her separate resurrection miniseries, planting her as a key player in the looming Infinite Crisis. As a tie-in to one of DC's most consequential modern crossover events, the issue sits at the intersection of three major 2005 storylines — the Red Hood's post-'Under the Hood' rampage, Donna Troy's return from the dead, and the countdown to Infinite Crisis — giving it an unusually dense narrative weight for a single issue.
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The issue was written by Geoff Johns, who served as both the title's primary architect and one of the chief architects of DC's Infinite Crisis event, allowing him to weave the title's internal character arcs directly into the company-wide crossover framework. Art was provided by penciller Tony S. Daniel, inked by Marlo Alquiza, with colors by Jeromy Cox and letters by Phil Balsman; Eddie Berganza and Jeanine Schaefer edited. The story, titled 'Life and Death,' ran 22 pages and was released on November 9, 2005, with a December 2005 cover date. It exists within the editorial context of Johns steering the Titans as a front-line franchise during the Identity Crisis-to-Infinite Crisis era, a period when DC's executive editor Dan DiDio had made rehabilitating the Titans a core publishing priority.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Story title: 'Life and Death'; written by Geoff Johns, pencils by Tony S. Daniel, inks by Marlo Alquiza, colors by Jeromy Cox, letters by Phil Balsman; editors Eddie Berganza and Jeanine Schaefer.
- First in-title confrontation between Jason Todd (Red Hood) and Tim Drake (Robin): Jason infiltrates Titans Tower, incapacitates the other Titans one by one, then removes his Red Hood costume to reveal an altered version of his old Robin suit before battling Tim directly.
- Jason's grievance centers on erasure: he explicitly demands to know why no memorial statue exists for him in the Hall of Fallen Titans, then leaves the graffiti 'Jason Todd was here' on the wall before departing — a defining character moment that has had lasting resonance in fandom and subsequent adaptations.
- After defeating Tim, Jason tears the Robin 'R' emblem from his chest — a symbolic act underlining his claim that Tim is unworthy of the name, while privately acknowledging in an epilogue that his successor is genuinely skilled.
- Donna Troy's return to the main Teen Titans series occurs in this issue, following her separate resurrection in the DC Special: The Return of Donna Troy (2005) miniseries; her arrival also propels the team into the Infinite Crisis narrative.
- The issue is an official tie-in to the Infinite Crisis crossover event, listed as entry #48 of 125 tie-in issues; it also features the emergence of Brother Blood from Raven's soul self and the appearance of Lilith Clay's reanimated body as Mother Mayhem of the Church of Blood.
- The issue was published in both a direct-edition and a newsstand edition.
- Collected in: Teen Titans Vol. 5: Life and Death TPB (2006, ISBN 978-1401209780), which also reprints Teen Titans #30–33, Teen Titans Annual #1, and Robin #146–147; also collected in the Teen Titans by Geoff Johns Omnibus (2013 and 2022 editions); and reprinted as a standalone reprint in DC Comics Presents: Robin War 100-Page Super Spectacular #1 and in Robin: The Teen Wonder (2009).