Monday, April 30, 2012

Red Hood: The Lost Days

I enjoyed this more than I thought I would.  I've never been a big Jason fan.  I've always felt he was just a place holder for Dick.  I remember his original origin story and it was just a complete retelling of Dick's and I remember his second origin story.  Stealing the wheels off the Batmobile was certainly points for style, but I didn't like how Batman took in a kid who was even less well trained than Dick and expected him to succeed.  He even still had a living parent but Bruce adopted him anyway.  I felt bad for Dick a lot through the Jason years.  However, when it came down to vote, I would've voted for Jason to live if I'd been an American.  I like Batman with Robin, it keeps him even.

And that's where the Red Hood enters.  I felt that Judd Winick did a really good job of getting Jason's confused emotions across to the reader.  Sure, he's murdering people, but I almost felt he was killing the right people.  The people that really did deserve to die.

Talia was an interesting choice for this tale.  Mostly she's seen as the daughter of Ra's al Ghul and that's it.  Here, she goes against her father's wishes and does something that she truly believes will bring Batman back to her.  Once she realises just how broken Jason is, her role changes, she's trying to contain him while he fixes himself.  I get the feeling that she expected that this wanting to kill Batman thing was just a phase.  She knows his love for Bruce, probably more so than Jason does.

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