Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Return of the Red Hood

Judd Winick is going to be writing Jason Todd again. I can only describe this as a good thing.

Now, opinions vary on the whole "Return of Jason Todd" thing. Some people didn't like it. I can respect that. But when Under the Hood was released I thought it was one of the best Batman stories in years. It's still one of my favorite Batman stories of all time. The writing was fantastic and the artwork was even better.

Jason Todd went from being Batman's Batman's greatest failure to being Batman's greatest nightmare. The horror of his dead sidekick coming back as a villain (or at best a twisted anti-hero) made the New Red hood one of the most intriguing additions to the Batman mythos in years.

Then Grant Morrison got hold of him.

I like a lot of what Grant Morrison does. In fact, I've liked most of his Batman stuff better than most of his other stuff. But I did not like his Red Hood arc. He took Jason Todd, arbitrarily changed his hair color, stuck him in an awful costume, and turned him into a pathetic loser of a villain.

I was really disappointed. Which is why I'm so happy that Judd Winick is coming back to Jason Todd. My hope is he can do some fixing. If the cover image is any sort of indication, things are on the right track. Gone is the silly faceless mask, the red hair, and the skull on the chest. This Jason Todd is the Red Hood I remember. I hope everybody else remembers as well...

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4 Comments:

At 10:34 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I know alot of fans hate Winick, but I love his work. Under The Hood was not only great because of Jason, but Winick wrote some really twisted and funny stuff for The Black Mask.

 
At 7:38 AM, Blogger Diamondrock said...

Oh, I'm with you there. His appearances in Catwoman made him a credible threat, but it was in Winick's Batman that Black Mask really shined as a villain.

 
At 11:04 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Loved when Jason/Hood stole that huge shipment of multi-colored kryptonite and called Black Mask to tell him about it. Black mask was like, "...yeah, I'm gonna need that back."

I miss the old Black Mask.

 
At 3:43 PM, Blogger SallyP said...

I have to admit that whole bit with Jason being a redhead just made my brain hurt.

Winick can be good when he's actually interested in what he's writing, so perhaps this will shine.

 

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