Legends of the Dark Knight #2 | Batman: Under the Hood by Judd Winick

The notion that Batman needs a Robin has never really been all that contentious; his first replacement Robin, however, was another matter entirely.

Jason Todd was introduced in the Batman comic in the spring of 1983, and before the year was out he would assume the Robin mantle left vacant by Dick Grayson, who’d become Nightwing and quite literally flown the nest to fight crime in Blüdhaven. Originally conceived as the do-gooding Dick by another name, Crisis on Infinite Earths’ reshaping of the DC Universe would reimagine Jason as a destitute delinquent who meets Batman when he’s caught red-handed trying to steal the tyres from the Batmobile. Reliant on a seemingly endless reservoir of rage instead of acrobatics and athleticism, Jason’s rebellious Robin would challenge readers’ preconceptions – and, more often than not, test their patience - with his cocky attitude and frequent lapses of morality. It’s even implied that he crosses Batman’s sacred red line more than once, killing the criminals that he’s sent to subdue. Whilst I find Jason’s Robin a captivating contrast to the more straight-laced Dick, many readers did not take to the Dark Knight’s even darker sidekick, and these readers made their voices heard when DC offered them the chance to play villain. By a margin of just seventy-two votes, an historic telephone poll decreed that Jason should die at the hands of the Joker.

Arguably a fittingly tragic end for a character who could never quite achieve redemption, Jason’s demise in A Death in the Family also added a new dimension to the Batman character. His grief and unprecedented failure would be the catalyst for many an interesting arc going forward, but the cost was that Jason’s journey - be it towards redemption or damnation - would be left incomplete. It would take sixteen years for DC to set matters right with Judd Winick’s acclaimed Under the Hood run in the main Batman title.

Under the Hood serves a brutal climax to Jason Todd’s story as well as a beautiful coda to Batman’s emotional journey since Jason’s death. Healed by Ra’s al-Ghūl’s Lazarus Pit following Superboy’s rewriting of reality, Jason assumes the mantle of the Red Hood and returns to Gotham bent on doing what Batman cannot - what Batman will not. Winick’s tale is an alluring blend of spectacle, intrigue and misdirection. At no point in the story is the reader absolutely certain of anything - questions of identity, intention and morality lurk beneath every panel. Even the Red Hood’s pragmatic manifesto to conquer and control crime, rather than stop it altogether, is as much a means to an end as it is an end in of itself.

The story’s greatest success is its intelligent handling of the relationship between Jason and Batman, and how it plays so mischievously upon the suppositions that we, as readers, and the World’s Greatest Detective, within the fiction, make about the Red Hood’s beef with the Bat. He failed to save him. He let him die. Yet in a masterstroke of storytelling; a vindication of character traits running two decades deep, Winick reveals what Jason considers to be his former mentor’s great betrayal, and it’s not an act, but a rather startling and obvious omission - at least to Jason. It’s something that perfectly sums up the opposing ideologies driving these two former friends - something that speaks as much to the arguable futility of the Batman as it does the tragedy of Jason Todd.

However, as focused as it is on the central cold war between Batman and his former protégé, Under the Hood also takes the time to develop its other key players. Winick has great fun with Roman Sionis, the Black Mask, as the most powerful man in Gotham’s underworld finds himself suddenly and hilariously impotent; an unwitting pawn in a game that he doesn’t even know is being played. In an expositional epilogue published in the 2006 Batman Annual, “Daedalus and Icarus”, Winick even explores the alluring complexity of Talia al-Ghūl as the tale of Jason’s restoration is firmly rooted in Nanda Parbat and the mystical machinations of the Demon’s Head.

Initially a tight little story concerned with the Red Hood’s no-holds-barred takedown of the Black Mask, events quickly escalate to envelop some of the more outlandish rogues in Batman’s gallery. Deathstroke makes an insanely explosive appearance alongside his lesser-known Secret Society of Supervillains, while Clayface muddies the waters of the mystery and Mr Freeze chills with his hard-hitting home truths. Winick has the Red Hood shake Gotham so hard that seemingly all its villains come scurrying out into light, each desperate to carve out their own place in the new order.

And Winick’s fraught, emotional tale is told through some dazzling artwork. I read Under the Hood straight after A Death in the Family, and the difference was like watching a movie in 4K HDR straight after an old VHS. Whilst both stories contain a number of powerful and enduring images, Under the Hood’s are so vibrant and visceral that it often feels like they aren’t contained to the page. Pencillers Doug Mahnke; Paul Lee; Shane Davis; and Eric Battle created some jaw-dropping, cinematic images during this run, but what really makes them stand out is Alex Sinclair’s colour work. Against the ink blanks and moody blues of Gotham, the red of that hood pops every time - just like the heads of those who find themselves in the Red Hood’s sights.

Under the Hood has become such an integral and renowned part of the Batman mythology that in 2010 Winick adapted his story for the DC Animated Original Movies line as Under the Red Hood, which to this day remains one of the series’ greatest commercial and critical successes. Bruce Greenwood (Captain Pike in the 2009 Star Trek movie) spearheads an all-star cast that includes Jensen Ackles (Smallville) and Jason Isaacs (Star Trek: Discovery) in an inevitably condensed and toned-down but spiritually faithful adaptation that pays breathtaking homage to the animated series of the early 1990s through its animation. In the few instances where the movie does depart from the story’s key beats, it’s where it seizes the opportunity to break free of the comics’ continuity to enrich the tale. One particularly nice revision is the idea that Batman wasn’t the only one left wallowing in self-recrimination over Jason’s demise - that it left as much of a mark on Ra’s al-Ghūl, the Joker’s on-screen paymaster at the time of Jason’s death, as it did Jason’s mentor.

 

It’s quite apt that Jason Todd was born out of one crisis and resurrected by another as, seemingly, his whole existence is defined by crisis. A tortured soul lost in the crack between hero and villain, Under the Hood makes it easy to believe that Jason was always destined to walk down this dark path. The Lazarus Pit may have drawn out the devil in him, but that red-hooded devil was always there, just waiting for “a most surreal turn of disappointment” to let him loose.

The entire Under the Hood run is collected in Batman: Under the Red Hood, which is available to download from iTunes’ iBooks Store for just £3.49 or Amazon’s Kindle Store for £5.45. A trade paperback is also available, with today’s cheapest retailer being Wordery who have it listed for £15.23 inclusive of delivery.

The animated movie Batman: Under the Red Hood is available to download in 1080p from iTunes for £7.99. The iTunes Extras include a memorable Jonah Hex DC Showcase short and in-depth documentaries on Dick Grayson and Jason Todd respectively. The movie has not been released in Blu-ray in the UK, but you can pick up a region-free import relatively cheaply on eBay or in the Amazon Marketplace.