Red Hood: The Lost Days #1(of 6)

Red Hood: The Lost Days #1: Writer: Judd Winick. Artist: Pablo Raimondi.

Review: This story begins a few years ago with Ra's Al Ghul informing his daughter Talia that the second Robin(Jason Todd)had been murdered by the Joker. Talia is taken aback, and asks her father how the object of her affections, Batman, was holding up. Ra's figures Bats would be grieving, but would move on, while Talia feels that Jason's death would be something Bats could never recover from. Eventually Ra's tires of the conversation, and tells Talia to watch Gotham if she chooses, but he orders her not to reach out to Bats in any way. Time passes, and Talia keeps tabs on Bats from afar, and hears that he has been acting more reckless and violent, which leads to Talia having more and more of her father's men stationed around Gotham to continue to watch Bats for her. The years roll on and Talia gets word from one of her men that a drunk swears he was beaten up by the second Robin(since he was beaten up by Jason years prior). Talia does some investigating, and locates the young man in question in a sanitarium, and has him brought to one of her father's safehouses, where she has him battle a bunch of Ra's ninjas. The young man trounces the ninjas when they attack him(using Robin-like moves), but upon the end of the battle, he reverts back to his near comatose state. Ra's interest is now suitably piqued, and he has his scientists study the young man, who they confirm IS Jason Todd. Ra's begins to obsess over how Jason was able to beat death, and sends Talia and his men out to gather every scrap of information they can find on Jason and where he came from after his death at the hands of the Joker. Talia is unable to find anything that could explain Jason's sudden reappearance, while Jason's mental state doesn't seem to improve in the least. Months pass, and Ra's loses his patience with the whole situation, since the only thing he was ever interested in was how Jason escaped death, since Ra's could have possibly used that knowledge for his own benefit. Talia begs her father to give her more time, but Ra's tells her no, telling Talia that all of her work with Jason was for naught, and that even if she was able to restore Jason's mental capacity and return the boy to Batman, Batman would never love her, which was what Talia was after all along. Ra's then tells Talia that Jason would be sent away the following day to a place where he would be taken care of, but that Ra's was finished having time and resources spent on a project that could bear no fruit. With that Ra's enters his Lazarus Pit to restore his strength, while Talia heads to Jason. After some thought, Talia takes Jason, sneaks him into the room with Ra's Lazarus Pit and tosses the boy inside, with the hope that this act would restore his memories, ending this issue.

What I Thought: Well it's a well known fact that I am and always have been a Jason Todd fan, so I pretty much knew that I'd enjoy this comic, it was just a matter of how much. Now, I was a bit disappointed that Jason had no speaking parts, and that most of this story was told in Batman Annual #25, but that didn't really diminish this comic for me. I've always liked Talia(especially when Grant Morrison isn't writing her), as well as Ra's, and I enjoyed their dynamic here. They each had a reason for wanting Jason around and restored, Ra's to learn the secret of Jason's return to life, and Talia to return Jason to Batman in order to gain his love, and each reason made perfect sense. Hell, you could even make the argument that in the beginning Talia was only interested in Jason for Batman's benefit, but there were some scenes later on in this comic(after Talia had been caring for Jason for a while)that gave me the impression that maybe Talia was beginning to gain a different kind of interest in Jason... This was a great prologue issue to tell us how Jason's mind was restored, and I'd have to figure that the next issue should be EVEN better, as we see how Jason reacts to the changes that took place in his world after his death.

Score: 9 out of 10.I could bust out all of those moves if I really wanted to! Really!!