Batman and Robin #23:
Summary: This issue starts with a VERY red-headed Jason Todd(more on THAT in the Thoughts section...) complaining to Batman(Bruce Wayne) that he didn't deserve to be locked in Arkham since he wasn't that much crazier than Bats. Bats wants Jason to stay in Arkham for his own safety, since the Red Hood was notorious for killing criminals, but since Jason was able to pass all of his psyche evaluations, there's not much Bats can do without arousing too much suspicion. With that, Jason gets his transfer to a normal prison and Bats warns Batman(Dick Grayson) and Robin(Damian Wayne) to keep an eye on Jason while Bruce was out of town on Bat business. Upon arriving in prison, Jason is a marked man since he never revealed his real name to the authorities, so everybody KNEW he was the Red Hood, scourge of the criminal community. Jason deals with the various threats hurled his way by killing several criminals, making it look like suicides or fights with other inmates. Eventually Jason manages to poison the prison's food supply, killing dozens of inmates and making hundreds severely ill. Having had enough, the warden decides to send Jason back to Arkham, against the wishes of Bats(Dick), who fears that this was all a part of Jason's escape plan. Sure enough, Jason's convoy gets attacked, and this issue ends with a bunch of walking, talking animals breaking him out of the prison van... Walking, talking, gun-totting animals?!? Really?!?!?
Thoughts: Well this... Was NOT what I was hoping for... First things first though. And it's been pissing me off for a while now. Jason Todd has naturally BLACK hair!!!!!! Goddammit! Let ME set the record straight here, since it's painfully obvious DC has no idea what the deal with Jason is... Jason Todd's first appearance was in 1982/1983(or there about). In those issues he was a circus performer(ala Dick Grayson) whose parents were also circus performers(ala Dick Grayson). Jason was a spunky acrobat with naturally RED hair, whose parents were killed by a criminal(once again, ala Dick Grayson), in his case Killer Croc. From there, Jason DYED his hair black, dressed as Robin once to help Batman(against the Joker I believe), and then continued fighting crime dressed in his circus acrobat costume until Dick Grayson handed over the Robin mantle to Jason. It was all good until DC rebooted Jason's origin following Crisis on Infinite Earths(for some reason). In the reboot version, Jason was a street urchin with naturally BLACK hair, who Batman discovered trying to boost the tires off of the Batmobile. Liking the kid's moxie, Bats takes him in and decides to make him his new Robin, since Bats had a falling out with Dick Grayson. So there. Jason Todd, POST-Crisis does NOT have red hair!!! Yes, he had red hair PRE-Crisis, but that origin was retconned! It pissed me of to NO end to see Jason in this comic with flowing red hair... It's wrong!!! I mean jeez, how the hell can DC fuck up their OWN origins that blatantly?! *sigh* Okay, I'm glad I got that out of my system. Now I can move on to the comic at hand. First things first, I'm a huge fan of Judd Winick(from his Batman run, to his Green Arrow run, from Green Lantern, to Exiles), I love the man's work. Especially his work on the Jason Todd character, who I've always had an affinity for, even before Winick brought Jason back from the dead. So I was REALLY looking forward to this comic... Unfortunately though, it just never came together for me. Maybe it was the red hair, maybe it was the talking animals, I don't know, but for some reason, this issue didn't draw me into the story like I expected it to. It was still better than most of the Batman titles, but it just didn't provide the greatness I was hoping for...
Score: 7 out of 10.
Here's PRE-Crisis Jason Todd. Note the red hair.
Here's Jason's FIRST POST-Crisis meeting with Batman. Note the black hair(sorry for the image quality, I don't own this issue yet, although I will soon!). I guess he was stealing those tires to pay for his black hair dye...
Here's a 90's retelling of Batman's first meeting with Jason. Once again, note the BLACK hair.
And here's Jason today, complete with PRE-Crisis red hair...
Blame DC all you want, but we BOTH know it was your boy Grant who decided to make Jason a red-head again. Maybe Judd could've changed it back, maybe he respects Grant too much, but yeah, prior to Grant doing that, no one even thought about giving Jason red hair. That said, I enjoyed most of this comic, because of course there was Jason, and he was killing criminals in clever ways. That said, the ending caught me off guard and I didn't care for the ending, so we're on the same page there.
ReplyDeleteI don't even mind his hair because it looks more Arsenal like and less Jack/Joker like. That being said, I'm not pleased with his hair at all, but I can't change that so I tried not to even think about it. But yeah, I agree with you, and I wish his hair stayed black because it makes no sense that it would've stayed dyed black ALL this time while he was traveling space in Countdown and brain dead, but we can thank Grant for that, for combining the Pre and Post crisis Jason's.
"but we BOTH know it was your boy Grant who decided to make Jason a red-head again." Be that as it may, shouldn't SOMEBODY from editorial have been like, "Um Grant... Jason doesn't actually HAVE red hair..." I seriously just couldn't get into this comic... I really think it was the hair. It was SO red that it kept distracting me or something... And I'm being serious too! Plus the scene in the beginning with Bats kind of fell flat for me, which set the tone for this one. I wanted SO much more from their conversation, and all we really got was Jason blathering on for a while and Bats saying a few lines. And yes. I don't know WHAT the hell was up with that last page!
ReplyDeleteI couldn't help but notice his hair!!! I mean I'm not one to get hung up on art or anything like that, but it drove me CRAZY! I just don't get how you can take Jason's pre-Crisis look and attach it to his post-Crisis origin... Jeez... I'm still confident that I'll be handing out 9's and 10's for the next two parts of this storyline though. Maybe Jason can explain that he was actually dying his hair(eyebrows and beard) ginger just because!
Lmao, I did find it hilarious that his eyebrows were now just randomly red too. And yeah, I wouldn't even mind if Judd had Jason dying his hair red since he put on the new Red Hood costume since he figured he's go to jail and wouldn't want people to know what he looks like. It's stupid but I'd even accept that over the dying his hair all this time explanation.
ReplyDelete"I did find it hilarious that his eyebrows were now just randomly red too." Right?! And I mean they were really RED! That's actually a brilliant excuse for the red hair. He didn't want anybody to possibly suspect that he was a grown up Jason Todd, so in a paranoid rampage he dyed his hair, eyebrows, beard and god knows what else red. Maybe he was afraid some cop would be like, "Hey, you look just like that billionaire's kid who died a few years back, you know, if he hadn't died!" There you go, bing, bang, boom, that explains the red hair. Done!
ReplyDeleteHaha they were SUPER red, like dye wouldn't have even worked in the first place. And glad ya like my explanation, now Judd can use that and everyone can pretend it never even happened. Si? Also, neither of Jason's parents had red hair did they?
ReplyDeletePre- or Post-Crisis? God is DC confusing as HELL sometimes... His mother didn't have red hair(to my recollection) when he was blown up by the Joker, and I'm not sure about his father(Post-Crisis). Now Pre-Crisis I only have two panels with the Todd's in it(and this was after they were killed by crocodiles), but neither of them seemed to have red hair... If his mom did, it was a darker red/almost brown, and his father seemed to have a dark brown to black hair, but like I said, all I have to judge from was two panels with their corpses, so yeah.
ReplyDeleteI'd accept that explanation in a heartbeat! I'm still confident Winick will manage to make something great out of this story though.
I'm just wondering what the hell was up with the ending, I mean damn... talking animals in Gotham? Also, did you catch the "How's Damian's mother line?" Cause I did, aww Jason, checking up on his baby mama. Lol
ReplyDeleteYeah, that ending was... something...
ReplyDeleteYes, I did enjoy that line. You could almost see Jason peering out from that mop of BRIGHT RED hair and saying, "'s right Bruce, I had me some of that too!" It was such an asshole remark to make that it had me chuckling!
Oh, and if Winick didn't change Jason's hair, there's NO WAY he's changing Damian's parentage!
Haha that's the Jason we know and love. And hey, there was no happy, smiling, hugging Bruce in this issue! And yeah, but Winick doesn't HAVE to change it, all he needs is that LITTLE bit of doubt that has people talking, hell it's got us talking just from that line.
ReplyDeleteI know! Where WAS happy Bruce?! I guess Jason is still the one thing to bum poor Bruce out. He was probably just sad because he couldn't caress Jason here... We both know how he likes that...
ReplyDeleteWell in all fairness, we were talking about that LONG before this issue! :P
Lol sadly that's true, he's probably still heartbroken about the "Trash Can Lid Massacre!"
ReplyDeleteBut it only fuels my efforts even more!
Wouldn't you be hartbroken if your sidekick/the object of your heart's desire was beaten near to death with a trash can lid?! I know I'D be!
ReplyDeleteAhhh, JT... It's just not gonna happen my friend... If our wishes would come true, Chairman Johns would have been fired a LONG time ago, and Saint Barry wouldn't be running about tormenting me.
Nah, his hair's red. Yes, it's a change, but it's a good change. It never made sense that so many black-haired people all ran around together. Why would editorial tell Morrison anything? You think he didn't know? He went throught he trouble of providing an explanation in the story.
ReplyDeleteNow he's truly a red-headed step-child. And it goes with him being the RED hood.
It fits, it's in, get over it.
????? But it ISN'T red!!! Maybe you think it's a good change, but I don't. Wasn't Morrison's explanation simply, "He dyed his hair black to look like Robin..." Since his hair ISN'T red, why would it need to be dyed?! All Morrison did was took the Pre-Crisis look of Jason and added it to the Post-Crisis origin, something that makes NO sense. And I'm not saying this as a Morrison hater, I respect what he's doing in the Bat-books a ton.
ReplyDelete“It never made sense that so many black-haired people all ran around together.” That's one of the strangest quotes I've seen in quite some time... I'd have to figure that black is the predominant hair color in the world, so I don't know WHY that “never” made sense...
See, you're not getting the fact that Jason's hair color changed after Crisis on Infinite Earths threw out his original origin. It DOESN'T fit, because it's WAY wrong in continuity, okay, for now it's in, and why the HELL should I get over it if it blatantly wrong?! Oh, and if you checked out Red Hood: The Lost Days, which came out AFTER Morrison's three part Red Hood arc, you'll see even MORE evidence that Jason's hair is naturally black.
Lmao.... Winner and STILL Champeeeeeeeen, THE..... X-MAN!!!!!! Too many people with black hair... what kinda segregation...
ReplyDelete"Too many people with black hair... what kinda segregation..." HA!! Ah JT... I guess it would be weird if me you and Lisha were all in the same place at the same time! :P I suppose I'd have to dye my hair blond or something... :P
ReplyDeleteYou'd damn well better, or the feds would be on us in no time at all! Damn black hair having delinquents!
ReplyDeleteI guess we'd set off some kind of fed checklist or something... "THREE people with black hair... In ONE place! Shenanigans MUST be afoot!" :D
ReplyDelete