I don't know if I was reading the issues as they came out, but I rather prefer the Under the Red Hood DVD to the comics it was adapted from: the DVD has to cut extraneous elements, and has a far more elegant solution for the resurrection of Jason Todd than "Superboy punched reality." It does help that the DVD was maybe the second, third Blu-Ray I ever bought--I haven't built up a massive collection, to be honest.
Upon his return, Jason is shocked that Bruce didn't end the Joker for killing him. After all, Jason would've. Bruce refuses to cross that line, but Jason will, saying Gotham is "evil. And you have to fight her where she lives." Before escaping, Jason leaves Bruce fingerprints, hair, tissue, and blood samples by cutting himself with a Batarang; and after testing Bruce has to concede that it's really Jason. (He'd been fooled with a Clayface in Hush, although Jason had tagged in for part of that fight.)
As we see above, Alfred asks Bruce if the memorial to Jason, his Robin uniform, should be removed. Bruce says no: "This doesn't change anything. It doesn't change anything at all." I haven't read every story since with Jason, but I have the feeling some writers embraced him, and others did not: in some stories, the Batman-trained Jason is scarily competent; in others, he's a sad, pathetic wannabe with dyed hair, scalp problems, and delusions of grandeur.
That said, Jason's memorial has become one of the most recognizable trophies in the Batcave. Personally I'd put it behind the dinosaur and the giant penny but ahead of the Joker card. I was going to do a Batman strip soon, and while I have a silly dinosaur I've used in strips before, and am pretty sure I could print off a Joker card; I'm not sure how big the giant penny should be, and have no idea how to knock out a Robin costume case. I would dearly love a decently priced, DCUC/six-inch scale one--I think a decent one could be made without it being a full-on lucite cube, which might be too expensive. Might shop that around now...a few minutes searching found this, which might be worth giving a try the next time I'm feeling crafty. We'll see...
Toy props like that you'd think DC Direct would have already done some or most of those, but sadly no. I guess we either keep waiting, or build the shit ourselves right?
ReplyDeleteI too enjoyed the Under the Hood DVD. I didn't read any or most of the story arc, but I'm pretty sure I didn't miss anything too important that couldn't have been made up by watching the movie.
Although how cool was it to see Batman and Dick team-up to blow up an Amazo?:)