The (Comic) Book Was Better - Under the (Red) Hood

 

I hear there used to be an old saying about comic books, how only three characters ever stayed really and truly dead: Uncle Ben, Bucky and Jason Todd.  Well, in January 2005, Marvel decided to stomp all over that axiom by resurrecting Bucky Barnes as the slightly unstable and infinitely more complex Winter Soldier.  The very next month, DC followed suit by resurrecting Jason Todd as the slightly unstable and infinitely more complex Red Hood.  I eagerly await the day when Marvel revives Uncle Ben only for DC to overshadow this event by reviving Thomas Wayne, but until then, let’s talk about Jason Todd and how both comic and cartoon have handled his return.

Okay, so the comic version of the plot: A guy calling himself the Red Hood has appeared in Gotham, taking over the drug trade and blowing up other crooks’ stuff.  This angers both the Batman, who hate criminals in general, and the Black Mask, who runs Gotham’s underworld.  Batman begins to suspect that Red Hood is his former (and formerly deceased) sidekick Jason Todd, who was brought back to life thanks to… um… yeah, let’s talk about that.  Normally I like to discuss the good things about a comic before the bad, but since I’ve brought it up…

Jason Todd was resurrected because a bratty version of Superboy trapped between dimensions punched the multiverse, thereby changing and undoing a bunch of stuff, including Jason’s death.

 

Yyyyyyyeeeeeaaaahhhhh…

Okay, truncated story time.

Back in the ‘80s, a character named Superboy-Prime, who hailed from an alternate universe where he was the only superhero, was invented.  Initially, he was a good guy, but somewhere down the line, something went horribly irrevocably wrong and he turned evil.  The presence of the now-evil Superboy-Prime has sullied every comic he appears in, from Countdown to Final Crisis (like it didn’t have enough problems) to Under the Hood.

In other words, no, this doesn’t make sense even with context.  While the image of Jason clawing his way out of his own grave is admittedly badass, it just wasn’t worth the stupidity it took to get us there.  Fortunately, the truth behind Jason’s resurrection isn’t given until the very end, so if you want to avoid the stupid, just don’t read the last issue.  Still, it did leave a rather odd taste in my mouth the first time I read it.

The camaraderie between Batman and Nightwing is outstanding, so it’s kind of a shame that Nightwing disappears from the story a few issues in.  Still, I can’t really call Nightwing’s presence pointless or useless.  The story is about a Robin gone wrong, basically, so I think it’s important that we also see a Robin gone right, even if he could be integrated a little better.

 

My only real complaint is that Nightwing is hanging with Batman while recovering from a bullet wound to the leg.  You will recall that he received this injury in Nightwing #98, five issues after being raped by Tarantula, except that the rape is never acknowledged because Oracle, Robin, Alfred and Batman either don’t notice or don’t give a darn that one of their own has been attacked and traumatized by a Mary Sue monster of a character, which I guess is understandable because it’s not like any of them have been the dubbed THE WORLD’S GREATEST DETECTIVE OR ANYTHING SO WHY WOULD HE NOTICE WHEN HIS OWN SON CLEARLY HAS PTSD.  THAT MAKES SENSE, RIGHT?  RIGHT?!?!?!

*cough* Despite the circumstances, it’s really nice to see Batman being friendly and a relatively good parent, especially since he’s kind of a jerk to everyone else.  I have no idea what else was going on in the comics at the time aside from War Games and that thing in Nightwing, so maybe Batman has good reason to be a jerk, though personally, my money is on Batman behaving this way because he can he’s Batman.

I’m also not sure I understand the logic behind Batman’s investigation into whether or not Jason Todd could have been resurrected.  See, the first thing we see him do is to go around to every magic user and resurrected person he can think of and being jerks to them all pumping them for info about raising the dead and such.  Only much later in the story does he dig up Jason’s coffin and confirm that the body inside is gone.  Far be it from me to question the “World’s Greatest Detective,” but if he has suspected that Jason is alive for long enough to question everyone from Green Arrow to Zatanna, wouldn’t checking the gravesite be the first thing you do?  Right up there with getting DNA samples off of Red Hood?  Maybe it was a case of ‘wants to know but is scared of finding out,’ but I can’t really see Batman succumbing to those urges…

The art is meh.  I can’t quite put my finger on why I don’t like it, there’s just something about it—especially the faces—that doesn’t look right.  And is it just me, or is Jason channeling post-nose job Michael Jackson in this panel?

 

I don’t know.  Some of it works, but like with all art, it’s probably just a matter of taste, and this art doesn’t suit mine.  But that doesn’t change the fact that Under the Hood is a good bit of storytelling with not only an interesting plot and a moving conflict but—most importantly—compelling characters with understandable motivations.  Is it my favorite comic book ever?  No, but I’ve reread it several times and will read it again in the future.

Okay, so howzabout the movie?

First off, I would like to point out that the film is rated PG-13, and with good reason.  This is the darkest DC cartoon I’ve seen (though I’m willing to bet the ones based on The Dark Knight Returns could give it a run for its money), so don’t let the kiddies in the room with you.  I mean it.

The basic plot is the same, with a few key changes that we’ll get to later.  I can’t say I’m overly fond of the film’s portrayal of the Joker.  This film was made a couple years after Heath Ledger’s Oscar-winning turn in The Dark Knight, and it shows.  Under the Red Hood’s Joker has moments of mild mania, but he’s calm and calculating to the point where Jason’s death-by-crowbar-and-explosion seems downright serene where it should be fiery and horrifying.  Look, guys, I dig Ledger too, but I should not be able to imagine On the Beautiful Blue Danube playing unironically over the beating death of a teenager.

Also, this:



"May I have some water?"

This scene will not end up bearing any similarity to the pencil scene at all.  For realsies.

As for the rest of the voice acting, it’s mostly good.  I do have a bit of a problem with Jensen Ackles as Red Hood and… oh how it pains me to say this… Neil Patrick Harris as Nightwing.  (HOW DO YOU MESS THAT UP???)  They would have been fine if they’d used their natural voices, but it sounds like they’re purposefully trying to sound deeper and more Batman-like.  Which works for Batman, but the entire point of the story is that they aren’t him.  I don’t know whose idea that was, but both Harris and voice director Andrea Romano should know better, since they worked together on Justice League: New Frontier without pulling any of that faux-baritone baloney.  Especially since Jason is supposed to be like, what, 21 in this?  Is taking a dip in a Lazarus Pit the equivalent of smoking for ten years?

There’s a few clunky lines of exposition towards the beginning, mostly designed to explain to less savvy viewers who characters like Nightwing and Amazo are.  There’s also this line of the Joker’s where he describes Hood’s costume as “motorcycle fetish,” and it is used twice for no apparent reason.  So a couple minor hiccups in the script, but they go by quickly enough, and then we get to see explosions!

 

Pretty fire……… er, sorry, I let my inner Heatwave out for a second there.  Moving on.

The flashbacks to tiny green-pantied Jason don’t provide quite enough character development to explain why happy-go-lucky preteen Jason turned into surly murdery teen Jason, but they do provide good contrast, and the final flashback at the end may make you cry.  On the other hand, they’re also kind of distracting because Jason looks exactly like Dick from The Batman, complete with fang bangs.  I think someone tried glancing through some old comics to get a better feel for the characters but did so a little too fast.

I honestly have a hard time choosing which interpretation I like better.  The cartoon remains incredibly faithful to the source material, and both were written by Judd Winick, so if you like one, it’s a pretty sure bet you’ll like the other.

One of the benefits of a 75-minute film is that there’s no chance to drag out Batman’s interrogation into the true identity of the Red Hood.  It’s made clear very early on that Batman suspects it’s Jason, he digs up the body, the end.  I’ve already discussed the comic, where the “suspense” is dragged on and on well past the point where it’s interesting.  Yes, we KNOW Jason is alive, now would you dig up the body and confirm it, please?!

And both film and comic do an admirable job of getting us to sympathize with Jason Todd, despite his murderish tendencies.  I understand Batman’s concerns about killing the Joker—as much good as it would do, giving into the temptation could very easily lead to thinking well, I killed that dude, so what’s the difference between him and that nutcase over there?  He’s just or at least almost as bad, so why not?  (Though I should think there’s at least one person in Gotham who has no such issues and who would have killed the Joker ages ago, but that’s another issue.)  But at the same time, I see where Jason is coming from—in preserving the life of an unrepentant madman, you condemn hundreds of people to a gruesome, gory death.  Personally, I’m kinda leaning more towards Jason’s side of the argument, which I guess is an accomplishment given the horrible things he’s done, but Winick does a good job of demonstrating that there are no easy answers and that both characters deserve our sympathy.

On the downside, the cartoon got Jason’s knife wrong!

 

His knife is squiggly!  SQUIGGLY!  Is that really so hard!  Now you’ve made it all boring and normal!  Everything is ruined!

In any case, I think I have to give the edge to the cartoon, mainly because it fixed the really big issues I had with the comic—most importantly, that dang resurrection.  In the cartoon, we’re told that Ra’s Al Ghul is behind it all: he felt guilty for Jason’s death (he hired the Joker as a distraction from his own nefarious schemes), stole the body, and tried to use the all-healing Lazarus Pit to bring Jason back to life only for that plan to go terribly wrong as well.  Now doesn’t that make more sense?

This also fixes the problem of just what Joker was doing outside of the U.S. in the first place.  In the original Death in the Family story, Jason dies in Europe at the Joker’s hands.  And what was the Joker doing out of the U.S.?  Selling nukes to terrorists and being BFFs with the Iranian government.  It’s just as stupid as it sounds.

Fortunately, the flashbacks in the film solve that problem by having Ra’s Al Ghul responsible.  That still means someone was enough of a dunderhead to think hiring the Joker was a good idea—and Black Mask makes the same mistake in the present day, which is a disappointing end to the cartoon’s version of his story arc—but it beats the original.  At least Al Ghul has come to realize and regret his mistake.

I do have to give the comic points for its superior handling of the final confrontation between Batman and Red Hood.  Which is weird, since the movie quotes large swaths of it verbatim, but the comic makes the decision to cut off half of Jason’s domino mask before the big emotional stuff happens.  That might seem like a relatively minor thing, but being able to really see Jason’s eye as he’s ranting and, eventually, crying makes the scene much more powerful. 

 

Both of these pictures are taken from the exact same point in the story with Jason saying the exact same dialogue, but the original is more gut wrenching because we can see just how much it’s affecting him.  Even if we can’t agree with Jason’s actions, we can sympathize with all he’s been through and how a part of him is still a kid who wants his dad to come and scare away the monsters under the bed… even if he has to threaten, murder, and manipulate him into doing it.

So conclusion: if you want to read the comic, go right ahead.  It’s a great read.  But if you don’t have the time and want to skip right to the adaptation, you won’t miss out on much.  Still, they are both worth tracking down.

Next Time: Freakazoid is weird, Dexter Douglas is nerdy, and Gutierrez is evil.  Nice to know some things never change, eh?

Images from Batman: Under the Hood (trade) and Batman: Under the Red Hood