欧宝娱乐

Finally!
I've been wanting to read this one forever, but I've never been able to find it anywhere (free). But Amazon has kindly included it in their Prime reading section, so I snatched it up and here we are.
Ok, while I did know the basic gist of the story, there were several surprises in here that made it well worth reading, especially since I'm a big fan of Red Hood.



Readers actually paid (50 cents) to kill off Jason Todd!
Wow. The hatred was real.
I knew they voted him off, I just didn't realize they had to fork over money for the privilege. Ok, well more likely, they had to ask their parents if they would let them call a 900 number. But I remember landline phones, long-distance telephone numbers, and how parents felt about paying for calls they didn't make.
Kids today have no idea how brutal the Dark Ages were.
Plus, there was such a small window of time to make the call to save/kill The Toddster.
Dedication, thy name is Comic Fan.



However, after reading this, I can see why Jason lost his little cartoon life.
The kid was annoying.



Still...ouch.



I think most people will agree that the crowbar has become a pretty iconic part of Red Hood's origin story. But what's been forgotten was the last few panels of that page.
You know, the part where it was actually his fucking birth mother who turned him over to the Joker.
Holy Twat Tacos, Batman!



Ok, Batman notices that Jason is a bit out of control, so he attempts to bench him and get him some help. Jason simultaneously tells Bruce to piss off and begins an ill-fated search for this real mother. <--these things rarely end well
Meanwhile, Batman goes off in search of Joker, who is attempting to sell weapons to some bad guys in the Middle East.
At some point, the two meet, team up, and discover which one of Jason's Maybe Moms is the one who pushed him out of her womb.



Oh, Jason.
Another surprise (for me) was that Joker blackmailed his mother (Dr. Shelia Haywood) into turning Jason over to him with the threat of exposing her part in an illegal abortion that caused the death of a teenage girl. The fact that she was painted as evil for performing abortions seemed really weird and dated to me. I mean, she was also embezzling from the refugee camp she was working in, but even that doesn't seem like the level of villainy needed to have a smoke while your son is getting beaten to death by a psycho. Robin's Mom & her actions were off-putting and strange, and I actually agree with the subsequent writers who decided to gloss over that whole part of the story. Good riddance to Dr. Haywood.



The big questions of the day were, of course, whether or not Batman shows up in time to save Jason, or whether or not Jason survives the bomb going off.
Well, we all know how it turned out.
R.I.P., Jason Todd - world's douchiest Robin.
2006 - Enter Winnick's Under the Red Hood & one of DC's best anti-heroes.





Another thing I loved was the alternate ending panel. Batman is smiling?! That's worth the price of admission, right there.



But wait! There's more!
I'm sure you're all wondering why the hell Batman didn't just go after the Joker and kill the fuck out of him. Right?
Welcome to the second part of this wacko story:



The old diplomatic immunity trope.



Superman (ever the government stooge) stops Bruce from going after Iran's newest ambassador.
I can't even...



Anyhoo.
The truth is that I thought the story itself was kind of stupid, and it doesn't really hold up over the years - if it ever did. Just sort of felt slapped together and weird. But it's become a linchpin in not only Red Hood's origin story but Batman's, as well. Yeah, it's dumb, but you really need to see this shit for yourself.
Required Reading for Batfans.

PS- In the edition I had, it included a whole bunch of issues that had the introduction of Tim Drake and (maybe) some other stuff. I was struggling to finish the main story, so this was a definite no-go for me. I skimmed it and I skipped it. But for those of you who are interested..?