Read Comics! The Importance of Personal Connections

April 5, 2021

I’ve said a few times before how important it is to actually read comics. I’m not saying you MUST read comics to appreciate a character. You can be a Superman fan and only watch the films, you can love Batman and only play the Arkham games. That doesn’t stop you from being a fan. But if you want to understand specific story lines or aspects of a character, it is truly important to pick up the book and read it yourself. Recaps and bullet point notes are great, but nothing beats that personal connection of experiencing the story.

I’ve been trying to figure out for a while how to best explain this. It’s been a subject I’ve spoken about with a few friends, but it’s still a difficult idea to just get across in the space of a tweet. It’s something that can be taken the wrong way, like I’m saying that you can only be a fan if you actually read comics. This is why I have this long rambling introduction just to ensure we are all on the same page going in and I don’t get people in the comments shouting “how dare you say I’m not a Daredevil fan, because I don’t read the books!”. I mean, let’s face it, now that I’ve said that someone will type it.

Back on topic, at the time of writing this it is currently the holiday season, and a goal of mine during this break is to get through my backlog of comics that have built up while I’ve been teaching and studying. While trying to find a starting point, I stumbled across this image on Twitter:

I couldn’t find a source for the image on the original tweet, so I did some reverse image searching and found that it comes from the Red Hood and the Outlaws run by Scott Lobdell at the beginning of DC Rebirth. I haven’t really read any Red Hood comics, but I do have experience with Jason Todd as Robin.

If you’ve been on the internet researching Batman and his young sidekicks, you will come across Jason Todd. Through things like History of videos, recaps and just notes about him on Wiki articles, you’re likely to come across seven key facts about Jason.

1. He died

2. He got better

3. Fans voted on whether or not Jason would die in the Death in the Family storyline.

4. His death was caused by the Joker beating him to within an inch of his life with a crowbar, then blowing up the building they were in.

5. He’s a brat

6. Batman found him because he was stealing the tyres off of the Batmobile, and

7. He’s now the anti-hero Red Hood, taking his name from an old alias of the Jokers.

But outside of that, he’s not really spoken about much in terms of his career as Robin. It’s actually pretty easy to read his entire run as Robin in just a few days. The whole thing can be read across just four trade collections. Batman: Second Chances, Caped Crusader Vol. 1, The Cult and Death in the Family. It’s only 22 issues, plus the 4 from The Cult. And even then, you can skip The Cult and not miss a lot from Jason’s story. It is a run I do recommend people reading, but it also gave you a very different perspective of the character than you may have had before. Personally, I went from not caring about Jason, to sympathising with him. I would even go so far as to say that he is tied for my favourite Robin. Granted, I love the Robin’s anyway.

Whatever, It’s the holidays, that picture got me interested, so I ordered the first two volumes thinking I’d read them and that would be it. Instead, I found a perfect example of an experience enhanced by previous, first hand reading. BINGO!

Being a Rebirth book. The trade does open with almost a primer for new readers. In this case, it’s a recap of the story we all know about Jason Todd. Found on the streets trying to steal the tyres off of the Batmobile, taken in by Bruce Wayne and made into the second Robin, then finally killed by the Joker, before being resurrected years later. It’s a good little introduction to get a new reader up to speed, and I do deeply appreciate this. I grew up on British reprints of DC and Marvel comics, and the back of the inside cover had little recaps of the character that reprint was focused on. It was extremely helpful as a kid. But moving on to the first actual issue of the book, we see Jason saving the life of an elderly lady known as Ma Gunn. There is a very brief explanation of who she is, but to me, this triggered an emotional response. Contrary to the story told in recaps, it wasn’t just a case of Jason being caught by Batman and then automatically being adopted. Batman knew that he needed to get Jason off the streets, and even saw how Jason was living, all on his own. Batman’s original solution was to take Jason to a place he thought would not only keep Jason safe, but would help him to get his life together. Ma Gunn’s Home for Wayward Boys.

Ma Gunn seems like a kind old lady running this place out of the goodness of her heart. Even showing Batman several young men who swore that Ma had really helped them. Batman felt safe leaving Jason here, but as soon as Batman left, Ma Gunn revealed her true intentions. She did take in wayward boys. But they became members of her criminal empire. Jason did eventually manage to get back to Batman, and together they revealed Ma Gunn’s criminal syndicate, and managed to send her to prison. It’s easy to see why it’s skipped over in recaps, the whole thing only lasted two issues, and that included Jason’s introduction. Within Red Hood and the Outlaws, it is touched on, and Jason does briefly say that he wasn’t there long. But having read his actual experience there, you remember just how terrified Jason was by the experience, and how much it not only affected him, but helped to reaffirm Jason’s feelings that people just can’t be trusted. It was a small moment, but when you add first hand experience and emotional resonance, it becomes impactful.

The plot of this first arc saw Red Hood infiltrating Black Mask’s gang in order to figure out why the Major was infected with a techno-organic virus. Of course, this run-in with Black Mask get’s Batman’s attention, leading to a confrontation in Jason’s secret hide-out. During which, Batman brings up the idea that were Red Hood to take a life while undercover, Batman will come after him the same way he would any other criminal. This argument, and even moments Jason has later on with Black Mask, harkens back to one of the most important issues in Jason’s original run as Robin. Batman #424: The Diplomat’s Son.

This was an issue centered around Jason’s idea of morality and how that is sometimes at odds with Batman. During the issue, while out on patrol, Jason hears a woman scream. He breaks into the apartment to find a woman crying, asking for help, and had most likely just been assaulted. The culprit is a young man named Felipe, and unfortunately for Batman and Robin, he is the son of a diplomat and has diplomatic immunity. He cannot be arrested. Robin is clearly furious about this, asking what the point of justice is if someone like Felipe can get away with such a cruel act. Later on, Robin learns that Felipe has driven the young woman so far over the edge that she commits suicide. Unable to hide his anger, Robin confronts Felipe and as the issue ends, we see Felipe fall from the high balcony of his apartment. When Batman arrives he bluntly asks Jason whether or not Felipe fell or if he was pushed. Jason doesn’t answer leaving the ending very ambiguous.

From the conversation seen between Red Hood and Batman, it feels like this incident is playing back in Jason’s mind. It’s not mentioned within the Rebirth issue, but having that context for Jason’s experience as Robin. It puts the conversation in a completely different perspective. This is something that comes from experiencing the stories first hand.

That entire first volume is really interesting to read, it’s a pretty fun story and I like the idea of this Dark Trinity being built. Especially given the fact that this new Bizarro is actually acknowledged as not being the first. It’s a nice little touch especially for those who have a weird obsession with continuity like I do. But that brings us to the image I brought up at the beginning of this video. That image of an adult Jason watching his younger self being beaten to death.

This comes from the second arc of the series which primarily follows Jason’s teammate, Artemis, and the search for a lost artefact that she’s been tracking for over a year. This search takes the team to Qurac, the very place Jason died in Death in the Family. The plane the team are travelling in is shot down, and all three members are seperated. Jason wakes up being interrogated by the local military, but when he realises that he’s being held in the bunker across from the one he died in. This genuinely freaks Jason out, to the point that the military are not too sure what is going on. He accuses them of working with the Joker, which they are clearly not. It’s genuinely heartbreaking seeing Jason have this intense PTSD. He’d already on edge for having to revisit Qurac, but now he’s staring his biggest tragedy in the face all on his own. For people who know what happened, they get the reference. They know it’s referring to Jason’s death, and they know how it happened. But for those who read the story and remember that crowbar coming down on Jason over and over again. The way he pleaded for someone to help him, it’s like we are experiencing that flashback along with him.

The first two volumes of Red Hood and the Outlaws are genuinely good reads. It’s something I would recommend to anyone interested in checking out Red Hood. But what I want to emphasis more than anything, is that if you are interested in a story line, or want to know a character better. Read those stories. Experience them for yourself. There is no replacement for first hand experience. Watch videos talking about them, play games, watch the movies, get to know what you want to read, then go out, read the stories and add to the conversation. You will get so much more out of the medium by engaging with it.