Truth be told, I’m not really a fan of Judd Winick’s writing. Yeah, he’s the guy who can write really great character stories if he wanted to, but he’s not really someone I can see writing a timeless story. I don’t hate him with as much fervor as another Comicgasm editor *cough RJ cough* but I’m no fan either.

Which brings us to his arguably most controversial storyline, Under The Hood, in which we see – SPOILER ALERT – Jason Todd, the second Robin, come back from the grave as the new Red Hood to haunt Batman and the man responsible for his death, the Joker. It’s been adapted for this DC Universe Animated Original Movie, Under The Red Hood, and it is awesome.

I really couldn’t care much for Jason Todd/Red Hood. I don’t hate him, but I think his resurrection wasn’t Bucky-great either. He was written horribly during Battle For The Cowl and was, um, really weird in Grant Morrison’s Batman & Robin. Sadly, I haven’t read Winick’s original Under The Hood storyline to have an opinion there, but I do know that Jason Todd gets revived via Superboy-Prime’s retcon punching, and we all know how lame that was. Thankfully, since this movie was a self-contained affair, we get none of the retcon punching and we actually get a good explanation on how Jason Todd gets resurrected. But more on that later.

I actually found this movie to be awesome. It’s got pretty good action sequences, especially when you have a film with Batman and two former Robins jumping around Gotham. It actually shows Batman jumping around rooftops – something Christopher Nolan’s live-action movies have failed to do, for obvious reasons. There was a nice scene where Batman and Nightwing faced off against an Amazo, and it hit all the right notes action-wise.

The art they used here was great – none of that stupid anime-style they utilized in Batman: Gotham Knight or the Ed McGuiness aping in Superman/Batman: Public Enemies. This is distinct from the DCAU style found on Crisis on Two Earths, but still great.

Voice acting was stellar too. Jensen Ackles was great as Red Hood, Neal Patrick Harris is a great choice for Nightwing, and Bruce Greenwood as Batman was awesome. It was rather jarring to hear John DiMaggio, the voice behind Futurama’s Bender, as Joker, but he brings in a rather different and chilling take on the role, even if he uses a weird southern/hillbilly accent.

We all know how the story goes – Joker beats up Robin to a pulp with a crowbar, Robin gets blown up, Batman rages, Robin mysteriously gets resurrected, everything goes to hell. They managed to fix that stupid Superboy-Prime part in the comics, and have Ra’s Al Ghul be the person solely responsible for the former Robin’s revival. In fact, I like this explanation even more than the comic book one I’m putting this movie in my personal canon over the comic book explanation.

Jason Todd’s characterization is handled beautifully here. Nothing’s overly dramatic or cheesy, and Batman gets to angst in a way that’s not annoying. Sure, Batman’s still a dick, but he’s actually a likeable sort of dick here, unlike his pre-Morrison comic counterpart. Nightwing’s a wisecracker, Joker’s creepy, and Black Mask (voiced by Wade Williams) gets played for laughs, punching the shit out of everyone when he gets frustrated. Who would’ve thought that a character like Black Mask can actually become comic relief. Huh.

I do have a few quibbles with this movie though. Some of the fight scenes are pretty brutal, like the opening scene where Joker continuously hits Jason with a crowbar and the final scene where Batman beats him up, and it’s obvious that the violence was tamed down a bit. I ended up thinking “Hey, the kid’s getting hit by a crowbar! Shouldn’t we get more blood than that?” I’m not exactly advocating violence for the sake of it, but if they were going to demonstrate how brutal Joker and Batman can get, I won’t mind seeing more blood. Fuck the kids, this movie’s for the die hard fans. Another thing I didn’t like would be the fact that this movie needs more Nightwing. They criminally underused NPH here. Using Black Mask for laughs is fine, but there was too much of him and not enough Joker. Also, Black Mask and Joker talk in weird hillbilly accents. It was weird. And the movie seemed to launch into full-on exposition every ten minutes or so. It was mildly annoying, but thankfully they managed to make up for it by giving one awesome action scene after another.

Overall, though, I dare say that Batman: Under The Red Hood is the best Batman animated movie DC has come out so far, beating even Return Of The Joker and – le gasp – Mask Of The Phantasm. Seriously, guys, watch this.

Ade Magnaye

Ade is the hero Comicgasm deserves, but not the one it needs right now.

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