taking names, righting wrongs (2451 words) by throwawayidea
Chapters: 1/26
Fandom: Batman - All Media Types, Batman (Comics)
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Relationships: Talia al Ghul & Jason Todd, Dick Grayson & Jason Todd
Characters: Jason Todd, Dick Grayson, Bruce Wayne, Talia al Ghul, Tim Drake (DCU), Stephanie Brown, Cassandra Cain, Barbara Gordon
Additional Tags: Trans Female Jason Todd, Gender Dysphoria, Good Parent Talia al Ghul, guess who's ranting about gender dysphoria through a fic where a character gets her desired body via magical mountain dew, thats right its me, Good Sibling Dick Grayson, this is mostly just fem jason fucking shit up to the max, under the red hood but the red hood is a woman, who is like 6‘4 and built like a brick wall so no one knows she’s a woman, Crack Treated Seriously, jason & dick are so special to me in this
Summary:
Jason always figured, at some point, he would tell Bruce about the weird conflict he felt in his heart whenever he looked at himself in the mirror. That he’d take a moment, at some point, to try and make sense of the disdain he felt whenever someone called him the next 'Boy Wonder'.
He figured he’d have time to– scratch that, he just thought he had time.
Then he died, so that went to shit real fast.
And then he gets dunked in a pit of green-glowing magic liquid and comes out a girl, and things start to make a little more sense.
—
Alternatively: The Red Hood is a terrifying crime lord that kills a lot of people, and she’s also a woman named Jasmine that loves doing her nails. Everyone else is due for some serious confusion.
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i felt a funeral, in my brain (12022 words) by throwawayidea
Chapters: 3/?
Fandom: Batman - All Media Types
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Tim Drake & Dick Grayson & Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne & Damian Wayne, Essence (DCU) & Jason Todd, Stephanie Brown & Cassandra Cain
Characters: Jason Todd, Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake (DCU), Dick Grayson, Damian Wayne, Talia al Ghul, Cassandra Cain, Stephanie Brown, Alfred Pennyworth
Additional Tags: Magical Jason Todd, Immortal Jason Todd, like… halfway. he’s kinda like a cockroach, Jason Todd Has Issues, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Jason Todd Kills Joker (DCU), Crack Treated Seriously, Not Really Character Death, Jason Todd Has the All-Blades, Jason Todd's Identity as Red Hood is Not Known, Magical Realism, Gotham City-Typical Violence (DCU), Supernatural Elements, Childhood Trauma, this is legit just UTRH but jason has magic, and maybe like 5 percent less of a grudge against the bats
Summary:
For as long as Jason can remember back, he’s known that he has something other and magical running through his veins.
He doesn’t remember much of his father, but he remembers his mother cradling his cheeks and telling him he has Willis Todd’s eyes, his eyes and his gift; something sacred that he must always keep close to his heart, because magic is rare, magic is for special people, people destined for something great. It’s a spark in his blood, a thrum under his pulse, and no matter how much he hates it, it’s all his.
Except, he’s all its, too. And when Jason dies, his magic doesn’t let him go.
It takes a clown, a crowbar and a bomb for him to figure that out. And then– well. Only way to go from a grave is up, right?
—
Or, the one where Jason is semi-immortal and decides to make it everyone else’s problem. Also, there are shadow demons and magical threats and mystical monks, sometimes. He deals with them and– runs a crime empire on the side, or something.
Shit only really starts going awry when the Bats show up.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Manhunt: Red Hood Edition (6696 words) by b4tling
Chapters: 2/4
Fandom: Batman - All Media Types, Justice League - All Media Types
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Justice League & Jason Todd, Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne, Jason Todd & Damian Wayne
Characters: Jason Todd, Clark Kent, Jon Kent, Bruce Wayne, Damian Wayne, Justice League (DCU), Members of the Team (Young Justice)
Additional Tags: Protective Jason Todd, Jason Todd Needs A Hug, Jason Todd is Red Hood, Jason Todd is a Menace, BAMF Jason Todd, Worried Justice League, Justice League as Family (DCU), Angst, Eventual Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Teen Jason Todd, Jason Todd Takes Care of Crime Alley | Park Row, Crime Alley | Park Row Residents Love Jason Todd, Prince of Gotham | Jason Todd
Summary:
A new group has made themselves known on the web, playing a twisted game in which they've set up a system for people to vote on which kid hero should be hunted for. The winner who kills said hero - gets a large sum of money.
This garners the attention of the Red Hood: a figure in Gotham who has just made himself known in the community as an upcoming crime lord.
During his mission to reign crime-alley, he had a strict set of rules laid out. One of those rules just so happens to be that - kids, are off limits.
The world is about to learn about that specific rule, real soon.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Commonality (2470 words) by Wisetypewriter
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Batman - All Media Types
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Jason Todd, Original Characters
Additional Tags: Interrogation, Magic, Dark, vent fic, Murder, Non-Consensual Body Modification, It's about magic, and what kind of people would use it like that, Animal Transformation, All Caste Jason Todd, mentioned - Freeform
Summary:
It's not about the whacky, heartwarming hijinks that result in a miraculous growth and long time wounds suddenly healing. A happy ending earned through suffering and discomfort and their own self being molded for other's moralizing.
It's about the type of people that would do this to others, and keep doing it.
It's about someone who would have things to say about this.
Illustrators: Brian Bolland (+ John Higgins for the original version)
Rating: ★★★★★
—
The Killing Joke is a Batman classic. It's a short one-off but one of the most influential - it spun a darker tone for Batman, turned Batgirl into Oracle, gave the Joker more angst and pathos and an origin story. Tim Burton proclaimed this his favourite comic, and thus, it heavily influenced his Batman movies, and I believe this incarnation of Joker inspired Joaquin Phoenix's version of Joker in the most recent movie, although it's altogether a very different thing.
I'm reviewing the recoloured 2008 deluxe edition. This will contain many spoilers as it's a Batman classic, and I'll just share my opinions. Spoilers ensue.
The plot summary is this: the Joker commits terrible violent acts to drive Commissioner Gordon insane, to prove his belief that it only takes one bad day to push a 'normal' person into madness. The text is by Alan Moore and the ending in particular is excellent, though Moore himself doesn't like it, and although this is a must-read Batman comic it isn't my favourite thing by him. Still, this is 5 star worthy even despite the graphic violence against Batgirl, and yes you must read it as it's a key influence in the later Batman oeuvre.
On the recolour vs the original
As far as the recolour goes, I much prefer the Bolland recolour vs the 1988 original coloured by John Higgins. I understand the argument for the more psychedelic/saturated colours in the original, ie. it manifests the Joker's manic mental state to the reader. The 2008 deluxe edition is recoloured the way Bolland originally envisioned, and it's coloured in more natural, muted shades, with the flashbacks clearly demarcated in sepia, with pops of colour. To me this fits better with the story, which is kind of about the Joker's belief ordinariness and inevitability of the ordinary man plunging into insanity when pushed too far.
Both colourings work, but a little differently. In this panel where the Joker sits on this throne above the creepy baby dolls, it looks especially unbalanced in the bright yellow-magenta. You can see your madness in vivid Technicolor. While in the other, I feel it's more that the Joker tells you, You're going mad, and you realise that possibly you are, but your madness looks the same as reality. And if you think of the bright colours of the original as the madness of the Joker manifest, then the recolour perhaps depicts the reality of the story more accurately, where his theory is wrong, and despite his attempts, Commissioner Gordon remains sane.
On the Joker's attack on Barbara Gordon
If you're unaware of it, women in refrigerators is a comic book trope in which women are violently victimised ('fridging') as a plot device to move forward a male character's story. The term was coined by Gail Simone.
Undoubtedly, Barbara Gordon's explicitly sexually violent attack by the Joker to drive Commissioner Gordon insane qualifies as fridging, and it's important to note that Alan Moore himself regrets this. The criticism is that it's unnecessarily sadistic and goes too far, but I think, within the context of the story, it makes sense. The torture inflicted on Commissioner Gordon must be psychological. The Joker inflicts irreparable and lasting harm on someone he loves, this happens to be Barbara, as this takes place after Year One, after he adopts Barbara and after his divorce from his first wife, and she moves away with James Gordon Jr.
The attack on Barbara, to me, feels like it was unplanned by the Joker. She could have been at her yoga class, and that she was home, and answered the door, was extremely bad luck. The violence also isn't out of context for the Joker - he's sadistic. He's insane. He's a criminal and a supervillain. Apart from this - the reality is violent sexual crimes are committed against women in real life, sometimes without motive, as a terrorist tactic to incite fear and induce compliance, and although superhero comics aren't reality, they reflect our world, which can be terrible and misogynistic.
While I don't think the Joker's actions, or the violence, were necessarily sexist in themselves, I think the framing is. No, the Joker doesn't know Barbara Gordon is Batgirl, and his enemy are the Bat clan including Commissioner Gordon, but his insanity theory would probably be better applied to his attack on Barbara who ends up paralysed from the assault as well as knowing her guardian's being tortured by the Joker. However the story occupies itself only with the thoughts of Joker, Commissioner Gordon and Batman, and she merely facilitates the plot. It's not merely some kind of puritanical opposition to violence, but that despite having the most, and permanent, violence inflicted on her, she's effectively a side character. It's also important to note that this was created to be a one shot. That Barbara Gordon was permanently saddled with the consequences of this storyline in later stories is possibly more reflective of the wider culture that constantly rehabilitates and resurrects male characters than it is of this single comic.
On the ending
The joke that the Joker tells obviously parallels Batman and the Joker's relationship. They're both the guys from the asylum, and each thinks himself as the first guy, the one who leaps across and offers a beam (of light) to the other towards freedom: Batman believing he's helping the Joker into reality, the Joker believing that the true salvation is accepting he inevitable madness that comes from human existence - and the one bad day. The joke is, that the second asylum escaped mistrust the first guy's helping hand out of distrust, but the beam of light is no real beam anyway. So to extrapolate this, Batman (or the Joker's) attempts to redeem the other isn't only futile because the other party is resistant, at its very core it's meaningless, a delusion.
Do I think Batman killed the Joker?
Of course, the ending is deliberately ambiguous.
Grant Morrison thinks he did. The case for this could be argued for: the title, coupled with the suggestive position of Batman's hands, the disappearance of laughter in the final panel (drowned out by sirens?), and Batman's realisation that the Joker can't be helped out of madness and death at the hands of the other is the only way they'd break out of their cycle - this possibility is echoed in the beginning.
I don't think Batman killed the Joker. Not because I'm dogmatic about Batman never killing anyone ever, but because Batman has to fulfill Commissioner Gordon's request to bring the Joker in by the book and not validate his worldview. I think the Joker has a desire to drive Batman to the breaking point to finally kill him and end their superhero-villain cycle, a sort of death by cop, and this will ultimately justify his belief in the inescapability of madness.
Do I recommend this? Yes, you must read it to understand the Batman-verse.
...for your bookclub? Yes, it would make interesting discussion on the ending, violence against women in media, the interpretation of the Joker's 'killing joke'. Compare the original and recolour, and how the mood of the comic changes. Classic, 5 stars.
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