In the end, there is no real “right” answer, it would appear. But, at the same time, he doesn’t seem to be portraying Red Hood as this arc’s hero either. With this story arc, Winick really critiques Batman and his own moral code, I’ll call it. That being said, it is certainly in keeping with his character and all that precedes that moment. Surely nobody is going to come to bat for The Joker, right? Not after all he’s done, not after he’s even gone so far as to make it deeply personal for Batman… right? The eventual confrontation where Batman has to ultimately make the decision to go down Red Hood’s path or stay the course puts Batman at an extremely tense crossroads and I can’t say I wasn’t a little disappointed by the decision he eventually comes to.
We’re keyed in on The Joker in particular when weighing the pros and cons of Batman and Red Hood’s altogether different methods of dealing with Gotham’s highly recidivous villains, and that’s probably in the spirit of keeping it simple. Him being a vigilante, functioning outside of (though sometimes also simultaneously side-by-side with) the law, has enough baggage on its own to be ripe for plenty of debate, but this story arc steers that debate in a different direction altogether, questioning not if Batman is in the wrong, yet rather if he’s not doing enough. In Under the Red Hood, we’re made to further analyze the actions of Batman is he a force of good, or do his methods only temporarily spackle over the gaping problems in Gotham? Is our system even capable of “rehabilitating” the criminals that Batman imprisons? Do they even try? Under the Red Hood doesn’t do a complete deep dive into all the nuances of this conversation, but it does probe it enough for it to be a refreshing new angle on the character of Batman. Thankfully, this isn’t the case with Under the Red Hood, because I was in the market for more of the same. I didn’t even realize at the time that it was pulled directly from the comics, since I was used to the Marvel method of comic book moviemaking, which generally is to hodgepodge stuff from the comics together into something that’s simultaneously old and new. What seems like forever ago now, I watched (and loved) the animated movie based upon this particular run of Batman comics.
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