Red Hood: Lost Days #6 (Spoilers!!!)

[benicio127]

AKA the final issue of this mini-series and the issue where I was like omgomgomgomgomgomgomgomgomgomgomgomgomg

cuntfucius, levy and whitesycamore will be giddy about this.




Four pages.









Whoa! WHOA! WHOA!! Hotter than I expected. Ahem! He wakes up and she's gone. She leaves him with a note and another very important gift, which I was so, so, so glad to see in this.



Oh hey, look! Jason uses gmail. Mary Borsellino will be pleased to know about the dagger in this.
Here's her entry from evenrobins.net on Jason's dagger. Quoting from the entry:
Red Hood’s weapon of choice is a dagger with a waved blade. This edge design has been popular in numerous cultures throughout history, with a variety of connotations attached to the distinctive shape.

In simple, practical terms, a waved blade allows for a longer overall edge distance than would be present in a straight dagger of the same length. Waved blades in longer weapons, such as Flamberge swords, have the added advantage of causing the other weapon in a duel to vibrate, thereby making one’s opponent uncomfortable. This would not be true to any noticeable degree in a weapon such as Red Hood’s knife, however.

The origin of Red Hood’s knife within the Batman comics themselves is most likely the story “The Lazarus Pit!” from issue #243 in 1972. One of the original Ra’s Al Ghul stories by the O’Neil/Adams/Giordano team, this issue saw Batman forced to duel against a man who owed debts to both Ra’s and Batman. Both opponents weilded waved daggers.

As Judd Winick, the writer responsible for the entire Red Hood arc, utilised the Al Ghul family as a significant plot element, it seems likely that this classic storyline was one of the key inspirations behind Red Hood’s dagger.

Just as with the history of waved daggers in the real world, however, the element of pure aesthetic interest must be taken into account. Placing a waved dagger in a panel is more visually interesting and suggests a greater degree of ritual — whether the reader is aware of the legacy of the Keris blade or not — than a simple knife can.

Whatever the reasons may be, Red Hood’s dagger has developed iconography of its own, and now casts a shadow of specific meaning forward over any future appearances of such weapons in future Batman stories.


I'm so sad to see this mini-series end.

Comments

[shewhohashope]

I've gone into this before elsewhere, but loving Talia, for me, is a lot about reclaiming/repudiating that sexists, orientalist claptrap. My hate gets directed towards the writers (mostly Morrison at the moment) and characters like Bruce, whose existence warrants the the treatment of and existence of characters like Talia. The Bond Girl, the Native Chick, the Mad Scientist's Daughter, etc. wouldn't be with us without the mighty whitey hero guy.

[cuntfucius]

This is exactly what it is for me as a Md.Eastern woman.

[shewhohashope]

Yes! I'm not Middle-Eastern myself (African/British and Muslim), but when the media gives you lemons...

[cuntfucius]

There are parts of Talia where I can recognize familiar cultural scripts within myself. I've grown up with abusers, and I could never turn my back on them, because they are also the people who clothed me and fed me. I've had many friends and people think of me as unhealthy or cowardly, too, for shunting certain moments of "breaking free" in my life to instead put my family and clan first. So I just kinda understand her, I guess. That part of her, I mean. I'm also VERY glad that you recognize how her mental health issues are sexualized and exotified in nearly all of her recent incarnations. :( It's gross.

[ebailey140]

I've gone into this before elsewhere, but loving Talia, for me, is a lot about reclaiming/repudiating that sexists, orientalist claptrap. My hate gets directed towards the writers (mostly Morrison at the moment) and characters like Bruce, whose existence warrants the the treatment of and existence of characters like Talia. The Bond Girl, the Native Chick, the Mad Scientist's Daughter, etc. wouldn't be with us without the mighty whitey hero guy.

To be fair, Ra's is the classic archetype of this sort of villain, so the archetype Femme Fatale daughter fits. Even the Big Red Cheese had one of these, with Beautia Sivana...

http://dccomicsartists.com/fawcett/beautia-whiz03.JPG

Now there was a potential bit of squick, y'know, considering Billy's age...

I still don't care for Morrison's writing of her, though.

But, it's not as though the Batbooks are lacking in strong, admirable, women. There's Selina, Barbara, Steph, Kate, Bette, Maggie, Cass, Helena, Dinah, Zinda, just to name a few. I'd say they more than make up for one classic Archetype playing her role.

[cuntfucius]

Nearly all of those girls are white, though. And most of them are strong in a very individualist westernized way (save for Cass Cain) that I can admire, but not relate to.

[ebailey140]

Nearly all of those girls are white, though. And most of them are strong in a very individualist westernized way (save for Cass Cain) that I can admire, but not relate to.

They're Archetypes, too. They're the Hero Archetype, like Bruce. They just happen to have vaginas instead of penises. Steph, and to a large degree Dick, are a variation, the Trickster Hero.

Selina's the original Femme Fatale Archetype in the Bat books, but she's a different sort than Talia. Ivy would fall under the Femme Fatale, too, but she's also the May Queen Archetype. Harley's pure Trickster.

And, don't forget Renee, the Question, who's Hispanic. Kate, Bette, and their Aunt Kathy are Jewish, as is Harley. While you may consider Jewish people while, many for centuries didn't, and we know what that led to.

Come to think of it, if Martha Kane was from that Gotham Kane family, then Bruce, himself, is half Jewish.

[shewhohashope]

I get the trope, but I don't appreciate it. Quick: name five well developed Middle Eastern/Asian women in DC that do not fit this type of ethnic gendered stereotype!

Yes, there are several well developed, independent white women in Bat comics. This is kind of missing half the point?

[ebailey140]

Renee would object to being called "white." Kate, Bette, and their Aunt Kathy probably lost a lot of family in the Nazi Concentration Camps because they weren't white enough. So, while they're American born, their ethnic and cultural roots are Middle Eastern.

As for Asians, what about Cass and Tatsu? And Cass's mom? White Canary is still in the process of being developed, but she has potential. So, that's three, with a fouth in development, just in the Bat books.

There's also Artemis, who's Middle Eastern, though with Mediterranean roots. Diana is purely Mediterranean, of course. Dr. Light is an Asian woman.

As for the Archetype Talia represents, that's not exclusively an Asian one. DC's longest running character of that Archetype is, again, Beautia Sivana, who's of European stock and blonde. So, Talia, as Batman's Beautia figure, is a variation of a white character.

[pepperspray101]

They're ALL WHITE...except Cass, and well...we saw what Beechen did to her. T-T hell, I'll even bring up what happened in Outsiders, where she came on guns blazing (or fists/kicks in her case) and walked around naked like its no big deal. Would love to see the same happen with the rest of our white heroines. Ya know, not make Cass seem so uh...exotic. 9_9

[ebailey140]

I'll even bring up what happened in Outsiders, where she came on guns blazing (or fists/kicks in her case) and walked around naked like its no big deal. Would love to see the same happen with the rest of our white heroines. Ya know, not make Cass seem so uh...exotic. 9_9

Wonder Woman used to do that all the time during the Perez run.

[pepperspray101]

Did she now? Was that what Dixon was going for? homage to an Amazon heroine? And have we gotten Diana as evil villainess trying to seduce her fellow male JLAers to join the dark side with sex appeal and violence?