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

[big_daddy_d]

Thank you for posting. I will definitely NOT be being this book, let alone ever mentioning it and will happily erase it from my memory. I was never onboard for this ship, never liked it, and overall it just gave me an uncomfortable creep factor. I often feel the same way in regards to any flirtation between Dick and Selina. Don't like it. Feels wrong, and let's be honest, makes me like said characters involved even less and even cause me to lose repsect points for them. So..no.

P.S. - Loving how some who shipped this are now uncomfortable that it actually happened. Makes me laugh.

[cuntfucius]

I'm not uncomfortable that it happened at all.

I also wasn't ever bothered by Roy and Dinah's sexual tension under certain writers.

[icon_uk]

Roy and Dinah had sexual tension??? ICK!

[cuntfucius]

HAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHH, they had plenty of questionable scenes of them rough housing and him pinning her against a wall and whispering into her ear and whatnot, there was an explicit sexual tension at certain points. It is hilariously icky, I mean, from an objective standpoint, I just always never cared... because I guess it takes a lot to disturb me. Like the Talia-Bruce rape retcon, that disturbed me. I don't understand how people think THIS sunk the Bruce-Talia ship. Uh, hello? Implied rape did. Seriously, it could never climb back after that.

[big_daddy_d]

Even I can get onboard with that. As much as I'm not a Talia/Jason shipper, that definitely isn't what sunk the Bruce and Talia ship. Drugged sex and heel turns is what did it. So that relationship was dead a long time ago. Well at least I can wave goodbye to it and now get tickets to board two other Bruce ships I actually look forward to.

[shewhohashope]

Okay, I'm curious now. I only ever like Bruce with Selina romatically, myself, but I think that's early imprinting.

[big_daddy_d]

What has you curious?

[whitesycamore]

I hate all Bruce ships, because I have a hard time imagining any woman being seriously attracted to the man. He's great crime fighter and all, but he has the personality of a cold wet breeze block.

[cloud_wolf]

Link.

Then again, that's B:TBaTB Batman, who is actually really funny and as Bat-Mite would have it, not "the tortured avenger crying out for mummy and daddy."

[jaybee3]

Well yeah. But implied rape by a writer (Morrison) who admits now he got the story wrong (i.e. he can always ret-con it by saying Bruce was deliberately misremembering) is a lot different than outright saying Talia had sex with his son with a condom wrapper on the nightstand just in case we want to deny to give ourselves plausible deniability it because we didn't see them naked or anything. And of course she slept with him to get back at Bruce, you can fanwank it that Talia's sexually wants some possibly underage teen she mothered from the time he was 13 or something when but on paper she was making the moves and telling him to "cross the line" and punish Bruce. She took advantage (given what Winick has shown in the last 6 issues) of a fragile, possibly Lazarus pit mentally disturbed, teenager she's known since he was in Robin booties who (as far as we know) has no experience with women THAT WAY and who she know trusts him and led him to have sex with her. I see some people are making it a case of two consenting adults but in Jason's case even if he is 18 here (which is debatable) she took advantage of him. There are names for people like that - abusers. I can't see how people can "ship" these two (it's twisted and not in a good way)just as I can't see any possible pairing now of Bruce/Talia (even hinted out it would be skeevy in light of this). Morrison's rape retcon could have been retconnned easily - this not so much.

[pepperspray101]

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for clarifying the CREEPY factor in here. UGH...I know folks will want to use the "Oh they're messed up! Don't judge" BUT FUCK THAT SHIT. I'm sick of "messed" ="sexy" or "exciting." I'm not excited by this, I'm totally completely GROSSED THE FUCK OUT by this.

[cuntfucius]

As I stated before, my problem with this is Talia's motivation was to get back at Bruce -- even if that wasn't it, they sure as hell didn't make that clear by having her say that and THEN make a move on Jason. So, yes, what you said is actually my major issue with it. Not an age difference or that he was Bruce's son, but the whole "let's get back at Bruce" thing.

[cuntfucius]

And i honestly have to explain this so often but... I never understood "shipping" as wanting two characters to be in a romantic relationship or thinking they are good for each other. I've always been fascinated by the relationship between Talia and Jason and there was nothing uninteresting about it the way it was before, and if anything, adding sex on to it -- while it's not unrealistic, dampened a lot of the ambiguity and compelling nature of their dynamic to me. To add sex on to it, well I am confused about what and why, and I don't find it hot at all. It seems to me that Winick was thinking, "Well, Talia is hot and Foreign and Crazy, and Crazy Chicks have Crazy Libidos and so do Foreign Evil Girls, so...." As I said before, just kind of sad -- both need help and I can't wrap my head around the motive behind this one. Even if it is another form of comfort, it happened under circumstances that confuse me when it comes to Talia's character. But her brain seems to work in erratic ways under writers these days. : \ Some better writing in this scene could have cleared up a lot for me, but I'm just left remained unconvinced.

[cloud_wolf]

Shipping is not a requisite for wanting a ship to be canon. I ship a lot and some of it is pretty heinous but dude, if some of those ships became canon? I'd be pretty upset.

[cloud_wolf]

Not that I'd call the pages above heinous. Just kind of sad and desperate, really.

[big_daddy_d]

I guess I can see that. I personally ship in hopes of actually seeing it happen. If not in canon then maybe in a different one..satisfyingly so of course.

[big_daddy_d]

*buying, not being. Sorry for that.

[benicio127]

Hmm. That's too bad. It's a fantastic book.

Sorry, but it IS fucking creepy.

[pepperspray101]

I'm totally with you. Will definitely NOT buy this book. I am a very disappointed Jason fan indeed.

[levyrasputin]

P.S. - Loving how some who shipped this are now uncomfortable that it actually happened. Makes me laugh.

Yes, because having a problem with Talia's characterization here is the same as being unconfortable with them having any kind of sexual interaction an be squicked by it.

That's totally the same thing!

:|

seriously, people, this "hahah I win, you lose!!!" attitude some of you love to sport is the most disappointing feature of fandom ever.

[cuntfucius]

You are so the best. Also, I am having such a freaked dissonance moment. Am I supposed to be outraged and squicked by this? WHY DO I FEEL NEITHER?

[levyrasputin]

NO CLUE HONEY NO CLUE. Just be content to burn in hell together I guess. =|

I don't find this scene hot at all because both seems more desperate than enjoying themselves or having a moment of true passion.
But was it different, I probably would.

I must admit that the idea of the awkwardness of Damian finding out are actually hilarious to me, though.

[big_daddy_d]

seriously, people, this "hahah I win, you lose!!!" attitude some of you love to sport is the most disappointing feature of fandom ever.

Ahh actually my friend, for me this is not about winning, losing, or gloating. I just simply find the situation interesting as for me, it's more of a "what do you want?" thing? "Didn't you want this? Did you want that? What's the problem now?" That kind of thing.

And regardless of characterization, I'm not on board for the ship. Doesn't matter to me, but if you want to talk characterization, I will say this..I do not like Talia being portrayed as the Femme Fatale villainess. I'd understand if this uncharateristic trait is due to her mind still being fucked up after what Nyssa did to her, otherwise..no.

I remember Talia as an exotic beauty who often had inner turmoil due to her love and loyalty. Even if she did questionable things, I always felt that..turmoil and she thus always maintained a level of innocence. Ultimately..you can't help but wish she'd become someone stronger as the longer she's under her father's thumb and caught up in this conflict...the more likely that her end will not be a good... but alas... we get the big heel turn and irksome moments... I miss the real Talia.

[pepperspray101]

Me too. I wonder what Talia's creator has to say about this.

[levyrasputin]

"I ship this and that" is actually one of the most misleading terms in fandom, because it tells too little about how you'd like said characters to interact. I'm not sure this can be done regardless characterization unless you are applying a criteria to 'shipping' that is not the above and then I call myself out of the game.

Am I uncomfortable with what happened? No
What do I want? an interaction between them that was more about them and less about Bruce, and I didn't get that, hence the disappointment.

and yes, you are perfectly right about Talia loosing a lot of interesting points when she's portrayed as a one-dimensional femme fatale villainess with little to none consistency about her actions. I'd be okay with her staying on her father side as long as a good, coherent reason is given for her actions as a whole.