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

[daggerpen]

Not to butt in here, but- are we... entirely sure this isn't just another example of something I like to call "Morrison making shit about a character up to further his own little ridiculous plot"? Is there previous canon supporting this interpretation of the al Ghuls?

[sistermagpie]

It doesn't contradict anything I remember about them. Isn't Ra's really old? And so Talia too? I've never seen anything to make me think he was leading the way in class equality a hundred years ago in whatever country he was in while also having a lot of traditional ideas about guys worthy of his bloodline etc.

[shewhohashope]

Well, Talia is constantly being retconned to be born later and later, and generally seems to be younger than Bruce.

[cloud_wolf]

Why would anyone retcon out the fact that Ra's Al Ghul got it on during Woodstock. :(

[daggerpen]

True, but it seems like he does at least thing that the qualities that make someone "worthy" are outside of social status- Bane's strength and fighting ability, Bruce's detective and other skills, etc., and even then, that seems to be about reproduction and long-term relationships, not sex.I don't see Ra's approving of Talia screwing her subordinate, but I can see Talia going for it, especially if he's pretty much the only person she trusts at the time.

[sistermagpie]

Yeah, I would assume there's openings for people outside certain classes--they're not just locked into something that boring. (And let's face it, Ra's would notice plenty of idiots from the upper classes.) I do think he'd see more of an aristocracy of bluebloods and also special people. And I agree, that's going to be more about marriage than sex. The most snobby people have a habit of having sex with whoever they want.

Talia maybe does challenge the stereotype a little by being a woman who can do that--but she's not the first to do that. And I like Talia being able to sleep with a handsome bodyguard than a Talia who has to get her dad's approval for sex or only goes after guys for her dad's plans.

[daggerpen]

Agreed.