Writer Matthew Rosenberg and artist Nikola Čižmesija play a game of catch-up in Batman-Catwoman: The Gotham War – The Red Hood #2 from DC Comics.
We reviewed the book on the Stack podcast. But in the interest of highlighting more about the title, here’s a summary of the conversation with our thoughts. And if you prefer the longer audio version, that’s below as well!
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Batman-Catwoman: The Gotham War – Red Hood #2 Review:
In the first issue of this Red Hood-centric title, Jason Todd was going after The Joker. Then a lot of stuff happened in other books, including Jason having his mind messed with by Batman so that whenever he feels a murderous rage, he feels fear, instead. In this second (and final) issue, we get Jason caught up to the present, highlighting and fleshing out events in other books from his perspective.
Host Pete LePage loved the book, citing multiple reasons: the art, the Ravager-Red Hood relationship, The Joker versus Scarecrow fight. But most of all, LePage loved the event, and “the drama around it… Picking sides… Catwoman sticking her neck out for people. This is really insane, and has turned Gotham upside-down in such a cool way.”
While Justin Tyler agreed with most of LePage’s assessment, he did think this felt like “a hang issue… It’s not driving any story forward. It’s just like, hey, remember all this stuff that’s going on? Here’s some [of Red Hood’s] perspective on it.” Further clarifying that he liked the issue, Tyler added that “It’s not even saying Red Hood really got screwed here or this is good… It’s just literally showing events.”
Alex Zalben agreed and noted that while he loves Matthew Rosenberg’s work here, it was “a real bummer of an issue… This is 100% fill in the blanks.” Whereas the first issue presented the Red Hood in a side-adventure during The Gotham War, the second issue touched on events in Batman, Catwoman, and even the excellent The Joker: The Man Who Stopped Laughing. “I love this team, the art is great… I want to see what they want to do on Red Hood… Instead of just, here’s the greatest hits.”
Batman-Catwoman: The Gotham War – Red Hood #2 Official Synopsis:
Batman’s plan for Jason Todd backfires…but in a good way? The Red Hood prepares for the final battle of the Gotham War…but what will he have left when the dust settles?!
