{"id":2707,"date":"2020-09-03T08:08:04","date_gmt":"2020-09-03T15:08:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/?p=2707"},"modified":"2020-08-08T08:58:08","modified_gmt":"2020-08-08T15:58:08","slug":"467-the-red-hood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/467-the-red-hood\/","title":{"rendered":"467 – The Red Hood"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Who
Who is the Red Hood? A panel from Detective Comics #168, December 1950<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In Detective Comics #168 (December 1950), the Batman reminisces to a college class in criminal deduction about the Red Hood, a criminal that Batman failed to catch ten years ago. In their final encounter, Batman had chased him from a playing card factory and the Red Hood dove into a vat of chemicals to escape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the present, the Red Hood re-appears, prompting Batman and Robin to chase him down and deduce his identity. In the course of it, they capture a lock of charred hair. While using a chemical on it to attempt to restore its original color, the hair turns green. Batman and Robin conclude the chemical formula must have been incorrect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They finally capture the Red Hood and in the course of the chase, Batman realizes who the Red Hood is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Another panel from Detective Comics #168, December 1950<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Criminal, playing cards, vat of chemicals, green hair. That’s right, DC has finally given an origin to The Joker. It seems like even though the hood is supposed to be a gas mask and a diving helmet, the Red Hood was affected by the playing card waste chemicals, bleaching his skin, staining his lips, and turning his hair green.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The origin of the Joker in Detective Comics #168, December 1950<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I prefer the “vat of chemicals” explanation for the Joker’s appearance. This origin stuck with the Joker for years and was adapted into Alan Moore’s amazing graphic novel Batman: The Killing Joke<\/a> and partially by the 1989 film Batman<\/a>. The vat of chemicals also features in the Suicide Squad<\/a> (2016).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 2019 film The Joker<\/a> offers a different origin story for the character, one in which he is a trodden-upon mentally-ill person who snaps and takes revenge on society. His appearance is fabricated and deliberate. Spoiler Alert! While the performance by Joaquin Phoenix was incredible, I didn’t like the premise of this film in two major ways: 1) there was no evidence that this Joker character would ever be clever enough to outwit a future Batman and 2) Thomas Wayne was depicted as a mega-douche-bag who was probably the Joker’s father – making Batman and the Joker half-brothers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Detective Comics #168 (December 1950), the Batman reminisces to a college class in criminal deduction about the Red Hood, a criminal that Batman failed to catch ten years ago. In their final encounter, Batman had chased him from a playing card factory and the Red Hood dove into a vat of chemicals to escape. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2708,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[458,40,14,153,337,475],"class_list":["post-2707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-458","tag-batman","tag-dc","tag-joker","tag-origin","tag-red-hood"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2707"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2707\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2711,"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2707\/revisions\/2711"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}