And, this issue is where everything related to "Death of the Family" goes to Hell in a handbasket.
Lobdell seems to assert here that the back-up story from "Red Hood and the Outlaws" #0, that Joker essentially created Jason, is canon, which seems to establish beyond a shadow of a doubt that Joker knows the identities of the Bat-family. Although Jason dares Joker to say his name here (something Joker doesn't do), it would be totally impossible for Joker to know all the details of Jason's life, as he displays here, and not know that he was Robin. In fact, if we end this event with the revelation that Joker didn't know their identities, I think I'm done with the DCnU. No, really. I just don't see how they could possibly explain that Joker crafted every aspect of Jason's life to install him as Robin but somehow didn't know his identity in a way that would be believable. Ugh.
Beyond the Joker angle, Lobdell is at his unbelievable best here. First, he he has Roy and Starfire fly to Gotham because Roy had hacked Jason's phone and forwarded calls that "sounded" important. WTF? Beyond whether such a thing is technically possible, why would he do that? Second, Lobdell has Jason refer to the events of "Batman" #15, but I don't see how he could've been in the Batcave AND in outer space at the same time. UGH.
Also, I feel totally robbed that Kenneth Rocafort didn't give us Jason fighting off the GPD in a towel and we had to settle for Timothy Green II instead.
Ah yes... THIS issue... Yup, this is the issue where you figure that Joker HAS to know everybody's identity, because he sure as hell knows who Jason was. I mean there's no way around it. He HAS to know that Jason Todd was the second Robin and according to that zero issue, he made sure that Jason was taken in by Bruce Wayne(somehow...). Why else would he do that unless he knew there was a connection between Bruce and Jason? The thing that blows my mind is that Snyder has obviously been setting up this Joker story for a while. Why wouldn't one of the Bat-editors say to Lobdell, "You know, MAYBE you shouldn't make it so obvious that Joker knows Jason's identity..." Stupid... The Red Hood zero issues makes EVERYTHING in this storyline fail! And the worst part is that the Jason/Joker connection DIDN'T need to happen! That zero issues was good(by Lobdell's low standards) until Joker was unnecessarily tossed in there. This was the issue where Jason saw the bullet and KNEW exactly where the bullet was from, right? That right there probably made my brain explode...
ReplyDeleteI don't blame you for quitting on DC if we find out Joker doesn't know. I KNOW that's what's going to happen! Either that, or it'll be left open-ended. But I'd bet good money that Joker never reveals that he knew for sure... And THAT'S going to annoy me to no end...
YES! It's like they forgot to tell Lobdell not to spill the beans and no one really bothers reading his stuff so they didn't know that he did!
ReplyDeleteI love the idea that no one reads Lobdell's shit so they don't even know how much he's fucking stuff up. It's sad how much that would explain stuff. I think the worst part is, he's effectively taken the reveal away from Snyder because like you guys said, he HAS to know...and if he doesnt know, it makes no sense... leave it to Lobdell to take the sails out of someone else's story.
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