“Hunted by the Past, Part 2”
Creative Staff:
Story: Jeff Trammell
Art: Rob Guillory
Colors: Jean-Francois Beaulieu
Letterer: Becca Carey
What They Say:
Trapped in his own nightmare, Red Hood battles against the Bat-Family and his former selves. Can he find a way to make his terrors work for him or will be trapped in his fears forever?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With a pretty solid opening issue to the storyline, Jeff Trammell put Jason Todd in a good position to do some good only to get suckered by Scarecrow’s fear toxin. That’s now placed him in a bad place and even while knowing that it’s all about the toxin, Jason makes it all about himself once again. Rob Guillory gets to play with a lot of fun characters in this one with it being nicely twisted because of the fear toxin so we get some good takes on various incarnations that Jason has held over the years as well as some good time with Nightwing. And that, of course, means lots of fisticuffs at hand.
Having Jason wake up in the coffin in the ground is certainly a baseline into his fears since he’s been through it before and Trammell basically takes us through his chain of fears from over the years from there. He’s skillful enough in this state to get out of it but it’s Nightwing that’s waiting for him, taunting him, and just messing with him. It’s another clear look at his inferiority side, one that’s amusing to watch as he realizes on some level he can change how things unfold here as he puts Nightwing to Dick and turns him into a comical caricature. But this is just another way of him not facing the actual fear and putting a cute and dopey face on it. It works well to reinforce that there’s a lot about Dick that still haunts him a lot.
With Bruce showing up along the way as well, he’s able to make it clear that the failures go beyond just Nightwing and what he represents. Bringing out the other versions he’s taken on over the years with Red Robin, Robin, and Red Hood as well as donning the cowl himself for a while as Batman, it’s reinforced through the toxin just how bad things have gone and how many mistakes he’s made. The toxin works him over well, even if Jason does at times try to play this up as a pretty good therapy session for himself. This is mostly because the reality of his past is still keeping him from the one figure that really damaged him more than anything else, so having him show up at the very end makes it clear that Jason Todd still has a bit more to work through.
In Summary:
While Jason Todd continues to be one of my least favorite characters in general, he’s one that I can respect the journey of because he has gone through changes and various writers have let him grow pretty well over the years. This incarnation of him, designed to be free of continuity in a sense and just a look at the character as a whole, works well as Trammell’s script lets it work a good bit of dialogue and exploration of the character while Guillory’s artwork is able to showcase a lot of good versions of him, even if slightly twisted at times to some really twisted versions. I’m definitely curious to see how it all wraps up.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: March 19th, 2021
MSRP: $0.99
