Episode 51: Under The Hood Part 1
Welcome to the fifty-first episode of The Overlooked Dark Knight. The is a non-index index show where the hosts, Andrew Leyland and Michael Bailey, look at Batman comics that rarely, if ever, get talked about.
Y’all ready for another series of episodes covering a storyline?
Well, Andy and Mike hope you are because this time out they are embarking on a sequel of sorts to their Jim Starlin coverage. In 2004 Jason Todd came back from the dead in a storyline that has been released in a collected edition called Batman: Under The Hood. This storyline was popular at the time, but has largely been forgotten as Jason Todd’s Red Hood has become an accepted part of the Bat family. He’s been back for nearly sixteen years, but the story where that happened has largely been eclipsed by the animated adaptation. Since they just covered his death, the guys thought covering his resurrection would be worth a lark.
In this first installment, Andy and Mike cover the first four chapters of the trade, which existed in single issue form as Batman issues 635 to 638. The fact that they are able to talk about these four issues and deliver a pretty healthy introductory conversation has more to do with the pacing of the story than the quality of it. There’s a new crime figure in Gotham. He’s taken the name Red Hood. Spoiler warning…he’s Jason Todd. But that wasn’t really spelled out in these first chapters until the very last page. Along the way Batman has to deal with Black Mask, Mister Freeze, Amazo, and Nightwing pops by to lend a hand. Andy provides the perspective of a first time reader and Mike is probably going to bore people with the amount of context he gives the stories.
Below are covers and select pages from the books talked about during this episode.
Andy and Mike want your feedback on this episode so they can read it on an upcoming show! You even have options in how you leave your feedback. The most direct way is to leave a comment right here on the site. You can also send all questions, concerns, fears and trepidations to overlookeddarkknight@gmail.com. Then there’ the Facebook page, where you can also leave a Batman related question for Andy and Mike to answer at the beginning of the show. If you talk about this show on the social medias please include a #overlookeddk so the guys know where to find it.
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The beginning theme to the show is “Gothamlicious” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The end theme is “Danse Macabre” which is also by Kevin MacLeod and is also incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Next Time: Three more issues from the Batman: Under The Red Hood trade paperback!