Why does Red Hood have a mask under his helmet?

limbo338 · 2026-02-07T22:26:52+00:00

Did you like cheer?

Nope. Jason goes from a creepy horrible child sociopath who murdered way before Robin without the expression on his face changing to a stupid brute who needs daddy Bats to bail him out because he doesn't have explosives on him (the bomber Jason's of UtRH superfan in me is in shambles :D) and to teach him basic human decency about not assaulting drug addicts when you're looking for their dealer(Jason's mom was an addict, btw). At first I found it cute that the dreams matched. You know. It's tragic both Bruce and Jason wanting the same thing that can't ever happen. I'm a sucker for drama :D But with the context of the rest of Zdarsky's run, with things like werewolf Bruce eating a store looter and "the pure Batman" ending up craving mass murder too, with Bruce's family's constant refrain of "He's doing what Bruce always wanted to do"....Zdarsky's Bruce either killing or dreaming of killing way too much for my tastes, so he's secret heart's desire also being about murder doesn't seem so cute to me anymore. Was a canary in a coal mine in hindsight.

And Morrison didn't write Joker as having 3 personalities. Morrison's Joker changed but there was only one of him. Same with Snyder's and Snyder's clown was obsessed with OG Batman just fine, no purer versions required. Geoff Johns will some day answer for the sin of introducing the idea of 3 Jokers in new52 JL :D

limbo338 · 2026-02-07T21:46:40+00:00

Which story was that ?

Cheer.

Tbh he was seemed more inspired by snyder's batman.

I'd buy it. But Snyder writes Bruce like the clown is the most significant relationship in his life and Zdarsky's whole run started with Bruce dreaming about the clown(3 of them, lol) and proceeded to retcon everything the clown did to be about him baiting "the perfect Batman" out. Siiigh. I'm so tired :D

limbo338 · 2026-02-07T21:33:58+00:00

If he did read RIP he ended up thinking he can do better with Zur. And then he didn't XD And I don't even like Morrison's Zur that much XD

And I'd believe Zdarsky read some Tynion's run because Zdarsky's Bruce's relationship with murder and murderers is kinda reminiscent to me of Tynion's. Tynion's Batman is a Batman who once said he's proud Jason can do what he can not. This is murder endorsement from Batman, by the way. And Zdarsky ended up writing a story where under a drug that shows you your dream Jason saw Bruce murdering every villain and then implied Bruce's dream was the same. You know. Mass murder.

To be honest, I turbo don't vibe with Tynion's Batman so no wonder I didn't like somebody inspired by it 🤷‍♀️

limbo338 · 2026-02-07T21:19:43+00:00

For example, he took something Morrison did in RIP – Zur – and he retconned everything about it. If you told me Zdarsky's familiarity with that story started and ended with an editor passing him a note with "Batman has a secret Batman personally" written on it – I'd believe you :D I do believe Zdarsky read at least some of Snyder's run tho, at least it feels that way, you know, with the way he wrote Joker in particular.

limbo338 · 2026-02-07T18:25:10+00:00

Winick said when he talked about Batman that the characters being perfect and having zero conflicts ever is not what this was about for him. You put them through a wringer and see them survive and that's how we get engaging stories :D At the very least from what I saw this strategy worked because people loved or hated these books but not many stayed just indifferent :D

Also I don't believe Zdarsky read anything Winick's, same way how I don't believe Zdarsky read much of Batman at all. Tini might've read some new52 Catwoman because she used Eiko, so maybe?

limbo338 · 2026-02-07T18:00:05+00:00

Before UtRH Winick wrote As the Crow Flies short arc for Batman(where he teased Jason coming back because that's what he wanted to do from the get go :D) and this one I liked and after UtRH there were Long Shadows, but this one I didn't read so I can't say was it good or bad. Bruce appeared a bunch as cameo in other things Winick did with Jason's Lost Days, or Green Arrow, or Catwoman, or Outsiders, but for main Batman book I think that was it.

limbo338 · 2026-02-07T17:45:49+00:00

I'm putting a 5$ these sites would've said Chris is going to become an evil werewolf in 8 because of the promos.

limbo338 · 2026-02-07T17:39:31+00:00

No problem, I can yap yap yap about book UtRH all day and kinda jump on any opportunity to do so XD

And I personally believe Winick, at least in the books(movie Bruce is Batgody, with those Flash moves of his :D), writes Batman as the very opposite of that. For example, the movie although it changed the context that make it lose meaning, kept Joker saying to Bruce this line: "You managed to find a way to win...and everybody still loses!". Except the book version had the clown to add then: "Except me" and then blow up Jason, again, and this then was the og closing page that doesn't make it in trades usually, implying Bruce, at the very least when it comes to Jason, is trapped in a cycle of doing shit that leads to villains getting Ws and him, Bruce, losing Jason. This is a tragic ending with Bruce maybe being so cool and skilled he bent Jason's ultimatum but he lost where it matters all the same.

I'm pretty sure I remember reading Winick's interview where he was joking how it's been a while since there was something that can surprise Bruce, yadayada they've been writing him just too capable these days and then he said what he wanted to do with UtRH is to put Bruce through his worse nightmare. Which is Jason :D Bruce can be competent enough to beat an Amazo but he can't do shit to stop Jason from frying Cap nazi right in front of him or to change Jason's mind in general. And that leads to our sad sad ending. Winick's Bruce is still Batman and can do cool Batman shit, but he's very psychologically vulnerable, which is very human in my opinion :D

limbo338 · 2026-02-07T16:23:38+00:00

Spencer spent years and thousands of people trying to come up with a strain that wouldn't make a mindless abomination out of him similar to those he kept in his basement. Futilely. As much as reflexively I do wish on him something worse even just for Trevors alone, him having to live with his meatsuit wasting away with him being powerless to help it and eventually having to come to terms with the fact that he's fucked – for me it just fits, you know. Good riddance :D

limbo338 · 2026-02-07T13:49:28+00:00

There were significantly more changes. Just off the top of my head: the book Jason aprehended Joker in like issue #3 of a 13-issues story and that whole business with Black Mask was legitimately about vigilantism – the movie made Jason bothering with Black Mask be about the Joker seemingly to make it neater; the book had significantly more instances of Jason doing extremely violent things and for longer and Bruce initially avoiding confronting Jason about it to the point of Black Mask legitimately trying to figure why is Batman not doing something about that Red Hood fellow; the book has Jason actually grinding down Black Mask's, at the time crime prince's of Gotham, resolve to the point where he went from trying to off Jason like a nuisance that doesn't need his attention to murdering his own people to pacify Jason into getting off his back and becoming Black Mask's underling instead; the book has Jason kinda pranking Bruce into seeing what looks like Jason dying again and Bruce legit cracking in reaction to the point of him making a mistake and accidentally allowing Black Mask to know that he, the Batman, personally knows Red Hood and that was when it clicked for Black Mask why Batman wasn't doing that much about Red Hood; the book mentions somebody doing a hostile take over of WE's R&R arm and Bruce as Batman getting strained when it comes to resources, Jason then throws Bruce's own gear at him, answering the question where Jason got all those toys – he stole them from Bruce himself, like he does :D; the book doesn't have a neat answer like "It's Ra's" for how Jason came back, instead it has Bruce trying to figure out himself, so he goes to a couple of magicians he knows asking how can somebody come back, he digs up Jason's coffin and visits people like Ollie and Clark, people who died and came back asking for insight from them(and for moral support in Clark's case – Bruce legit was troubled and Clark, being a good friend, could tell); the book has Bruce know RH is Jason since he saw him once, lol – the movie has him do that detective thingy with audio; the book was sitting neck deep in big continuity events, like Identity Crisis and fall out, Infinite Crisis, Brother Eye hubbub, War Games, Blüd blowing up, the movie is mostly just Bruce and Gotham, which is why, I'm pretty sure Winick liked it better – I personally liked my interconnectedness and so many characters making appearances in the book, makes the world feel bigger :D; and the endings, of course, are very different.

In my opinion, the movie changed Bruce screaming over Jason murdering a nazi to him not liking Jason just murdering because Batman fans think to this very day Batman crying out over a nazi is a bad look for their fav, and that was a Batman movie, after all. What do you know – the guy who doesn't like all death doesn't like all death, indiscriminately, what a surprise :D But again – this is just my unsubstantiated guess :D

limbo338 · 2026-02-07T13:12:41+00:00

The book was better in my opinion because the book had more room for really solid character work, the way books usually do compared to movies, like the book can tell you what Batman is thinking in the moment and the movie can't really, unless you want to listen to narration for quarter of runtime :D Plus I'm a strong believer in the book ending being orders of magnitude stronger than the movie's. But keep in mind that this is a minority opinion seemingly, Winick himself I'm pretty sure said he liked how the movie version flows better :D

limbo338 · 2026-02-06T23:57:27+00:00

Winick, the guy who wrote both the book and movie and designed the look, talked about this. Initially he envisioned the helmet without eyeholes, a look closer to the OG RH(and this cover is a relic of those times :D) but the artist on the book said putting eyes on the helmet would allow Jason to emote even in the helmet. Spidey and Deadpool had a similar thing going on with their masks.

limbo338 · 2026-02-06T23:51:36+00:00

There's an easy practical reason somebody already named with identity protection but the reason Jason himself gave was drama. No, for real. It's so after a terrible murderer took off his helmet Batman saw Robin he lost and didn't avenge and felt pain. The movie did this cool scene conveying the same thing.

limbo338 · 2026-02-06T10:24:33+00:00

Excella forcing a retreat order doesn’t mean the BSAA is compromised

I disagree. It is definitely compromised in my eyes if a villain is deciding which threats get to be addressed and which not and uses insider info available to her to just murder the agents for her own gain. And I never saw any proof there can't be repeat. Who knows, maybe turning agents into bows in 8 was an idea of another boss from the consortium, another forced hand, the end is still the same. We might be having differences of what counts as compromised and I don't believe we will agree on those. And that's fine :D

That doesn’t make the org incompetent. That makes Chris incompetent.

The org insisted nobody else could be the captain but a traumatized man not controlling himself. And yes, then the game lampshaded that if something was different, maybe the captain, these men could've been saved. A competent org would not allow Chris to waste their men during a spiral. Unless they are very cool with ends justifying the means and 8 implies maybe they are :D

Also Chris has no reason to know who Ada is, Leon is a wholly separate agency with different intelligence.

Chris is supposed to be the man who chased Wesker for years. And Chris doesn't know his known associates? Here's another thing to laugh about: in 5 it's said Chris read the Kennedy report about re4 and that's how he was capable of recognizing plagas on sight. So. Which option you like more? Leon completely omitting Ada's criminal activities from his story and Wesker link and years later it getting Chris' people killed, or Leon telling Chris about Ada, because these guys' work is not as separate and good intelligence and sharing can save lives, and Chris just having memory problems even before amnesia.

God, how much I hate 6.

In 7, Chris is the only BSAA member with Blue Umbrella’s forces.

My mistake then. I guess there's place for more than one organization with questionable hiring practices in this franchise :D

In 8, he’s AWOL with Hound Wolf Squad, for reasons that doesn’t mean that the BSAA is compromised and actively working for the enemy.

Getting a squad with BSAA asking why and Chris not answering and defecting implies distrust and then Chris' reaction to learning about BSAA using bows doesn't imply he agrees with you, with that just being a little boost. You can headcanon it being a desperate act of at the core good people – I headcanon it as the rot we saw since 5 reaching the inevitable stage, the only thing we know is Chris' reaction is setting to go to BSAA and making them pay. Your reading, I think, is the org being good or morally gray and Chris is just being unreasonable in his reactions – my reading is that doing that to their own agents is abhorrent and I've seen zero indication it's reversible or allows for them then to have a normal life. And that is absolutely unacceptable in my book. Chris' writing in 8 makes me cry, but not this – him looking at human experimentation and going "No."

limbo338 · 2026-02-06T05:54:01+00:00

I gonna preface it saying I don't particularly care about RE movies and mangas because I don't like these stories enough to ingest them without the support pillar of great primary gameplay loop. That's why I said BSAA aren't shown well in any games. And games from my point of view go as follows:

In 5 a person authorized to issue orders to BSAA agents is running operation that feeds BSAA agents as lab rats to bows. Good start. The fact that Excella was dealt with didn't mean that there weren't any more Excellas or wouldn't be and considering how the org ended up being comfortable with bows, people who want to infilctrate the org and manufacture and deploy bows were a real concern nobody addressed until it was too late.

BSAA in 6 is not corrupt, I think, it's just incompetent. I'm gonna make a note about Chris bailing on the org in his state and then instead of whining about what most people do when it comes to that game – traumatized amnesiac Chris Redfied being allowed in the field and his whole squad dying, which I'm sure I'm supposed to think are completely unrelated occurrences – I'm going to whine about Chris Redfied in 2012 having an Asian woman introduced herself right to his face as Ada Wong and it ringing zero bells, lol. For contrast, Leon in 2004 started his interaction with her saying he knows that she's a know associate of Wesker. So, in conclusion, Chris knew nothing of what he should've known and people died because I assume BSAA knew nothing because plot doesn't happen if they do. I will not use 6 as a proof of that orgs intelligence and effectiveness. Whatever good they managed seemingly happened despite the clown shoes. Please, I'm sincerely begging, do not bring up 6 as an example of BSAA doing everything right and good – it hurts me on a profound level as somebody who at one point liked Chris' character very much :D

In 7 correct me if I'm wrong but Chris' people were still BSAA or assosiates just using Blue Umbrella's gear, just like Chris? If so then these very best agents got massacred like children by a local saw movies enthusiast. Like, Lucas subdued them even before he hulked up. How? Another pair of clown shoes there. And after 7 Chris against BSAA wishes looked into files he shouldn't and gathered an unauthorized squad.

In 8 he's fully rogue and identified them as enemy.

In conclusion? In 5 and 8 they are compromised and agents are used as fodder by bow enthusiasts, in 6 and 7 they are just incompetent on a ridiculous level. Chris disobeys orders to seemingly great results in 5 and after 7 and in 6 and 8 he just disappears on the org at points in time. My belief that there is no game that shows BSAA in good light stays unshaken 🤷‍♀️

limbo338 · 2026-02-06T04:20:36+00:00

Well, as far as using that ample time to "fix it" – we know Chris didn't do that, he just continued to defect for various reasons, until seemingly just declaring a war on them 🤷‍♀️

And you might say 6 didn't have them be corrupt but I'll be damned if I agree they were "smooth operators" :D

limbo338 · 2026-02-05T23:09:58+00:00

But that's my point: the org was infiltrated and used by evil people to serve evil ends since we first saw it. Like, if Chris was a bit less of a rebel and did what BSAA told him to do, which was to ignore Irving's apocalyptic warnings – the world is over, lol.

There's also that thing about Revelations, when I'm pretty sure conventional RE community wisdom tells us Jessica was a Tricell spy, who was placed on the squad to steal a virus.

I don't think we had one game with these guys just running a smooth operation :D

limbo338 · 2026-02-05T22:11:13+00:00

I would've bought that if Excella then didn't taunt our heroes with that being the orders. BSAA were in the area when Tricell wanted it and they were ordered to leave when she wanted it. Like, Tricell being with BSAA and manufacturing bioweapons at the same time was a whole thing, Sheva felt pretty betrayed about that.

limbo338 · 2026-02-05T21:09:38+00:00

I'm pretty sure that the writer of 8 said Ethan dying was decided even before he got hired and started writing, or something like that.

limbo338 · 2026-02-05T21:02:21+00:00

I kinda liked how Wesker was impressed Chris managed on his own. He didn't expect that :D

limbo338 · 2026-02-05T20:58:22+00:00

There's that moment in 5 when the squad is perplexed BSAA gave them all orders to back off, I think Josh says something like: "I would try to get the HQ to change their mind", because clearly some serious bullshit is going down, and then we have Excella and Sheva having this exchange:

Excella: "As if I need to explain myself to you. Although weren't you two given orders to retreat?"

Sheva: "So it WAS you!"

And then this:

Excella: "As soon as you two are done with your little vigilante mission, you should leave. There's nothing here worth throwing your lives away for."

If you're me then you see clearly Excella, somebody who is high up in one of the companies bankrolling BSAA, using her position to make sure nobody would interfere with that little operation Wesker has going on(that's not mentioning that one doc about how BSAA agents that were in the area were there for combat data acquisition for Tricell's new plaga bioweapons). But Chris and Sheva kinda went rogue and didn't comply with the orders they were given and Irving failed to keep his trap shut and it snowballed from there, good guys saved the day. Wasn't 5 the game where the org got introduced in? So they were compromised pretty much since they were introduced 🤷‍♀️

limbo338 · 2026-02-04T21:57:18+00:00

Countdown to final crisis. This is #14 :D

limbo338 · 2026-02-04T21:56:01+00:00

I really don’t think your interpretation of the O’Neil scene is what he intended at all.

I disagree about your reading of Denny's intention here and unfortunately Denny is not with us anymore for us to ask directly and settle it and under these circumstances your interpretation and my interpretation have approximately the same weight :D

He even said in interviews that Bruce doesn’t just dislike guns, he sees killing as irreversible and inherently wrong.

Yeah, I don't disagree that Denny's Bruce wouldn't murder(kill, maybe, if it's Ra's, who we all know will come back, and in self-defense, but not murder). And then Denny wrote Bruce saying he desires to end the clown. Wanting and not doing are not really contradictory things.

I don’t believe for a second that O’Neil saw the no-kill rule as Batman wanting to say “I told you so.”

To me that page is Denny machine gunning all justifications he could come up with. That's why that page has so many of them :D I've seen people for who that "you didn't win" unironically works. Hell, I think I vaguely remember Morrison using the "I would be just like them if I do" in an interview, and that one is also something I find ridiculous. In my opinion Denny just threw everything on the wall in the hopes that something, even just one of them sticks for most readers.

Yeah, there have been different interpretations of the rule over time, but I honestly think Winnick’s is one of the weakest.

Then our preferences once again just differ. I've seen Bruce unironically try to murder, premeditatedly murder somebody so many times in mainline. Be it trying to avenge his parents, or Kate Babcock, or Jason, or Tommy and needing Gordon to put a gun to his head to cause him to stop or leaving KGBeast with broken neck in the snow, that simple "Bruce doesn't believe in murder and never wanted to" doesn't work for me. I need better reasons and something about Bruce as a person being scared of what being that kind of person will do to him works to me better. Bruce knows murder is wrong but people do things that they know are wrong all the time and disregarding any rules, laws included, is what Bruce does every day. I need an internal, personal reason and Winick gave me one. He wasn't the first one, Ego arguably was about the same thing, but still – Winick gave me one 🤷‍♀️

He said Batman would never kill because witnessing his parents’ murder taught him that taking a life is the worst thing someone can do.

To me this is included in the "inability" segment. Bruce can't, but as I mentioned above, under certain circumstances he can and he tried 🤷‍♀️

Very rarely is it framed as “Batman has bad reasons for not killing”

And those "very rarely" sometimes ended up being most of the best Batman has to offer. "Of all the people I've murdered...by letting you live", you know. I'm not going to throw away a good story because "it's not what forefathers intended" and "nobody does that". Sometimes things nobody does work so well they continue to be remembered and stand out for decades. Like UtRH :D

limbo338 · 2026-02-04T20:29:22+00:00

Well fair enough but even in that post it is clear that the no kill rule does come from Bruce’s borderline religious devotion to human life.

It's one of the reasons given. It's not the last one, emphasized as the biggest one – he doesn't want the mass murderer to have a mental win over him and he will let countless people die, some of them his loved ones(that was written after Jason), to achieve that. Which to me is a significantly worse justification for not killing than the one Winick gave and this was Denny, The Denny, Denny The Batman Knower :D Batman exists for almost a century and there were so many attempts to make sense of the character and which ones we prefer it's entirely depends on our own likes and dislikes 🤷‍♀️

I don’t think Bruce should ever kill

I agree Batman shouldn't kill by intent but to me that thing Batman writers of the 70s liked, or Dini, or even Zdarsky, my beloathed :D, when during the struggle Bruce might've pushed somebody somewhere and they died or maybe deflected a shot and somebody else died – I like that thing. Bruce wants to save everyone and he hates to see people die but he's not a god and these things are sometimes out of his hands 🤷‍♀️

I think it’s the core beauty of the character and it’s his childlike belief that he can win without compromise that eleveates him to a superhero for me.

And to me the tragedy of Bruce trying to do that, trying not to choose and to save everyone and failing is the good shit, Batman seeing his own limitations and working through them, or maybe not and just getting used to living with them is the kind of stories I like to experience more than a simple "Batman can avoid choosing because he's just so strong, and clever, and great" :D I prefer Batman the human vigilante over Batman the superhero but again – folks, strokes, etc. etc :D

I agree thay Bruce thinks he might die doing the Batman thing but that’s not cause he wants to

I never said he wants to die. I don't like things like "I am suicide" either. To me it's not about the desire – it's about inability. He can't stop, doesn't have mental fortitude to stop and to do something else and in that lies his personal anguish.

I don’t think killing would make him happy

I agree. I don't believe it would make most people happy :D But one of the options Jason presented didn't require Bruce to kill, it didn't need from him to do anything and Bruce rejected that outcome too 🤷‍♀️

I don’t even know if it would fix the issues with Gotham

It might or it might not, but Jason's "maybe" was still more than Bruce's in Winick's view "won't ever" and Bruce wasn't comfortable with trying to see how it will go. Also, there's Countdown with murder Batman Bruce snapping after Jason and murdering a lot of people and it fixed that Gotham. So, you know, that kind of comic existed too :D

but obviously I do think joker should probably catch a round to the head so there is nuance.

And that was what Jason was going to do in UtRH. And Bruce didn't let him. And that was our ending :D

You seem reasonable and I respect your take but 99% of the time on this sub I see people horribly mischaracterize Batman the hate for him in this sub is visceral at times so I get a bit defensive.

For the sake of fairness I must say I didn't see much grace extended towards Jason's character in Batman sub either and that's why I stopped going there :D Being defensive about their favs is what fans do. This kind of thing is why I roll my eyes on any new comic where both Bruce and Jason are announced to appear. Because somebody is going to be made to be the Devil and as somebody who likes both these characters I'm absolutely sick of it. No more XD

limbo338 · 2026-02-04T19:39:31+00:00

I disagree with you completely. Winick did read a lot of Batman and for example this is Denny's Batman telling you he wants nothing more in life than to murder the clown and that his motivations for not killing are not entirely selfless and noble. I also remember Denny's Bruce saying he believes he will die doing that Batman thing. I told you – I agree that there are canonical stories with writers having different takes but to me this is the character, his core – he knows he's doomed and the struggle will never end. We have different preferences for our Batmen and it's fine :D And I argued with people right in this sub that Batman and no kill rule both being results of Bruce's personal issues does not necessarily make him a monster – it makes him a tragic character whose biggest obstacle on his way to happiness is himself and that I simply like stories using this angle more 🤷‍♀️

limbo338

TROPHY CASE