Warning: SPOILERS for The Joker: The Man Who Stopped Laughing #3Given their long history, it makes total sense that the Joker knows exactly how to use Red Hood’s biggest weakness against him. In their latest confrontation, Joker manages to completely distract Jason Todd with the mere mention of the big man himself: Batman.
The Joker and Red Hood are characters inseparably tied together. Jason Todd, now going by Red Hood, was the second Robin, famously tortured and killed by Batman’s arch-nemesis, the Joker. When Jason eventually returned to life, he reinvented himself as the Red Hood, a vigilante-style crime lord. Jason’s original Red Hood arc culminates in an emotional confrontation between himself, the Joker, and Batman himself, Jason’s adoptive father. The Joker gets to witness just how much Batman gets under Red Hood’s skin, mostly because, despite Jason’s gray morality, they still care for each other deeply.
Now, Red Hood is once again on the wrong side of the law as he chases after the Joker in The Joker: The Man Who Stopped Laughing #3 by Matthew Rosenberg, Carmine Di Giandomenico, Arif Prianto, and Tom Napolitano. Red Hood, after all these years, still wants justice and vengeance for his death as Robin at the Joker’s hands. But the Joker knows just how to manipulate Jason; even as Jason has the Joker in his grasp, gun literally in the Joker’s mouth, the clown pretends to see Batman to distract Red Hood. “Are you really going to use that big bad gun of yours with daddy watching from up there? He’ll be mad.” Jason immediately turns around to try to convince Batman that what he’s doing is right. Joker, while Red Hood is distracted, jumps overboard and gets away.
Red Hood’s Relationship with Batman Is His Biggest Weakness
Jason Todd’s fraught relationship with Batman has been his main motivation and weakness since his earliest days as Red Hood. Jason often feels the need to prove himself and his violent methods to Bruce, and Joker still knows how to use that need against Red Hood, especially in this particular moment. Red Hood, despite being a vigilante who is willing to kill when necessary, is often considered by fans and other DC characters alike to be one of the most emotional Bat-Family members. That’s certainly at play in this confrontation with the Joker; Jason’s love for and troubled relationship with Batman once again gets in his own way.
Will Red Hood ever kill the Joker? Is it even possible to kill the Joker? This new series is once again asking these timeless questions, but readers might finally have some answers—at least, for now, to the first question. If the Joker continues to use Red Hood’s Batman-shaped weakness against him, it’s likely the Clown Prince of Crime will always escape Jason Todd’s grasp.
Check out The Joker: The Man Who Stopped Laughing #3, available now from DC Comics!
