Baman: Under the Red Hood & Red Hood: The Lost Days

I just got done reading the two major arcs Batman: Under the Red Hood & Red Hood: The Lost Days, this also includes Batman Annual #25 (which tells how he rose from his grave, but no answers to how).
I’d like to say that I read both arcs on DC Universe and happy that I did. I said from the start that any arcs I read on here that really gra me will be made into a purchase in its trade paperback form and these two stories will be included.
As a fan of the animated film I was very impressed with how well they adapted the story. I am still no fan of the way The Joker sounded or looked in the film, but overall they got all the bullet points in the story correct and made some interesting changes when they needed to be (Black Mask hiring Joker instead of Mr. Freeze is a move that made a lot of sense).
The artwork in the story was done very well and I enjoyed seeing Batman so desperate to avoid the answer he knows already that we get some callback to both The Death of Superman & Green Arrow: Quiver (I also read these on here).
By the end of both stories we are still not 100% on what made him become Red Hood, in the film they used the fact The Joker was once called Red Hood, but in these stories its never mentioned (unless I overlooked a panel).
In The Lost Days we see that Jason Todd is still fighting crime in a sense, as if he’s holding onto that part of himself and when he sees that Batman had moved on we start to see him moving away from that and it makes his change in the main arc make so much more sense, he didn’t just rise up and decide he wanted to go against Batman the way he does.
I was really hoping to see a confrontation between him and Nightwing, especially after reading Batman #416 (also on here) where he and Dick Grayson become kind of like mentor/pupil.
All in all with a just a few minor issues the stories are amazing & any DC fan owes it to themselves to read at least one of these arcs.
What do you all think???

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Worth noting: The script for the animated movie was written by Judd Winick, so if it’s faithful to the original story, it’s because they share a writer. I believe Winick’s said he’s happier with the movie version.

As for the story itself: I found a lot of the dialogue rather clunky, and the climactic moment is a little silly since Batman’s solution is just “throw a batarang at the problem.” That said, while the execution suffers a bit, it’s still a very interesting and important story. The Red Hood was a great villain, and honestly, I feel like the more recent direction of emphasizing the “hero” over the “anti” is a waste of potential, but whatever. It’s a great story. Not my favorite, but definitely a good one.

However, having read both that story and Hush on here, I’ve come to a conclusion: those two stories ruined Batman villains. Ever since the mid-2000s sometime, it feels like every new Batman villain wears some kind of leather coat, a distinctive mask, has a personal vendetta against Bruce Wayne or Batman, and has a connection to Bruce’s or Batman’s past. The first couple (namely, Hush and Red Hood II) were cool, but the parade of imitators like the First Victim and Karma (to name two of the more recent examples) is getting really, really old. Like, I’m not asking for more gimmick villains, but can we at least get somebody who has a goal that doesn’t entirely revolve around Batman? There are always the classic villains, but all of the new blood has just been so… homogeneous.

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@BatJamags (wish there was a way to reply to comments directly)
I have never heard of those villains you mentioned, so I’m not sure they were used a lot. Red Hood is an interesting villain because he still shares a tiny bit of the fight he once had with Bruce when they were a tea, but is willing to go that extra mile. This of course makes him dangerous and reading both arcs in the Under the Red Hood story and The Lost Days you also get this sappy sense that he’s also a wounded son.
Hush is a whole other character because outsie of that first story we never heard of this character before, so he kind of came out of nowhere and his obsession seems out of left field. What worked in that story was how they gave some layers to him that made him interesting enough. I liked the look for Red Hood & Hush, but I’m not sure I agree n the leather jacket look being imitated a lot. As I said those two villains you mentioned I never heard of, so not sure how often they were used and other villains like Catwoman it would be a natural look for.
I didn’t know about the writer connection, that does make sense and I only agree that the dialogue in the film was clunky at times and the last confrontation where Batman speaks from his heart it seems felt off, especially with Joker right there, but they needed to have that talk, so the reader/viewer isn’t asking themselves “Why didn’t they talk about it first?”