Posted in: Batman, Comics, Comics Publishers, Current News, DC Comics | Tagged: Gretchen Felker-Martin, H2SH, red hood

No, Gretchen Felker-Martin, Writer Of Red Hood, Has Not Read H2SH

No, Gretchen Felker-Martin, writer of the new Red Hood series from DC Comics has not read Batman: H2SH...

Gretchen Felker-Martin is an American horror author and film and TV critic, best known to date for her novels Manhunt and Cuckoo. She is also the writer of the upcoming Red Hood comic book series, starring Jason Hood and Huntress, and drawn by Jeff Spokes, the first DC Comics in-continuity mature readers ongoing comic book series that DC Comics has had for some time. She also comes from (mostly) outside of comics (she did write an issue of Harley Quinn), she has not been kind to superhero comics in the past, she has a dark and irreverent sense of humour, and she also happens to be trans, so obviously there's a certain segment of comic book fans who hate her already. We've reported that Red Hood seems to be spinning out of the current (and late) Batman H2SH storyline by Jim Lee and Jeph Loeb, and Gretchen Felker-Martin seems to have read that reportage as well, if not the actual comic. An interview with Asher Elbein at Heat Death includes this exchange;

So what's the basic plot of this comic?
So I have not actually read this comic, but apparently it springs off from Hush 2 –
Don't worry. I also have not read Hush 2.
I mean, no shade! I'm sure it has a lot to recommend it, and is appealing to a lot of people with taste different than mine.

I would like to point out that in leaked art, there is a reprise from a scene in H2SH, so it may not be entirely tongueless-in-cheek. Also, let's be fair, no one has read H2SH yet. Jim Lee is still drawing it, and he's had a Superman movie to promote. Though it is possible, as DC Publisher, Red Hood might gain his attention, given its content. We learn;

"My comic picks up where that ends, and Jason is off on his own in the Louisiana coastal city of New Angelique, which is strongly inspired by New Orleans. He's picked up this thread of murder-suicides involving police officers and retired police officers. A telepath is possessing cops and forcing them to shoot other cops and then themselves, and broadcasting the cell phone videos on the internet. And so Jason goes digging into this and really begins to uncover stuff not just about the telepath, but about the police in New Angelique. What they've done and what they're connected to, and how far this kind of institutional rot spreads."

Shooting cops? That seems something of the moment… how was DC Comics with that>

"I was also able to successfully push what I couldn't do. Like killing cops. The degree and intensity and amount of on-page murder got initial pushback. The comic involves killing a lot of police officers, killing FBI agents, killing ICE agents. And obviously we're in a very politically tumultuous and fractious time, and DC is a big company, and that could rub some editors the wrong way. But my editor, Arianna Turturro, was really supportive and so far everything has been going smoothly. I've been able to tell the story that I want to tell, which is a story about fascism and corruption and abusive state power."

Can't people tell a Batman comic book, you know, about a billionaire who seeks to change and save society by becoming a street vigilante, dealing with the police, the mayor and organised crime and corruption systemic in the system, while turning kids into soldiers, without involving politics!

"it's very concerned with the politics of gun ownership, with gun fetishism and this idea of the gun as a fundamental element of American masculinity… They're guns. And they're using guns to try to solve emotional and social problems, which of course speaks to their own kind of emotional stuntedness, but also to the fact that a gun does represent political power. Fred Hampton said it himself: it doesn't flow from the sleeve of a dashiki or from silent protest. It flows from the barrels of a gun."

I mean, it's more commonly attributed to Chairman Mao. Could this be the Little Red Hood Book? Either way, there's a lot of communist philosophy going around. I mean she's already been getting letters from people demanding just how Red Hood and Huntress should be written one way or another. But she's written twelve issues so far, so expect her to be around for a while. Red Hood #1 is published by DC Comics in September.

RED HOOD #1
Written by GRETCHEN FELKER-MARTIN
Art & Cover by JEFF SPOKES
Variant covers by JIM LEE, TK, and JAE LEE
Foil variant cover by KYUYONG EOM
1:25 variant cover by NICK ROBLES
1:50 variant cover by JIM LEE
$4.99 US | 32 pages | Variant $5.99 US (card stock) | Variant $7.99 US (foil)
ON SALE 9/10/25
Jason Todd has left Gotham and Batman behind him. All he's taking with him is his costume, his bike, and a metal briefcase containing two handguns (and lots of bullets). New Angelique seems like the perfect place for Red Hood to put down roots. There's crime, vice, and corruption everywhere. When Jason discovers a superpowered serial killer who is targeting the city's police, he finds himself sucked into a terrible and bleak conspiracy with seemingly no end in sight. But Jason isn't the only person on the scene. Following his trail is Helena Bertinelli a.k.a. Huntress. Is she here to stop him or help him? What will happen when the two black sheep of the Bat-Family start working together? Get ready for Red Hood like you've always wanted to see him in DC's first-ever in-continuity Mature Readers series. OUT OF GOTHAM. NOT OUT OF BULLETS. ERUPTING FROM THE EVENTS OF H2SH COMES DC'S FIRST-EVER IN-CONTINUITY, MATURE READERS, ONGOING RED HOOD SERIES!

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