Red Hood #51 Review: On A Different Page

No matter what is happening in Gotham City, there is one neighborhood that's always on a different page. The Hill is a predominantly Black neighborhood where the shadow of the Bat almost never falls, and very few people are afraid of his shtick. Apparently, gentrification is slowly coming to the Hill due to its proximity to prime real estate, but old habits die hard, and Jason Todd is bringing his own brand of vigilante activism to a complex situation.

First, some numbers, and that's part of where this issue leaves you scratching your head. Twelve years ago, Jason Todd asked his childhood friend Dana Harlowe to keep an eye on a Hill apartment he bought. Okay. Twenty-one years ago, Demetrius Korlee Jr. saw his father sent to jail by the Batman, swinging through the Hill for maybe the first time ever, and took the same lesson Marisol Leone understood in Metropolis: don't get caught up with masks and capes. He built a successful business with a foot in the streets and a legitimate branch of business to keep the money clean.

Here's where Shawn Martinbrough's otherwise effective script slipped: once you attach concrete numbers of years to something, they start to look fishy. An adult, fully functional Batman took down Korlee Senior twenty-one years ago? There is a conceivable way that could work (Batfleck is 48 as of this writing), but then how old is Jason Todd? It makes the whole sidekick timeline shaky, especially since Jason acquired the property after going to school with Harlowe but before, you know, dying. Sure, this lines up with the 20th anniversary of Batman's release: The Hill, but those details are more relevant to the meta-narrative than the in-world plot.

If you can stop puzzling over that kind of detail, the only other real hiccup is the visual similarity between Korlee Jr. and his rival/illicit supplier Jerome "Gudda" Gordi, making the distinction between them require a more discerning pass. From the actions of an ambitious scion of money to the complex balance of power between localized vigilantes and criminal elements, the other elements of this are all pretty engaging.

This is a solid book that may have reached a little farther than its grasp could hold, but perhaps might be redeemed in its next installment. RATING: HONORABLE MENTION.