Red Hood and the Outlaws #0

The Story: Red Hood and the Outlaws #0 focused all on Jason Todd's origin in this issue (which didn't make sense to put Starfire and Arsenal on the cover). His new origin goes through his rough childhood from his thug father and how he was a bit of a young juvenile teen. When he ran into Batman one night, Dr. Leslie Thompkins convinced Batman to give him a chance. With that Bruce Wayne took him into his family and trained him to use his skills in fighting crime instead of creating it as the next Robin.

The Good: We finally get a better origin of Jason Todd's past on how he became a Robin in the New 52. He is definitely angrier than the other Robins due to his upbringing from his criminal father. He probably isn't as violent as Damian Wayne, but his violence is fueled by rage. Also the art of his Robin suit looks great and just like the other Robins' suits he has a specific uniform design just for him. The red mask and the short sleeve look really defines his look as Robin. Also we get a back up story on Joker's perspective during A Death in the Family called The Man Who Created Red Hood which was very interesting. It was a retelling of that story, which I felt it was needed in this issue to clear up some things in the New 52. The dialog of the Joker was written well and the art has a few classic Joker elements to it. The last thing that I liked about the issue is that it gave a better explanation to his resurrection, something to do with the Lazarus Pit.

The Bad: Since its a zero issue we only get a limited amount of pages that explain Jason Todd's entire origin. It felt like the issue spent more than enough time on his family upbringing and not enough on his time as a Robin. I get how DC's zero issues are to supposed to give readers new origins on characters or origins that were never written on characters, but I just wish they showed a little more of his time as Robin. Also its very vague on his time-length as Robin. Just like Nightwing #0 it feels like that Jason Todd's time as Batman's sidekick was short-lived. Again, I get how these zero issues have a limited number of pages to fit entire origins in.

The other thing I didn't like is how the Joker is responsible for making Jason Todd into Robin just to kill him off. This makes it seem like Joker obviously knows who Batman's identity is but hopefully it will be explained in the upcoming "Death of the Family" event which crosses over the Batman titles. Also I assume Talia al Ghul is at Jason's grave and is somewhat responsible for his resurrection, or am I wrong?

Overall thoughts: I give Jason Todd's story 4/5 and the Joker back-up story 2/5. So overall I give it a 3.5/5. It was definitely great to get a clear origin from him and to see what shaped his character to how it is now. He's still angry and bitter towards everyone else in the Batman Family, but he's less hateful towards them and helps out when they really need it.