DC K.O.: The Joker vs. Red Hood #1 – Round 8: Payback’s A Bitch

DC K.O.: The Joker vs. Red Hood #1 is the final round of Fight Month and perhaps the most anticipated, as Jason Todd, no longer restrained by Batman’s rules and code takes on The Joker. Snyder does not disappoint as the main narrative is from Jason as he reveals that he believes that when  friends and family look at him, they don’t see Jason Todd, only The Joker, a fair and valid point.

Both Jason and The Joker come out guns blazing  in the arena of The Axis Chemical plant. Jason reveals what he believes will be a sure way to defeat The Joker, not by curing him of what the Axis Chemicals transformed him into, but instead amplifying the dose a thousand times. After shooting The Joker with the Chemical bullet The Joker doesn’t die, but simply mutates into a Jokerized monster and knocking Jason into the vat of chemicals, killing him for the win.

Round Two is a trip down memory lane as the Heart chooses the arena of the warehouse where the Joker killed Jason and his mom. Jason, in his Robin costume takes control and changes the outcome, beats the Joker within an inch of his life with the crowbar and then using The Joker to absorb the blast of the bomb, ending the round with Jason carrying the dead Joker ala Jim Aparo from the wreckage, making the battle a tie.

Round Three its Red Hood vs Red Hood as both Jason and The Joker embrace the persona. Here, Snyder has Jason reveal that The Red Hood was always a boogeyman but not his personal one. The two fight in a graveyard and Jason seemingly emerges as the victory bur it remains to be seen until the next round as The Joker seems to have a device connected to his heart, that triggers before the final K.O.

The issue ends with a few pages setting up the next installment of the main series as Darkseid-Booster forces the Time Trapper to watch Earth’s final transformation into New Apokolips.

This is a very satisfying issue and Snyder and the rest of the creative team deliver everything one would expect and more from a confrontation of this magnitude and historical backstory.