Avernus

Okay, so, random thing to start blogging about after quite some months of silence, but....

Here we have the Red Hood, aka Jason 'everyone-thinks-that-my-returning-from-the-dead-is-a-lame-ass-plotdevice' Todd (well, okay, his middle name's Peter actually, but we can't be picky). (And I'm still willing to give the back-from-the-dead plotline the benefit of the doubt until I see whether it leads to something interesting or not. So far it's been quite fun compared with recent batwangst. But I seem to be in the minority in thinking so.) Notice in particular his nice twisted knife. See how it shines.

Here we have the preview cover for the March issue of Nightwing. Notice the nice twisted knife. See how it shines beneath its patina of gore.

I don't quite know what to make of this. I feel *reasonably* happy that, contrary to certain appearances, we won't have Nightwing offing Jay at any time in the near future - they only brought him back from the dead about ten minutes ago, there's *much* more angst they can wring out of the situation yet. I just don't quite feel that someone in Nightwing's costume carrying Jay's bloodied knife can really bode well for several of my favourite characters. Either in terms of angst (as in 'aaargh, my poor babies, what sort of horrors have these events wreaked on your psyches') or in terms in wangst (as in 'aaargh, my poor babies, what sort of horrors have these writers wreaked on your ongoing characterisation').

In related news, Timmy now apparently has his Tooniverse costume in the regular DCU. Which I would usually welcome, as I like his Tooniverse costume (and, indeed, character) very much. Except that for Timmy, a step closer to the Tooniverse is a step closer to (SPOILER UNDER LINK! AND NOT OF THE COSTUMED-CRUSADER VARIETY!) what happened to him in 'Return of the Joker'. Which isn't really a good thing for anyone concerned. Especially Timmy.