5 Similarities Between Titan's Red Hood And The Comics + Jason Todd

How does HBO Max’s version of the Red Hood on their series Titans compare to the iconic original from DC comics?

The third season of HBO’s Titans is in full swing with a storyline centering around DC‘s Red Hood.

Fans of the angst-ridden anti-hero are treated to gratuitous nods to the comics, including Red Hood’s infamous confrontation with the leaders of Gotham’s drug runners. Despite the initially rushed plot with too much crammed into episode one, the rest of the season has panned out well with a delightfully devastating storyline leaving the audience unsure if the team will be able to save Jason both from himself and Scarecrow.

Curran Walters is doing a fantastic job portraying Red Hood, putting his all into the character and giving Jason Todd the performance he deserves. The beginning of the season had a dismaying lack of suspense surrounding Red Hood’s true identity, but since most fans already knew who was behind the mask, it seems the writers decided to create suspense elsewhere. While there are plenty of similarities between the show and the comics, Titans also took a few liberties with the story of the Red Hood.

Similarity: Killed By The Joker

As in the previews that fans were teased with a couple of months before the airing of season three, the Joker is depicted violently beating someone with a crowbar. Jason sneaks out to face the Joker alone and is caught off guard in a defunct carnival.

In the comics, a very important detail of Jason Todd’s death is his murder at the hands of Batman’s arch-nemesis, the Joker. The crowbar plays a central role in his torture, though the scene in the comics is much more drawn out, the villain wanting to prolong his twisted game.

Difference: Killed In Gotham

In Titans, the Joker attacks Jason in Gotham, never leaving the city limits with him. Since Jason’s death was actually in the comic storyline Death in the Family, instead of the Red Hood plot, the writers needed to skim through it instead of lingering on that part of the story.

The original comic version puts Jason’s death in Ethiopia. His birth mother sells him out to the Joker who takes him where Batman will struggle to find him. The villain leaves him beaten in a warehouse to die in an explosion just before he can be rescued.

Similarity: Dumped In A Lazarous Pit

In both storylines, a Lazarus pit was involved in Jason’s revival. The unfortunate side effect of the Lazarus Pit is that it heals the body but can twist the mind and leave a person confused and volatile. In both cases, this is true.

For the show, Jason was revived in a pit within Gotham city limits. The comics are a little more roundabout with it, as the pit is located in the secret home of the League of Assassins. Talia al Ghul uses the pit to heal Jason’s injuries and poison his mind against his family.

Difference: Not Revived By Superboy-Prime

In the show, the audience learns that there is a Lazarus Pit forgotten by the League of Assassins somewhere in Gotham. This is what Jonathan Crane uses to revive Jason Todd. The comics had an entirely different way to revive Jason before he became Red Hood.

DC had a storyline with a regular boy who became a hero in a universe where superheroes didn’t exist. Superboy-Prime ended up turning villainous and set off a chain of events that changed reality, reversing Jason’s death. He woke up inside his coffin and had to dig his way out. The Lazarus Pit was used to heal him but not revive him.

Similarity: Grudge Against Batman

A huge part of the Red Hood origin story is based around his fury at Batman. The show depicts Jason being fired from Robin shortly before his death, leading him to experiment with eliminating his fear. The drug and his past PTSD drove him away from the hero community and made him vulnerable to manipulation.

The comics show Jason furious over the fact that Batman never avenged his death, and had replaced him with another Robin. He saw Bruce’s methods as ineffective and set out to prove he could protect Gotham better with his own methods.

Red Hood Joins XM Studios Batman Samurai Statue Line for DC Fandome

DC Fandome is here, and that means a day full of some incredible DC Comics news, trailers, reveals, and comics. XM Studios is kicking off some of the DC Fandoms reveals as they reveal their newest DC Comics statue.

Coming out of their original Batman Samurai line, Red Hood is taking on the ways of vengeance in Rural Japan with this incredible statue. Standing at roughly 20.87 inches tall, Red Hood is shown in a brand new traditional Japanese design with an intense placement of red. He will feature a nice set of swappable statue parts with three different head sculpts, with a red domed helmet, half mask, and a tengu-inspired mask. For weapons, the fallen Batman apprentice gets dual katanas and dual sai that really shine with this hand-crafted and hand-painted design.

The DC Premium Collectibles Samurai Series Red Hood 1/4 Scale Limited Edition Statue is priced at $1,349. He is set to release in Q3 of 2022, and pre-orders are live and can be found located right here.

“With single-minded intent, a red masked man strides forward, weapons in his grip, ready to strike at a moment’s notice. The sharp lethal lines of his body draw an angry red lash in the fabric of reality that speaks of a man who wasn’t above violence if you stood in his path of vengeance. Decked in sleek armour and armed with an array of dual weapons, one could almost hear the clicking sounds of his armoured boots as it echoes off the ruined tiles of the bathhouse.”
“With his haori (traditional Japanese hip-length jacket worn over a kimono) dyed a signature red, triangular striped pattern at the sleeves and helm, Red Hood depicted here dons on a set of robes that resembles the distinct blue uniform worn by The Shinsengumi. The base of the sculpt reveals a traditional Japanese bathhouse setting: a battered blue noren, ruined ceramic tiles with what seems to be a house crest etched on it, a fallen wooden bath bucket that is spilling strange green liquid…

what could it possibly be? Or, more importantly, what is our Red Hood doing here?”

Product Features

20.87 inches (53cm)
1/4 Scale
Made of polystone
Based on the DC Comics character
Highly detailed sculpt
Multiple interchangeable parts for more display options
Hand painted
Limited edition of 600 pieces

Box Contents

Red Hood statue
3 Head sculpts
3 Pairs of hands

Titans Star Curran Walters Reveals Explosive Behind-the-Scenes Look at Red Hood Stunt

Titans star Curran Walters revealed an explosive behind-the-scenes stunt on social media.

Red Hood has been busy in Season 3 of the HBO Max show.

More than a few explosions lay at the feet of the unhinged vigilante. Walters gave fans a look at the rope work that led to this set piece in the series. Although there is so much safety work that goes into these shows, it can still be scary to be working near literal explosives.

Clearly, the action has been amped up in Season 3 of Titans and the fans seem to be enjoying all the wild fights.

HBO Max has been putting a lot of push behind the former DC Universe series.

It’s all paying off in a big way. However, some favorites won’t be making the trip to Season 4. Red Hood is at the center of most of that. Check out this massive stunt down below.

Comicbook.com‘s Talking Shop actually sat down with the Titans actor ahead of Season 3 to talk about the transition to Red Hood. Walters admitted that he had to do some homework for the role. But, once he was plugged in, the actor wanted to take on the challenge.

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A post shared by Curran Walters (@curdog)

“I wasn’t that too crazy into comics,” Walters revealed. “I knew, of course, of Batman and Robin and all the other crazy famous characters. But as soon as I booked the role, I went out to the local comic book stores, and I got everything I could find on Jason’s story, obviously to get kind of a feel for where the future of the character goes, if it goes that way. I watched the movie. I read all the comic books, and I got a feel for the character and where I needed to take it when I got on screen.

He added, “You know, on the day, you have all this pressure of booking a comic book role, especially since the character’s been around for so long. You feel a sort of pressure on you, but I just did my best, and I think I nailed the role, and all the fans are pretty happy with it. And one thing about the character too is like, I felt like in a way I did have to act, but I didn’t. It’s all how I am in person. I’m very energetic. I’m very just all over the place. So, half of it was like, ‘Hey, that’s just me’ and half of it was, ‘Oh, I got to act,’ so. It was definitely awesome.”

Titans has been renewed for a fourth season, check out this synopsis: “TITANS follows young heroes from across the DC Universe as they come of age and find where they belong. In season three, circumstances draw our heroes to Gotham City, where they reunite with old friends and face a new threat.”

Red Hood

The Red Hood is an alias used by multiple fictional characters and a criminal organization appearing in comic books published by DC Comics.

The identity was first used in the 1951 storyline “The Man Behind The Red Hood!”, which provides the earliest origin story for the Joker. The storyline depicts an unnamed criminal wearing a red dome-shaped hood who, after a chance encounter with Batman, is disfigured by chemicals and becomes insane, giving birth to his future Joker persona.

Jason Todd

Jason Peter Todd is a fictional antihero appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics, commonly in association with Batman.

He is the second character to assume the role of Robin and the second and best-known character to take up the Red Hood alias. First appearing in Batman #357 (March 1983), Todd was created to succeed Dick Grayson, the original Robin, as Batman‘s vigilante partner.

Initially sharing a similar origin to Grayson, subsequent portrayals commonly depict Todd as an orphaned street delinquent with a troubled past, whom Batman attempts to reform and mentor.