I have heard people talking about Judd Winick being a good writer but I didn’t know anything about him apart from him being on The Real World. I did read some of his Outsider stuff earlier this year and thought they were terrible. I didn’t like the characters or the stories. Since he is responsible for Jason Todd’s return I would be even more likely to think little of his ability as a writer. I was (and still am) dead set against this. Jason died and should stay dead. Period. But the other day at my local library I saw this trade and checked it out. I wasn’t expecting to like anything about it but I was wrong.

Keeping in mind what I just said about Jason’s return I thought it was fairly well done. Batman really isn’t center stage for this trade so I can’t say much one way or the other about Winick’s portrayal of him. I thought he did a decent job with most of the other characters though. I liked Black Mask and I even liked Jason which is something I NEVER would have expected.

I liked that Winick had Jason (assuming it was him) take out the R&D wing of Wayne Industries. I have thought for a long time that this is something that should be explored in the Batman books. What would have happened if Bane had found a way to break Batman financially instead of physically? Batman can come back from injury but operating without money would be tough and great fodder for stories. So I give Winick props for doing it. Of course it would stand to reason that Jason should have killed the Joker when he had the chance but we all know why that couldn’t happen. Still it was nice to see a villain get a taste of his own medicine for once.

I can’t say I cared much for Doug Manke and Paul Lee’s art though. I guess it fit well for the stories but I found it cartoony and lacking in depth. Just my opinion. Some of the reviews on the second volume were not that good when I looked them up on Amazon. Some said the stories suffered from weak writing and art. They also didn’t care for the way Jason returned. I gathered it had something to do with Infinite Crisis and Superboy-Prime but I didn’t get the whole story. For those of you who have read the second volume what did you think? I would also like your opinions on the Bruce Wayne - Murderer/Fugitive trades and the War Drums/Games/Crimes trades. I thought they sounded kind of interesting and might buy them some time down the road if I like what I hear.

You should check out Winick's Green Lantern: Power of Ion and Green Lantern: Brother's Keeper to really see some more of Winick when he's at his best. Possibly his most celebrated book is Pedro and Me, which outlined his relationship with Real World castmate Pedro and his affliction with AIDS.

I agree. I am a big fan of Winnick's Green Lantern stuff. The whole Jason Todd thing was really Winnick wanting to bring this character back. I think I read somewhere that he voted to have Jason live and this was his way to screw the fans who voted to kill him. Something like that.

now we need someone else to kill him again, who would you have do it?

The Joker did it once. He could do it again. I don't know to be honest.

alot of people didn't like Judd Winick's run on Batman, but i really enjoyed it. I thought the way the brought back Jason Todd was cool.... but they haven't really found a good use for him yet

I didn't hate it. There were ups and downs. He did an issue where Batman and Nightwing take on an Amazo which I really liked.

i thought the way they brought back jason was stupid

IIRC, DC management toyed with the idea to bring Jason back for a while, but Winick provided a story they liked and decided to greenlight it. He did vote for Jason to live, but I doubt he wrote this story for that reason alone. He wrote it because it made for a good story.



No one. Awesome character. Winick really turned him around from the punk he use to be. My best friend likes him so much that he'll buy any book Todd is in (which made him suffer through Nightwing and wish Wizard's Suicide Squad would see print).



Yeah, I think Joker may actually be afraid of Todd.

The Joker should be scared of him.

Indeed. And he's not scared of anyone. lol I love what Winick has done with Todd. And with him popping up in a future issue of Green Arrow, I just have to pick it up.

Doug Manke is AWESOME !!!!