The tragic and untimely deaths of Bruce Wayne’s parents eventually inspired the orphaned billionaire to grow up and become Gotham’s caped crusader, Batman, but he wasn’t the only one. With the abrupt and ultimately pointless deaths of two of Gotham’s most influential figures, one particular individual was equally as inspired—not to help Gotham, but to bring chaos to its streets.
The Red Hood Gang first appeared in Batman comics in 2012 during Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo's acclaimed run on the title. The gang itself is not filled with Batman’s typical villains—cookie-cutter bad guys with violent pasts—and instead is populated by a press-ganged group of upper middle class individuals. With connections to classic Batman villains like the Joker, the gang is already well-established by the time readers are introduced. Fans learn that most members joined the group under threat of blackmail, though that doesn’t seem to stop their love of violence and chaos. The goal of the gang is explicitly stated to be there to spark fear in Gotham’s citizens because of just how random and chaotic their crimes are.
The leader of the Red Hood Gang was given an early lesson in the pointlessness and randomness of some crime when the news of the deaths of Thomas and Martha Wayne reached the rest of Gotham. The original Red Hood himself was young at the time, and while his own parents expressed horror at the deaths, the future gang leader felt something else—inspiration. There was no reason for the Wayne couple’s death, the act was meaningless and it was that meaningless that inspired the original Red Hood to begin his life of crime. If two pillars of the community like the Waynes could be killed at random, who else could? And who could create that randomness? For the leader of the Red Hood Gang, it was an obvious choice to become that terrifying yet alluring bit of chaos. The tragic deaths, which inspired a young Bruce Wayne to work hard and spend the rest of his life doing vigilante work, also became the inspiration for more of the same kind of violence that took their lives.
The idea of a gang of upper middle class individuals who are not committing crimes for money or power, but simply to spread fear feels distinctly modern compared to Batman’s classic villains. It begs the question: when wealth has provided comfort and power, what else is there left to gain? The Red Hood Gang not only leans into this question, but also is unique in the fact that it is a gang of upper middle class people preying on the fears and preconceptions of middle and upper class Gotham.
While many villains and gangs have come and gone in Batman comics, the Red Hood Gang stands out for its specific goals. Not only did the villain play on the fears of Gotham’s middle class, but they corrupted the loss of Thomas and Martha Wayne by using that loss to inspire more violence and chaos.
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