WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Red Hood #52 by Shawn Martinbrough, Tony Atkins, Stefano Gaudiano, Paul Mounts and ALW's Troy Peteri, on sale now.
After the toll "Joker War" took on the Bat-family, Red Hood has now shifted focus to Jason Todd as he tries to reinvent himself in the Hill, an impoverished area on the outskirts of Gotham, away from the glitz and glam of the city. He's going back to his street roots, but unfortunately, a criminal fashion mogul in the vein of Jared Leto's Joker called Tommy Maxx is wreaking havoc in a turf war.
But in Red Hood #52, that's the least of Jason's worries as he discovers a group of vigilantes there may be tied to one of Batman's deadliest enemies: the League of Assassins.
Jason has a flirty relationship with an old friend, Dana, but she's been marshaling a group of vigilantes. As Strike, she led them in battle against the Joker gangs, successfully repelling the villains from a neighborhood that didn't have superheroes to stick up for them. However, Jason's worried as he doesn't think they're fully equipped to partake in these military activities that could get innocents killed.
And in one particular Fast and Furious-esque assault by Tommy's jeep-driving crew, Red Hood realizes he underestimated the vigilantes. When he appeals to Dana and their bond, she tells him they did this out of desperation, but there's no going back since they don't trust anyone to come to the Hill to protect them. Until Gotham's elite and their bought-out politicians want to gentrify the Hill and make money, they're Gotham's forgotten. But as Jason points out Dana's troops have a fighting style he knows, she drops a bombshell.
Dana admits these techniques were taught to them by someone who dedicated their lives to fighting in the shadows for lifetimes. Beyond that, this person trained them to fight without guns, which could describe any member of the Bat-family apart from Jason. However, when Jason is about to name the organization they remind him of, they're interrupted with a message to go find Tommy, which alone hints at something darker. The fact she mentioned shadows suggests it could be someone from the League of Assassins, which is called the League of Shadows in some continuities. Dana's dad lost his leg in "Joker War," so this is the perfect kind of opportunity the League would capitalize on to mold a rebel leader.
This could be Talia forming her own vigilante squad to prove Bruce wrong, or it could be the work of recent Outsiders ally Lady Shiva. In theory, this could be part of Ra's scheme to get back at Batman and Black Lightning after their recent feud. Another possibility could be that Damian Wayne tried to help these people up before his recent retirement as Robin. Only time will tell, but Jason makes have a valid point about the inevitable battle that these makeshift soldiers won't be able to win. By now that he's around, the Red Hood may end up being their only path to victory.
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