I'm up to 2011, so I'm technically past the time frame for classic comics. I've read the first three issues of New 52 Detective Comics.

I don't think I've read any of these early issues since they first came out. They're not really very good, but they're not bad in a way that particularly bugs me.

In the first issue, the Joker, looking to re-create himself again to be a more weird and fearsome and bizarre Gotham creature, has his face surgically removed by a character called the Dollmaker. So for the next few years, the Joker is running around without his face. His face becomes a sort of Gotham villain artifact. The GCPD displays it like a trophy. Other villains try to steal it. I think the Joker got it back for a while and wore it like a mask with a string tied around his head.

The Joker's face is actually a hilarious idea for a place as weird as Gotham. So I like the basic idea. But I'm not really thrilled about the execution. The first issue is OK, but the next couple of issues focus on the Dollmaker, a villain whose father was a Gotham serial killer that was shot and killed by … James Gordon as a young police officer. So he's after Gordon as well as Batman. He cuts people up and puts the body parts back together.

I don't mind that it's gruesome. It's just so relentlessly and pointlessly gruesome.

None, actually. With Rebirth, they returned to the original numbering. They probably have something planned to take advantage 1000-issue milestone, like they did with the recent Action Comics #1000.

I'm up to New 52 Detective Comics #9. So that's 500 consecutive issues of Detective Comics because I started with #390 of the first series, read every issue up to #881, and then the first few issues of the New 52 makes it 500! (And a little more, actually. Throw in the first Detective Comics #0 (during Zero Hour, I think) and it adds up to 502 issues.)

I'm not overly fond of the early issues of the New 52 Detective Comics. The art is nice, I guess. After the Dollmaker story, there's a multi-part Penguin story that's not too bad. But the next couple of issues are … not good. I didn't like #8 which pitted the Scarecrow versus Professor Hugo Strange and his son Emil. And #9 features the Court of Owls trying to kill Jeremiah Arkham. I really really can't stand the Court of Owls. That storyline mostly centered on the Batman comics book, which I thankfully wasn't reading, but threads of the Owls storyline infested quite a few New 52 comics I was reading, and it always made me roll my eyes! (Well, the character Talon became a member of the Birds of Prey and she grew on me after a while. I liked that version of the Birds of Prey a lot!)

I really like the Batgirl chapters. And there are pretty good scenes in all the narratives that I read.

But the Joker is so extreme in this series! He has just gotten so heinous and so unbearable that there is really nowhere to go with the character. That was my big problem with "Death of the Family" when it was coming out. Yes, he was really extreme and awful and murderous before, but the Joker of "Death of the Family," with his saggy mask-face and his elaborate and sadistic plot against the Bat-Family and his constant pseudo-poetic yapping, is not a character you want to see again.

Which doesn't bother me as much it did in 2013. Nowadays, it's easy to consider the New 52 as it's own thing, without much connection to anything that came before it. (Or after it, for that matter.) I find myself thinking a lot more highly of the New 52 Batman in general as I've been reading through these early issues.

There are things that bug me, though, even after mostly coming to terms with the basic idea. For one thing, they are all so casual about the Joker falling to his death at the end. As if he's really dead this time! Come on! Also, I really don't like the way Damian is portrayed in the chapters that I've seen. I think Damian is a great character, especially when you get him away from creator -Grant Morrison. But he is just as helpless and as cowed as the rest of the Bat-Family when he thinks his face is the main course. If anybody (aside from Batman) could take out the Joker by himself before it ever got this far, it would be Damian! However, I must admit that I haven't read the Damian narrative of "Death of the Family," which I assume is in Batman and the Robin. I'll have to see if I can get it from the library.

There are other things that bug me some. Like how Catwoman bowed out after only two issues in her series. And the inclusion of the Red Hood, a character I don't care enough about to even try to understand.

But overall, I like "Death of the Family" a lot more than I used to.

Hoosier X, a question from a fallen-away comics reader: Is Red Hood essentially DC's version of the Winter Soldier? Did they appear at the same time? Did one "lead" to the other, do you think?

Inquiring minds want to know...

Yeah, all I know is what I've seen in the movies, too. And I knew he was Jason Todd, which is ehy i thought he and the WS were sidekicks from another hero, so to say.

I'm sure someone will come to my aid. 

The Original Red Hood appeared in Detective Comics #168 and I have a friend told me that this Red Hood identity in a short while was the JOKER -- he was the Red Hood first; until some time later adopted his more famous and easily identifiable character as the Clown Prince of Crime.

I'm know that I'm right -- my understanding of the original Red Hood is very limited and -- I have watched a cartoon; I've believe it was Batman, the Brave and the Bold series and here's a couple of clips will assist you in this understanding.

This is all I know ... and I just wanted to add something to your understanding.