Spoilers for Truth and Justice #12 ahead!

Recently, in Truth and Justice #12, the Red Hood was exposed to Scarecrow’s fear gas and was treated to his worst nightmares brought to life. One of his greatest fears, it turns out, is becoming just like the man who killed him: the Joker!

Red Hood is Jason Todd, the second person to bear the mantel of Robin. After catching Jason trying to rip tires off the Batmobile in Crime Alley, Batman took him under his wing. However, it was soon apparent that he was unstable and had anger issues. He was “killed” by the Joker during the Death in the Family storyline, and was gone from comics for over a decade before eventually returning as the Red Hood and waging a brutal one-man war on crime. Recently, in the pages of the DC Digital First Truth and Justice, Red Hood has been investigating the death of a childhood friend, and the trail led him straight to Scarecrow, who promptly doused Red Hood with his fear gas. As the toxin began to take hold, Todd had visions of himself buried alive and had confrontations with hallucinations of Nightwing and Batman. Red Hood powered through them, but one last vision remained, and it is the most terrifying of them all: himself as the Joker.

Related: Red Hood Has Officially Been Chosen as Ra's al Ghul's Successor 

This hallucinatory version of the Joker taunts Red Hood with promises that the hero will become just like him, and that the two of them are very much alike. The Joker hallucination continues to chip away at Red Hood, and is joined by an imaginary Batman, who tells Red Hood he was destined to fail. The Joker then tells him the only good person Crime Alley ever bred was Batman - the rest were all bad. This is enough to stir the memories of Red Hood’s childhood friend, whose death he was investigating, and he is able to overcome Scarecrow’s influence and bring the villain to justice.

Scarecrow’s fear gas brings out a person’s worst nightmares, and Red Hood is no different. He was able to easily overcome the visions of Nightwing and Batman, but the Joker was a different story. Not only was Red Hood face to face with the man who once seemingly killed him, but the Joker also represents everything Red Hood fights against, on both a literal and figurative level. The Joker stands for violence and giving into dark impulses, something Red Hood struggles to contain. Yet it is his connection to his childhood friend that allows him to fight off the fear gas and save the day—ultimately proving he can rest easy because he is nothing like the Joker.

The Red Hood comes across as a tough guy, but deep down he is very much afraid, both of his past and what he can become. Truth and Justice #12 is written by Jeff Trammell with art by Rob Guillory and colors by Jean-Francois Beaulieu and is available now on digital comics platforms.

Next: Joker's Murders Actually Make Him DC's Most Effective Crime Fighter