Warning! Spoilers ahead for Teen Titans Academy #5!
While the Teen Titans Academy has focused on the growth and development of DC’s newest generation of young heroes, the series’ most tantalizing mystery has centered around the reappearance of Red X, a persona previously used by Dick Grayson. While Nightwing has long shed the persona, someone is using the moniker and motif to raise hell across the Infinite Frontier, and Teen Titans Academy #5 just dropped a huge clue to narrow down the list of potential suspects donning the skull-faced hood.
In Teen Titans Academy #5 by Tim Sheridan and Steve Lieber, readers learn more of the Bat-Pack’s backstory and how they came to be recruited by Nightwing into the Teen Titans Academy. Most of the issue is a flashback explaining how the Bat-Pack worked their first case in an orphanage and were convinced something strange was afoot regarding several missing children. As they investigate on their own terms, Diego (Later known as Chupacabra) is kidnapped by an associate of the orphanage's director and injected with an experimental super-soldier serum. After fending off his captors with the help of Nightwing and the Batpack, the group of friends is offered the opportunity to go to the Teen Titans academy together to escape being split up through the foster-care system. They relate their tale to Red X, who appreciates their forwardness and in turn unmasks themselves to the Bat-Pack off-panel. The Bat-Pack’s reactions and Red X’s subsequent dialogue go a long way to narrow down who is behind Red X's mask.
Red X’s reaction to the Bat-Pack’s tale holds several clues that help narrow down the list of potential individuals donning the costume. Firstly, the Bat-Pack evidently recognized who was under the mask when Red X unmasked themselves. While the characters don’t explicitly say anything that points to who is Red X, their reactions following Diego’s incredulous “No way!” are too nonchalant for it to be a new character or even one of their previous suspects such as Tooby or Matt Price. Second, he makes his disdain for Nightwing and his methods known while alluding to the fact that Red X is building his own team. It appears that this disdain has a deep root, and could imply a prior history that most of the Bat-Pack, and most of their suspects, would not be privy to or involved in.
Given this new evidence, it seems possible that Red X could also be a new character not seen unmasked in the Teen Titans Academy series. Their particular disdain for the Bat-Family’s methods and apparent familiarity with Gotham (as seen by the lack to establish necessary context regarding the orphanage and key parts of Gotham) could indicate that Clownhunter has reinvented himself after the Joker War. The last time the young, hyper-violent, and surprisingly capable vigilante was seen, Ghostmaker helped him escape from the Dark Knight. Clownhunter has yet to reappear in his hometown of Gotham, despite never giving any indication of abandoning his bloody vendetta against super-criminasl, like Joker and Punchline. Maybe in a revenge-motivated moment of inspiration, Clownhunter stole the Red X regalia and is using it to further his own vendetta?
Red X’s secret identity has proven to be a consistently intriguing aspect of Infinite Frontier as the character makes several appearances across different series. While it may still be some time before readers get a definite answer as to who is running around in Nightwing’s former alter-ego, it seems that the Teen Titans and their students at Teen Titans Academy may have given readers the biggest clue as they learn who’s under the mask.
