Red Hood/Arsenal #12 Review and *SPOILERS*

Mock The Vote

Written By: Scott Lobdell
Art By: Joe Bennett, Belardino Brabo, Jose Villarrubia, Dave Sharpe
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: May 11, 2016

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

Red Hood and Arsenal's time is coming to a close, but before we hit that final issue next month, we gotta wrap some stuff up with the Iron Rule and Joker's Daughter.  Yeah, I guess we couldn't have just ended Duela's time in DC Comics with a simple bullet from Red Hood...... even though it would have been pretty bad ass and I guess we have to address what happened to Arsenal in the previous issue when he went looking for his old team the Iron Rule and it turned out that it was all an ambush.  Really, not a lot to say leading into this issue because what are you going to say about the Iron Rule?  They're a team that was pretty much just thrown in here as a foil to Arsenal....... and they're really not all that exciting, but I guess we'll take them and hopefully wrap this series up with a nice conclusion.  Let's jump into this issue and see if that's where we're headed.  Let's check it out.



Explain It!:

Our issue begins with Roy Harper all tied up and cracking wise at his own demise and this is hilarious because apparently when the Iron Rule took him captive between this issue and the last, they also put his life in the hands of internet trolls, by allowing them to vote whether good ol' Roy lives or dies.  This is so funny because if you didn't get the connection between this and what happened to Jason Todd in the 80's with the A Death in the Family hotline, it's really played with throughout the issue just to make sure that you don't feel like a big dummy............ and believe me, I like anything that allows me to think my short bus days are behind me........ I mean, what short bus?  While this is all going on, we also have the fact that the Iron Rule has kidnapped Tara Battleworth to be the host of this online vote and this has to be the weirdest part of the story because it really feels unnecessary to bring Tara Battleworth back into this.  Hell, it felt weird when we had her come back just to find a therapist for Joker's Daughter, which only acted as a lame ass way to bring Lilith Clay into the story since she's not even a therapist.  Now that I think of it, there really isn't any reason to have Ms. Battleworth in any of these stories after the initial arc of this series.  So yeah, that's weird.

While Roy is having his life voted away by sadists, we have Red Hood getting on the case after a tip about what's going on from Batgirl....... which makes sense, but I really wish that Barbara wasn't tossed aside so quick in this issue because I love when Red Hood and her team up....... since they're both left off that painting at Wayne Manor......... yeah, it doesn't make any sense for Barbara to be on the Wayne family portrait, but it still irks me that Jason is left off as well and really none of what I'm talking about has any bearing on this issue......... I just hope we get some Batgirl in the next issue kicking ass and taking names.  So while Jason tries to find out Roy's location, we find out that Joker's Daughter survived her encounter with our title character and has actually been the brains behind the Iron Rule this whole time and has been using them as a way to kill Red Hood and Roy throughout this giant ruse of hers.

In the end, Jason finds some weird ass thing that Roy's been working on in his workshop........ which call me crazy, but I'm thinking that our sweet sweet Arsenal somehow built himself a mother box.  Don't ask me how he did it or how it will be used to save Roy, but we have a panel where Jason hears a "PING", which could or couldn't be just a locator that Jason has, but when I see that familiar sound put on a comic page, my mind only goes one place.  As our issue closes, Jason appears on a bunch of monitors and gives Joker's Daughter and the Iron Rule a five count to surrender or he's coming in.

That's it for this issue of Red Hood/Arsenal and even though there isn't a lot of substance to this book and it continues to shove Jason's death at the hands of the Joker down our throats in a blatant way, I couldn't help but enjoy myself with this issue.  Yeah, we get Jason thinking about Joker killing him again, which gets really annoying for how much it's thrown out there, but before that it was played so well with Roy's life being up to the votes of the people and it was hilarious.  I just wish it would have been left referenced in that tongue and cheek way and not overplayed as it so often is.  As for the art, well, I had a lot of fun with it and really enjoyed the way that everything looked........... with one exception.  Now Joe Bennett drew one hell of a book here, but Joker's Daughter's eyebrows bother the shit out of me to the point where I can't comprehend how a person could be as upset as I am about a comic book villain's eyebrows.  She looks like a goddamn Muppet and I hate it!  Besides that though........ solid.

Bits and Pieces:

Red Hood/Arsenal is moving right along to its conclusion and even though this series has been a little stale lately, I have to say that this really came off as a fun issue with a great homage to the death of Jason Todd.  Yeah, things are thrown in so this series can quickly wrap things up, but even with that this issue was a decent read and gets me excited for the finale.  You just gotta watch out for the Muppet eyebrows that Joker's Daughter is rocking.

6.5/10