Red Hood and the Outlaws #17 Review and *SPOILERS*

Getting To The Core Of The Matter

Written By: Scott Lobdell

Art By: Dexter Soy, Veronica Gandini, Taylor Esposito

Cover Price: $3.99

Release Date: December 13, 2017

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

To catch everyone up, we have a Smarty-Pants Bizarro on our hands who is trying to systematically take out all crime in Gotham and beyond, but along the line things have gotten a little crazy, where we saw our Smarty-Pants Bizarro kidnapped by the Gotham Knights and then him and the Outlaws being given over to Amanda Waller.  All of this somehow leads to the Outlaws working with the Suicide Squad so that they can shut down a subterranean power source that is bound to rupture and destroy the world.  Best part about all of this is, the power source is to a facility that was once run by Harvest and his organization NOWHERE and with that in mind, I hope we get some answers to what has happened to Kon-El Superboy and possibly find out why Tim Drake doesn't remember him in Detective Comics............. Yeah, that's asking a lot.  Let's jump into this issue and check it out.

Explain It!:

Our issue begins with our two groups going into the NOWHERE facility and then immediately separating so that they can all achieve different goals, but really, Bizarro's team of Deadshot and Captain Boomerang are the only ones that really achieve anything.  Artemis and Harley are supposed to look for possible teen survivors from Harvest's Culling back in the beginning of the New 52 and all they end up doing is arguing in a room full of dead people, while Red Hood and Killer Croc find some guns, while having themselves a talk about how good or bad either of them really are.  Yeah, you get some laughs out of this, but ultimately it doesn't do much for the story.

In the end, Bizarro tells Deadshot and Captain Boomerang how to destroy the power source without him because it's designed to hurt Kryptonian clones....... referencing Superboy, who shouldn't be in continuity anymore and in the end our teams save the day and our Outlaws go back to Gotham to continue their plan of taking out crime in the city.  As our issue closes though it seems that everything that we've dealt with may have just been a way for Bizarro to get his hands on more Kryptonite so that he can continue being his Smarty-Pants self because as we leave this book, we see green light shining below him.  

That's it for this issue of Red Hood and the Outlaws and while I'm disappointed that this book didn't do anything to discuss Kon-El, since the last time we saw him was leaving with Harvest in the second New 52 Teen Titans run, it did at least let us know that Harvest was dead, which could be leading to something Superboy down the line, but at this point I kind of doubt it.  Ultimately, this was an entire arc that seemed to just jump around from one place to another just so Bizarro could get his hands on some more Kryptonite, which kind of makes sense since he wants to remain smart, but I don't see how any of this was needed for him to get it.  The art in this issue was great and while I dug the interactions between the Suicide Squad and the Outlaws, there just wasn't much going on in this issue.

Bits and Pieces:

The art is fantastic, the dialog is top notch, but ultimately there isn't much to this issue at all.  Yeah, we're finally starting to understand what Smarty-Pants Bizarro is up to, but it's been a long road to get there and in the end, it doesn't seem like it needed to be.  Still some fun aspects to this though, it just didn't go as far as it should have to tell an even bigger story even though it had every chances to.

6/10