Red Hood and the Outlaws #20 Review and *SPOILERS*

The Hench Connection

Written By: Scott Lobdell

Art By: Dexter Soy, Veronica Gandini, Taylor Esposito

Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: March 14, 2018

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

Our Smarty-Pants Bizarro story continues with this issue and as we saw in our previous one, it looks like Red Hood and Artemis are on the trolley with something being up with our favorite under-cooked clone and because of that, they're going to be keeping a closer watch on Bizarro to make sure that his newfound genius isn't making him go full on psycho.  Let's jump into this issue and see if Bizarro continues to go down a dark path or if he finally comes clean with his Outlaw friends so that we can get back to being a big old happy family.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

As our story begins, I sadly realize that our Smarty-Pants Bizarro story has gone on way too damn long because really, there isn't much to this story at all besides Bizarro almost going over the edge by killing off the henchmen for hire that make up all the low level workers for the criminals of Gotham, but deciding at the last second not to go through with it because he either had a change of heart or that he knew that Red Hood was watching him while cloaked.  I mean, we might get something out of one of the henchmen that this story featured later on, but as of right now this whole get the henchmen in one place so that Bizarro could gas them to death was played for a bit of levity at first, but just went on too damn long.  

Besides that though, we get Red Hood intimidating a foreign criminal that wanted to get in bed with The Penguin and Artemis' continued mistrust of Bizarro, which would lead us to our cliffhanger, where she finds his secret synthetic kryptonite lair underneath his bedroom............. but sadly, that's about it. 

That's it for this issue of Red Hood and the Outlaws and while you'll continue to get your fun and your jokes from this issue that you've come to expect from this series, the overall story was a bit of a dud as we just continue to do the same things we've been doing, while Bizarro goes more and more over the line.  Dexter Soy is back on art this issue with Veronica Gandini on colors and because of that, you know right away that the book looks amazing and while that will make up a lot of the score on this issue, the overall feel of this book is that it's treading water and I have no idea why.  Hopefully, all the meandering that we've been doing will lead to something big and cool in the future, but right now it's getting kind of boring.

Bits and Pieces:

While the art in this issue continues to be amazing, especially since we have Dexter Soy and Veronica Gandini back on art duties this issue, the story itself feels like it's overstayed its welcome and has become kind of boring as we continue to see the progression of Bizarro down his dark path, while our other two heroes don't have much to do.  Hopefully something comes of these side stories down the line, but right now, there just isn't much to this title anymore.

6/10