Family Matters
Written By: Scott Lobdell
Art By: Dexter Soy, Trevor Hairsine, Ryan Winn, Phil Hester, Ande Parks, Veronica Gandini, Rain Beredo, Madpencil Studio, Taylor Esposito
Cover Price: $4.99
Release Date: August 8, 2018
It's the end of an era with this issue of Red Hood and the Outlaws....... Well..... is twenty-five issues really an era? Either way, it's the end of the Outlaws as we know them and that really upsets me because even though we never really got as much as I would have liked out of Artemis in this series and we spent so long with Smarty-Pants Bizarro without really going anywhere with it....... I've really grown to love this team and look forward to them month to month. Let's jump into this issue and see what becomes of our Outlaws and how Batman will react to Jason after he shot the Penguin in the previous issue.
The Outlaws' HQ is falling from the sky, Bizarro has lost his intelligence and Batman is hunting Red Hood, along with the police department and really......... There isn't much going on with any of these concepts. What we have here is the idea of Jason losing everything, but the problem is, it all kind of feels forced to this conclusion besides for the Batman part and we lose two of our team members without much fanfare. It just kind of happens, not to mention the continuation of the forced romantic connection between Jason and Artemis. Don't get me wrong here though, there's a lot to like about this issue and I personally do like it, but for how long we've dealt with Smarty-Pants Bizarro, it feels like we should have had more setup here than what we do because it needs to just come to a close with this twenty-fifth issue.
Even the backup to this story, which feels odd as hell at first, but eventually comes around comes off kind of tacked on because while there are elements to stuff we've seen in this story progressing, we're still left without really knowing the why, how and what about it because instead of dealing with any of that, it's just a big reveal that doesn't feel earned because it's just thrown out there out of nowhere.
Overall, I love the art in this issue and am seriously going to miss Dexter Soy on this title because he and Veronica Gandini paired up on this series is something that brought a smile to my face each and every month, but for the extra-sized story.......... Well, it didn't seem to go as far as it needed to go to tie everything up and just came to a conclusion out of nowhere because it needed to instead of that being the natural conclusion to what we were dealing with. Don't get me wrong, it's still enjoyable, but it should have been even more than it was for what we had leading up to it. As the series progresses I hope that with the changes that we'll get because of what goes down in this issue that it's still as great as this has been because like most things in my life, I fear change and always suspect the worst.
Bits and Pieces:
There are some really big things going on in this issue...There are also some very forced things, but at the end of the day I still enjoyed myself with what we got and I especially loved the art. There are some big changes coming to Red Hood from what we got in this issue and I hope that they all pan out for the best because I love this series and I'd hate for that to change.
7.5/10
SPOILERS AHEAD!!!.............
ReplyDeleteI loved this issue. My only beef with it is the cover is a complete lie. Jason does not fight Bruce, he doesn't even try to fight back while Batman is hitting him. I wish Jason would have whooped Bruce's ass, but the truth is there plainly. Jason doesn't hurt good people, he even shows this by not taking out the cops that surrounded him earlier in the book.
As for the other outlaws, Bizzaro is fully back to his good ever loving self again and his plan to save the people of Gotham from chaizzaro actually made sense. He opened a portal to places unknown and yanked the fortress through and Artemis decides to go with Bizarro to keep an eye on him. The only reason I think she through Jason off the ship was because "I think the place Bizarro opened the portal to was in outer space where Jason could not survive. There was a light coming through the portal, maybe Bizarro took the fortress to the sun. Bizarro is powered by the sun, an Artemis has the bow of ra which gives her sun powers. Roy showing up to save Jason was cool, especially because it was setup last issue of green arrow that he was coming to Gotham because he's going to the Sanctuary.
The ending is an awesome reveal that I partly figured out. I new solitary was Willis Todd, But I didn't see Ma Gunn being Willis Todds mother or Jason's Grandmother. And it's cool how the smartypants Bizzaro technology let's ma gunn see the possible future of the Outlaws like when Bizzaro was watching it last issue. So I'm guessing she'll stay in her "bottled city of Kandor" until someone finds her. This story is not done, the Outlaws will reunite, and Jason will probably have the next Arc just to himself before we get the Outlaws together again. The future of this book still has my intersted.
Dexter Soy you will be insanely missed by the fans of this series as your art has become a staple to the Red Hood community.
8.5/10
Everything you said plus that fake comic at the end was great outlaws always been 3 people i like the idea seeing the team grow
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