Let's Go To Prison
Written By: Scott Lobdell
Art By: Pete Woods, Rex Lokus, Troy Peteri
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: January 16, 2019
Red Hood continues his quest to take down Underlife as a way to finish what Roy Harper started before he died. The biggest problem with this is........ Underlife feels so under-developed. Yeah, I know we've been dealing with them as a antagonist for a bit now, but besides for just saying their name, making some Solomon Grundy techno-organic clones and then just saying that Solitary is the boss behind it, I can't tell you anything about them. Nothing really seemed setup, but I'm hoping that things become more detailed as we go along, in a more natural feeling way. Let's jump into this issue as Jason Todd crosses into Mexico to find Solitary and shut down Underlife. Let's check it out.
While the initial feel of this book comes off pretty bad ass, not to mention it reminds us that Artemis and Bizarro are still out there somewhere, trying to make their way home....... this issue just comes off as odd and feeling like it doesn't know what it wants to do........ or it just wants to do too many things in too little of a page count. We've got Underlife, Jason's father Solitary, Artemis and Bizarro, the weight of Roy's death looming over Red Hood and also Wingman finally making his presence known to Jason and a revelation about where a New 52 character has been since Rebirth started. With all these things in this issue..... it somehow still comes off feeling pretty damn small.
I'll tell ya, there certainly are some "wow" moments within this issue that people will be able to grab a hold of and say that aspects of this issue are pretty damn cool, but everything feels too convenient and since I still don't have a full grasp on what Solitary's powers are, let alone the true scope of Underlife, I don't know if I should be reading more into certain things that happen in this issue, or just go with the flow and hope that Scott Lobdell will make everything clear by the story's end.
All in all, the art continues to work for me and even manages to make me feel like Pete Woods stepped his game up a bit this issue, but the story is starting to feel weak with the little setup we've been given and with what little real progression there has been... you know, besides for characters just showing up. I still have high hopes for this story, simply because there are some really cool reveals here and because I love what Scott Lobdell has done with Red Hood, but right now I'm a little thrown off with what we've been given.
Bits and Pieces:
While there are certainly a lot of reveals and callbacks in this issue that will get a lot of fans excited, it's the lack of substance that makes me feel like this issue is just padding itself out. I continue to really enjoy the art and think it's probably the best it's been, but things in this issue just feel like they happen just for the sake of happening and it's thrown me off of this story a bit.
6.3/10
I felt only a bit more positive Eric, Another slow but good issue. We get to see some Artemis & Bizzaro story, we get some Jason using Detective skills, and Finally get a confrontation between Jason & His Father Solitary. We also get more insight on Willis Todd’s powers. We knew they where some kind of telekinesis/telepathic powers from how he KO’d Smarty Pants Bizarro and busted Ma Gunn where ever she is, and this issue shows us that he seems to have the ability to drain/siphon the Telekinetic powers of Bunker. Yup I said Bunker, you got to love lobdell for his actual use of a single continuity over the course of the entire N52.
ReplyDeleteAs for Wingman, he still a mystery. Is he an Alternate version of Jason or Is he Someone from the Batman Inc. days or hell it might be a leap but could be Clayface who doesn’t agree with the way Batman runs things anymore, it could be the reason for showing us Batwoman during this Arc and mentioning what she did to him last issue? Who knows? But this issue at least proves 2 things to us: 1. Wingman is not Solitary, 2. Wingman’s plan for Jason to take over the Gotham Criminal Underworld with a United front against Batman, Dare I say maybe in the Vacuum of Banes takedown.
This book at least keeps moving forward,....Slowly..but definitely forward. Leaving it just vague enough for us readers to come to an idea of what going to happen. Unlike a certain coff..King...cliff we all know. And Truth is we’re not getting a lot of that at dc any more. Lobdell is playing the long game, and while I rather have Jason back with Artemis and Bizzaro right now, I at least am confident going forward that it’s going to happen more sooner than later.
Art this issue is good, but like you Eric always say Pete Woods just doesn’t draw Jason Face right. But everything else looks good.
7.5/10