The Journey Home
Written By: Scott Lobdell
Art By: Adam Pollina, Steve Firchow, Pete Woods, Troy Peteri
Cover Price: $4.99
Release Date: July 31, 2019
After a long, long wait, it's time to find out what happened to Bizarro and Artemis after they vanished through one of Smarty-Pants Bizarro's quantum doorways, when the Outlaws were still the Outlaws and Jason Todd seemed like he still had a plan of action. Not to say that Red Hood: Outlaw hasn't been enjoyable, but when his fellow Outlaws were with him, he resembled the character that I wanted more than what we've gotten lately. Besides my personal likes and dislikes though, let's check in with this Annual and see what Jason's better halves have been up to. Let's check it out.
Like I said in my opener, this issue is all about what Bizarro and Artemis have been up in since they disappeared into a world that seemed wrong as hell, since the only real piece of information we got previously was them staring at a Hall of Justice that was filled with spikes and had Justice written over with Punishment. Besides that aspect though, we do get a really brief look at Jason teaching the next generation of meta-kids now that it looks like he's taken Lex Luthor's offer of Doom.
For the Bizarro and Artemis bits though, I'm a bit lost to where they are in the Multiverse. It could be a world that hasn't been named yet or it could be one of the worlds in the Dark Multiverse, but all I'm really saying with this is...... this seems like a new world that is just here to fit the story's purposes, which normally would be okay, even though I'm a fan of sticking with the things that we have to play with within the Multiverse, but even with the extra pages that we get from this annual, it didn't seem like enough to really give the due that Bizarro and Artemis' adventures in this world needed because all we really get are their first moments in this world, a brief explanation about how the world went to shit and then jumping to six months later where it looks like they've found a way home, after siding with strange characters, who are fighting other strange characters in a world where all the heroes have been killed off. It's fine enough for what we get here, since it seems to just want to skim over the details to get these characters back to our Earth, but I just didn't understand the motivations of the "villains" of this story and it just didn't feel like a lot of thought was put it into besides for the basics of just showing us a weird world.
All in all, this strange Artemis and Bizarro adventure in a dark world was fine for what it was in just trying to show us that these characters were coming home eventually, but I just wish we would have gotten more since these were two characters I really enjoyed in this series and felt that it hasn't been as engaging since they left. I guess ultimately what they've done and gone through doesn't matter as much as the idea that they've been an inseparable team the whole time and their friendship has never wavered, while also showing that they might come back a little more battle hardened than they were when they left, but I just expected a little more out of this story than what we got. The art was fine, even if Bizarro looked a little odd here and there, but what I really got out of this annual is the idea that I can't wait for the story that's waiting for us with Jason becoming a teacher and Artemis and Bizarro coming back at some point. For that aspect alone, this issue has at least gotten my hype up for this series and for the annual's story itself, there was at least some fun moments in here that made me smile.
Bits and Pieces:
While we didn't get as an engaging of a story as I would have liked for Bizarro and Artemis' time away, it was still nice to see them interacting and knowing that they'll eventually make their way back to this book. The art was decent here and for the stories that this annual sets up going forward, I can't wait to see what we get out of this series in the next couple of months.
7/10
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