Red Hood: Outlaw #43 Review

All Blades, Aww Yeah

Written By: Scott Lobdell

Art By: Christopher Williams, Scott Hanna, Arif Prianto, Troy Peteri

Cover Price: $3.99

Release Date: February 26, 2020

Now that our Outlaws team is back together again, it's time to get back to basics.  Hopefully though, with their time apart, it doesn't come off odd or forced to get the gang back together again in a cohesive, working fashion.  That's what we're up to here.  A good old fashioned, Red Hood and the Outlaws mission, not to mention a lot of tying up of loose ends from before.  Let's jump into this issue and see if Jason and his friends can face their newest and for Jason, one of his oldest threats of this series.  Let's check it out.

Yeah, I kind of got into the idea of this issue in my intro paragraph, where a big part of the opening to this issue is all about if our heroes can work together as a unit now that they're back together because of all the time they spent apart, but even though you get some hilarious back and forth between these friends in their pursuit to stop some baddies from a train heist, they're soon thrust back into a storyline that I'm personally not a fan of, but know that a great deal of Red Hood fans are..... That's right, the Untitled are back and looking to make a splash in a big way.  

Beyond our Outlaws story though, we have a bit over the top humorous part dealing with Ma Gunn and her continuation of the teaching of Generation Outlaw and while it doesn't last too long, it may have just been too much from the get-go with the characters that become involved.  Finally, we get a continuation of Suzie Su, Essence and Jason's girlfriend Isabel Ardila and for how much it feels like we're spreading ourselves thin with everything that Scott Lobdell wants to throw in this issue, it actually feels paced out pretty well and does an excellent job in continuing things that were left behind and taking this book into an interesting direction.

All in all, I had fun with Christopher Williams art this issue.  Yeah, some of it came off a little more cartoony than I usually enjoy from this series, but overall it really worked for what we're dealing with in this issue and the story is going in an interesting direction........ even if I'm not the biggest fan of the Untitled, the Allcaste or the role that Red Hood plays with them.  I will tell you this though, we do continue to get the All-Blades and even if I'm not a fan of the story they came from, I can't deny that they're pretty badass and won't mind seeing Jason kicking some ass with them in the future.

Bits and Pieces:

Scott Lobdell is throwing everything he can at you this issue and while some books may suffer from dealing with too much, the pacing here came off pretty well and dealt with all of its pieces in an interesting manner...... even if some came off a little jokey for my liking.  Overall though, the art is fun, the story is fun and I can't wait to see what happens next.

7/10