(Editor’s Note: Hoooooo boy…)

Red Hood and the Outlaws #1

by Scott Lobdell (W); Kenneth Rocafort (A)

This is what is wrong with comics. This, this issue, these characters, the dialogue, the fan-fiction-style erotic adventures of Starfire, everything. I really thought we had grown out of the awkward nineties phase of comics, where the plot of each issue could be boiled down to “guns” and “breasts” and each female character was written as a wish fulfillment for sexual conquest instead of, you know, a regular human being. And it doesn’t have to be this way. I’ll let you in on a secret: fictional characters act in the exact same manner you write them, and if you write Starfire as someone who has sex with everyone and doesn’t remember doing it, you have Red Hood and the Outlaws. If you don’t, you have the potential for an actually decent comic.

Since we’re dealing with the former, I’ll just continue to talk about the many, many problems with a comic that is supposed to hook readers into reading more of the series instead of throwing it into a toilet. There’s potential for this comic to be a mindless, charming action-movie kind of story, but ultimately the Red Hood and the Red Arrow just aren’t that likeable. These are two of DC’s characters who have been through more than most, from Roy Harper’s drug addiction, limb loss, and murdered family to Jason Todd being so obnoxious that a generation of comic readers actually called in to a DC hotline and demanded that the Joker kill him. Despite all that has been piled on top these two, I still want to see worse things happen to them by the end because they just try too damn hard to be cool.

Kenneth Rocafort’s art certainly has it’s place (the 90’s), and I can tell what’s happening in each action scene well enough, but Starfire in a bikini is just too much. His art simply feels like it was designed to embarrass anyone who may have thought about reading comics again who started with Red Hood and tha Outlawzzz for some reason. One of the best things about Jason Todd’s Red Hood mask was that it never showed any facial emotion, giving him a stoic, calculated presence. Rocafort has decided to abandon the best aspect with the new Red Hood design just so Jason can smirk with his stupid face.

I don’t know what I was expecting from a comic about two of the least likeable sidekicks in DC comics, but Scott Lobdell has managed to write an issue that has managed to offend more people than it engaged, and maybe that was the plan all along. Maybe the controversy exists just to create sales, but if that’s the case, just let Johnny Ryan write an issue and I’d buy it forever.

-Farley Chicilo