Red Hood: Outlaw #28 – Scott Lobdell, Writer; Pete Woods, Artist; Rex Lokus, Colorist
Ratings:
Ray – 4/10
Ray: Jason Todd’s new solo adventures take him to small-town Americana in Red Hood: Outlaw #28. The small town also seems to be the home of the deadliest murder gang in America. It’s just one of those comics.
The issue kicks off in an interesting fashion, as the corrupt Sheriff that Jason beat up the last issue is interrogated by the mysterious vigilante, Wingman. What’s that, you say? Wingman is Jason Todd? Well, not anymore. I’d be shocked if this wasn’t Willis Todd since that’s the only major dangling plot thread in the title. As for Jason, he’s busy undercover in a town called Appleton, which seems to be obsessed with apples. He goes to their apple festival, chats with old people, and tries their cider. Then out of nowhere, they try to kill him and he beats up an entire small town until they get the drop on him. Everything happens so fast that I’m not even sure why they decided to turn on him, but then Jason isn’t great at subterfuge.
When Jason wakes up, he finds himself chained to a fence under attack by a giant hulking monster of some kind. My first thought was that this was Solomon Grundy, but it seems not. Just a giant generic monster-man, and one that isn’t nearly as dangerous as it looks. Although it hits like a tank, it also gets wounded easily, and Jason slashes it to death in graphic fashion until its mix of machine and organic material comes spilling out.
It’s an elaborate battle segment that doesn’t really seem to go anywhere. Eventually, Jason wins but is quickly confronted by a visiting Batwoman before they’re attacked by more monsters. I think Lobdell is pairing Jason and Batwoman because they were both sort of kicked out of Batman’s network for killing-related offenses, but the comparison feels kind of offensive given the different contexts of their kills (and neither of their targets is actually dead, but…).
Overall, the series continues to not really work.
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Disclaimer: GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
