Red Hood: Outlaw #30 – Scott Lobdell, Writer; Pete Woods, Artist; Rex Lokus, Colorist
Ratings:
Ray – 6/10
Ray: There are times that Scott Lobdell’s long-running take on Jason Todd’s various misadventures almost finds its footing and does something interesting with the character, but it always seems to pull back and throw him into some dumb plot that doesn’t work. The character’s on his own now, after being kicked out of Gotham and losing all of his partners – either to death, in the case of Roy Harper, or to another dimension in the case of Artemis and Bizarro. The latter two actually make an appearance in Red Hood: Outlaw #30, battling their way through enemy forces in a doomsday world on their battle to return home, and the series was actually quite good when they were around. Now, though, it’s just Jason on a lonely mission that takes him to Mexico this issue. There are some attempts at topical comments about illegal immigration, but it’s mostly in service to get Jason to a haunted prison.
Once Jason arrives at the prison, there’s a brief segment where he stalks his way through and discovers evidence of a mysterious violent breakout. He discovers remnants of the robot/zombie clones he encountered the last issue, but things don’t get interesting until the mysterious Wingman shows up. This character, using an identity Jason once used in Batman Inc., has been tailing Jason for several issues and seems to want him to return to Gotham. The issue is that there’s really only one suspect for who’s under the mask. The character of Willis Todd, revealed to be alive several issues ago (in some form – he’s stuck in some weird limbo state) is the title’s only dangling plot thread, so when he shows up at the end of the issue it’s not a surprise (although we never actually see it confirmed that they’re one and the same).
Overall, far from the worst issue of the series but not anywhere near the best.
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Disclaimer: GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
