Book: Red Hood and the Outlaws volume #2: The Starfire (issues #0, 8-14) by Scott Lobdell with illustrations by Kenneth Rocafort (issues #8-11), Timothy Green II (Issues #12 & 13), Pascal Alixe (issue #14) and Pasqual Ferry, Ig Guara and Brett Booth (issue #0)
Edition: Read the single print issues
Rating: 1 star
Review:
Wow, I can't believe how mind numbingly awful both the writing, story and artwork was for these issues. I thought the series would have improved but there was absolutely nothing good about this except for the author made an attempt to correct the poorly written portrayal of Starfire that was presented in the first volume. Those changes to her personality (but not her costume) were the only good thing about this but not enough to have kept me as a reader.
The bad writing and the awful character portrayals were two of the main reasons why I dropped this series. Starfire was an improvement but Jason and Roy continued to be written as useless annoying jerks.
Issue #8 found the team heading back to Gotham City to stop Suzie Su, a criminal that Red Hood knows from holding the Gotham General's Children's Ward hostage. She did all of that to bait Red Hood so she could take her revenge against him for severely injuring her. Near the end of the story was a slight tie-in to the Night of Owls storyline but the next issue was the actual tie-in. A flashback scene with Tim "Drake" and Jason was also shown near the end of this story.
Issue #9 had the team trying to save Mr. Freeze from the Owls' Talon assassin, I find it hard to believe that the deadly Mr. Freeze would need these bumbling idiots to save him. Batgirl showed up near the end of this story.
Issues #10-13 took the trio (and Jason's date) out to space where they joined the fight to save Starfire's home planet from an invasion and save her older sister. The Joker is shown near the end of this story.
Issue #0 told Jason Todd's origin story, the New 52 version changed a little bit but in the end he was still taken in by Bruce Wayne to be trained to become the new Robin and thus killed by the Joker later to return back to life from the Lazarus pit.
The last issue number 14 had the team (and Jason's date) returning back to Earth when their space ship was approached by Superman wanting to speak with Starfire. To avoid him they were teleported to Earth but it didn't take him long to find them. The requisite fight between the four happened before they actually talked. The Joker has another appearance at the end of this story for another clichéd scene that has Jason's date being put in harms way just to further the story.
This was such a generic and ridiculous group of stories. And I can't believe there were three different artists for the main story and each of their artwork was terrible. I am very glad I dropped this series because I found nothing worth reading from it and even Starfire's newly written portrayal couldn't save this.
No comments:
Post a Comment