Friday, January 25, 2013

Red Hood and the Outlaws #16

So yeah, this comic...  I don't even know what to say here...  I'll just say what I always say before I suffer through an issue of this series...  I love the characters Jason Todd and Roy Harper.  If not for them, I'd have dropped this series 12 issues ago.  Now you know what you're getting into here...  Read on at your own peril...

Red Hood and the Outlaws #16: 

Summary: This issue gets underway with the Teen Titans, along with Arsenal and Starfire, locking the Joker-fied hobos of Gotham City in a warehouse.  From there, Roy uses his spaceship to discover that the bums weren't fully Joker-fied yet(the hell?), as well as a place where Joker had stashed the cure to his Joker toxin...  Because he's a nice guy now or something...  Roy sends away everybody but Bunker to get the cure, while he and Bunker hung out near the warehouse waiting for the Joker-fied goons to break out.  Then Roy has a flashback to Killer Croc telling him to stay in AA...  Good lord, this CAN'T be happening..........  The heroes who went after the cure discover a mess of boxes helpfully labeled, "Cure", and are about to take them.  But wait!  The boxes are wired to explode when touched, so Kid Flash rushes his teammates out of the way of the explosion, before snagging the cure boxes.  The heroes return just before the Joker-fied hobos are ready to overcome Roy and Bunker, and Kid Flash injects them all with the cure, which Joker helpfully had in individually wrapped needles...  Really?!  Oh, and to make matters worse, the cure actually WORKS!  Why would Joker leave the cure to his...  You know what, never mind   So the heroes are triumphant.  Huzzah.  This issue ends with Joker painting a Red Hood helmet.

Thoughts: Yep, Scott Lobdell definitely wrote this comic...  It's always fun when a comic titled RED HOOD and the Outlaws doesn't even feature Red Hood...  At all...  Anyway, I'm honestly of the mindset that Lobdell is messing with everybody now.  That's the only explanation for the Killer Croc flashback here.  He must sit back and laugh at how utterly idiotic the whole thing is...  As for this issue, it was about as bad as I've come to expect from this series...  The explanation for Joker having the cure to his Joker toxin was that he was "probably going to use them(the cure) to hold the city hostage at some point!"  But if that's the case, why make a real cure?  Wouldn't a fake cure work just as well?  But then, why am I trying to make sense of this?  I think I'll just slowly shake my head and move on...

Score: 2 1/2 out of 10.
red hood and the outlaws #16
This has to be a big joke, right?  I mean it HAS to be!!

7 comments:

  1. Wow, I haven't read this in awhile. I can understand Red Hood not being in the comic since the Bat Family is kidnapped and these are the other teams trying to deal with the missing members. But, the rest sounds like crap. The first time they showed Croc I thought you could maybe, maybe justify Croc not wanting to bother killing a suicidal drug addict but I can't buy Croc playing AA sponsor. DC needs to really take notes from Marvel on how to reboot comics.

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    1. The Croc thing is SO weird, Jermox... Would Croc not want to bother killing Roy because he was a suicidal drug addict though? I mean wouldn't killing any hero give you a bigger name? But then, maybe the Croc in the New 52 is a good guy. I don't know(which is part of the problem...). But him being Roy's sponsor?! That's just madness!! And I agree with that last line so much. But then I think Marvel learned from DC's mistakes when they did the Marvel Now! stuff, whereas DC had no one else to look to.

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  2. X i'd be lying if I said i didn't enjoy when you read bad comics lol.

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    1. In a sick sort of way? I sort of enjoy it too, Astrovik... It's kind of cathartic to rant about the really bad stuff...

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  3. OMG, it was awful. No, really. Awful. I was actually OK with the idea of Jason not being in the issue. I really dug "Detective Comics" #16, where we saw Batman address a side issue related to Joker's presence in Gotham. So, this issue could've really delved into that issue. Instead, it gave us weird characterizations and an unbelievable plot. Lobdell strikes again.

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    1. Ugh... For all the grief I used to give Bendis on Avengers, Lobdell is WORSE!!! And that's not a statement I make lightly, because Bendis was brutal during the middle part of his Avengers run. But Lobdell... I just don't know... All I'll say is this, we only have to suffer through Lobdell for a few more issues, and then he'll be off this series, hopefully forever. But this issue? Absolutely terrible. Bad, bad, bad stuff...

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    2. Totally. I really think, after this issue, I'd be out if Lobdell wasn't leaving soon. So awful.

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