Red Hood and the Outlaws: Scott Lobdell, Kenneth Rocafort, Blond, Carlos M. Mangual

Better To Burn Out Than to Rage Away: Scott Lobdell, Ario Anindito, Blond, Dezi Sienty

So it’s time for a space adventure! I honestly cannot say if I’m excited about this or not. I guess the very-most upside is that I get to see Rocafort have fun with alien character designs. He’s a really great designer. Check out some of the cool creatures on the bridge of the ship Kor boards. I like the four-armed dude.

What’s neat, so far, about this book is that we’ve spent time focusing on each character in the group. The longest time spent, of course, on Red Hood…but that’s understandable. Now it’s Kori’s turn as we head into space and toward her homeworld of Tamaran. The only one we haven’t specifically focused on in a story arc yet is Roy. I have a feeling his time is coming up. Perhaps the Zero Issue?

The beginning of the issue has us believe that Roy and Kori are under attack while Jason tries to dodge a pretty blonde date he’s been lying to (and lying on) all night. What a dog. This massive alien dude with tusks comes forth, calling himself Orn, and apparently he and Kori are good friends! So Kori can’t remember Dick, or Gar, or any of the people Jason and Roy asked her about in issue #1, but she does remember Orn from years ago? What a selective memory she has.

So Orn is saying that an alien species called the Blight is encroaching uninvited upon the Tamaran homeworld. Orn knows English! Amazing! It’s a good thing all life originated on Earth (see “Blackest Night”). It really helps with that “all alien species knowing English” thing! The Green Lanterns? They cheat. They use their rings to translate.

Anyway, Roy and Jason decide to join Kori in heading to Tamaran to see what’s up with this Blight business. Unfortunately…a certain tagalong is accidentally teleported into space with them! OH NO HOW AWKWARD!

Speaking of awkward, the dialog in certain places just sounds weird. Like, nobody talks like this. The blonde, when she says that Jason should’ve told her the truth about everything…she says, “…I could have made my own decisions. Or in words of one syllable— IIIIEEEE!” I cringed extra hard, guys. Not only does not sound like natural dialog (it sounds like it’s straight out of a kid’s cartoon), the two sentences aren’t related in the slightest. There’s no reason why she would say “or in words,” which translates to “in other words,” like she’s clarifying the previous statement. Her fright in being teleported into space isn’t about her making her own decisions about whether or not to bed Jason.

The bonus issue in the back featuring Essence from earlier in the series is just a non-event. It’s something that, had I not read it, I wouldn’t have cared very much. The art is interesting. I like the exaggerated faces, they’ve all very expressive. This story apparently continues to follow the Untitled as Essence begins to track them down. But, again, I’m not sure how much I’m invested in that story if it doesn’t feature Red Hood or the Outlaws.

It boils down to just 6 pages of nothing happening. And there’s a guy there who seems to be against the Untitled, or wanting to arm himself against the Untitled, but then Essence makes it seem like he IS an Untitled. So I was mainly just confused about what to think.

Red Hood and the Outlaws #10, the verdict: It’s losing some of its charm. The first few issues were full of this fun spark that made this book really interesting to read. The characters all interacted with each other and shone brightly. Now, it just seems like two of the characters take backseats to the third as they power through their own story. And Roy’s had that backseat for most of the series so far. At this point, it feels like he’s just in the book because he’s sleeping with Kori (kind of like sleeping with the director?). Further, why are we still looking at the Untitled? We’ve moved on. It’s been a good 3 issues or so. Let’s save it for later instead of wasting issue pages on a second story about a brand new character in whom we’re not invested. Does this second story mean the price of the book is going to go up?

(Photo Source: DC Wikia)