Wednesday, October 11, 2017

Red Hood and the Outlaws #15 Review and *SPOILERS*



Outlaws in the Belfry 


Written By: Scott Lobdell
Art By: Dexter Soy, Veronica Gandini, Taylor Esposito
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: October 11, 2017

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

Bizarro is smart as hell and looking to eliminate all crime in Gotham City and after seeing all the toys he made for Red Hood and Artemis in the previous issue, not to mention a floating, invisible base that has technology to revival even the God Tech of the Midnighter books, it looks like he might actually achieve his goals.  Only problem is, he seems to be reverting back to his former simpleton self and he isn't happy about it.  Not only that, it seems like there might be some darker schemes within this smarty pants that we're not even aware of yet.  Let's jump into this issue and see what happens when the Detective Squad of Detective Comics becomes aware of Bizarro's actions and what they'll do to shut the Outlaws down.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our issue begins with the Detective Squad being assembled......sans Batman because Batwing is concerned that there hasn't been any crime in Gotham for the past couple days and once they determine that it may have something to do with a invisible, floating fortress above the city, the book really begins because the Detective Squad seem to take it personally when Bizarro's computer defenses shut down Batwing's hologram and tells them that they don't have to be superheroes anymore because the job has been taken care of.  


Back at Outlaws HQ, Artemis still seems to be concerned with what Bizarro is doing, but all of that worry needs to be put on hold because for some reason, Bizarro allowed himself to be captured by the Detective Squad inside of their base and has been taken back to the Belfry for questioning, where they're keeping him in a device that was originally supposed to be able to contain Clayface, but has been tweaked in order to hold our Superman clone.  One techno magical door later, our Outlaws are inside the Belfry and looking to get their teammate out........... which obviously leads to a fight.


In the end, Artemis and Red Hood free Bizarro from his restraints, but the Detective Squad are able to get the upper hand on the Outlaws and knock all of them out.  It's weird though because throughout this issue, I never really got an idea of why everything was going on the way it was.


That's it for this issue of Red Hood and the Outlaws and while it was cool getting the Detective Squad as we call them into the issue, I'm not really sure of their motivations behind kidnapping Bizarro or what Bizarro's motivations for allowing himself to get kidnapped were.  I'm still into this story and all about finding out what's actually going on in Bizarro's mind and what he hopes to accomplish before reverting back to his former self because whatever it doesn't appear to be completely on the up and up, but while this issue looked great, it didn't do much to further my understanding of what's actually going on and really just led to a fight that I'm a little confused about why it went down.  All in all, this wasn't the greatest issue, but it looked great all the way through and gave us a smidge more to the mystery about what Bizarro is up to through his narration.

Bits and Pieces:

We get the Outlaws fighting some fellow heroes in this issue and while it all looks great, I found myself confused about why everything escalated to the point it did.  Overall, the issue looked great though and I'm still intrigued with this Smarty Pants Bizarro arc, but I'm going to start needed some more substance soon.

6.5/10

4 comments:

  1. Maybe I'm seeing this issue through Jaded eyes but I have to call bullshit on Lobdell for as much as I praise this title. Why didn't Batwoman just call Jason, totally forced this fight. There is no way the Outlaws should have lost to the Detective squad. They out class them in every way but number of teammate. Bizzaro wouldn't have lost to Batwoman, Artemis wouldn't have been knocked out by Clayface, and Batwing is Garbage compared to Jason but some how he beats him. Lobdell is letting the Outlaws fight at all the way they would fight. If Bizzaro made all this new tech how come he didn used it, we have a whole arc of Artemis getting her Bow but she never used it, and for fucks sake how many times is Jason going to shoot something to have it not work, he is more than guns dammit; Martial arts, blades and hell magic swords. I didn't say anything last arc about this how the Outlaws should have destroyed Grundy but this is now officially a problem. Only good thing in this issue is the art.
    I can't believe I'm doing this but, 5.5/10

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  2. Exactly, how does Artemis go from trading punches with Bizarro to getting sucker punched and knocked out by Clayface and Solomon Grundy, it's strange, does that make sense to Scott Lobdell...
    beats me

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  3. I mean the idea itself puts the dective team as the bad guys they get reports crime is down and a message that they arent needed so they decided to preform a kidnapping and treat the people who are pissed about that like criminals

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  4. As much as I enjoy the current series. This issue was the weakest IMO. There was no reason to kidnap Bizarro. Maybe it's because I'm not familiar with the detective team but the confrontation feels forced. Why didn't Batwoman just call Jason and ask about the message. The only logical explanation I can think of is that they don't know Jason is undercover. That said the bits with just the Outlaws Bizarro in particular were very good.

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