Red Hood and the Outlaws #10 Review and *SPOILERS*

Head Games!

Written By: Scott Lobdell

Art By: Dexter Soy, Veronica Gandini, Taylor Esposito

Cover Price: $3.99

Release Date: May 10, 2017

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

Man, I've just been loving me some Red Hood and the Outlaws since Rebirth came into our lives, but my biggest problem with the series so far is that we're ten issues in and we still really haven't seen our new Outlaws team, actually work as a team.  Sadly, this issue will be no exception, but I'm getting ahead of myself.  In our previous issue we saw our Outlaws head to the war torn country of Qurac, where they were immediately shot down and separated.  Jason Todd was captured and placed in a building, get this........ right across from where he died as a boy at the hands of the Joker.  Yeah, that doesn't make much sense since he died in Ethiopia, but we'll go with it and in his fucked up state of being where he is, he starts having delusions of the day he died.  Bizarro and Artemis aren't doing much better because our big blue dumbbell has become a sort of Moses for the people of the village he landed in and now must take them to his partners and Artemis has gotten one step closer to the Bow of Ra because when she comes to she's tied up in front of the one person who is able to use it.  Only problem, she killed her years ago.  Let's jump into this issue and find out how Akila is sill alive, if Bizarro will be able to lead his people to freedom and if Jason will finally be able to get over his death.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our issue begins with Artemis coming face to face with her former sister Akila, who years ago she killed when the Bow of Ra drove her mad and she almost destroyed their home.  Now though, it seems that Akila is right as rain and wants Artemis to join her in her quest to reclaim the Bow of Ra because as she says, General Heinle, the Qurac Dictator now has it and after he learned that only a Shim'tar could wield it, he found Akila's dead body and used her cells as a way to manipulate it.  Only thing, once the Bow can back to life, so did Akila.  With this explanation, I'm on board with Akila and apparently so is Artemis, but there's so much more to the story.

Over in Bizarro land, our hero is leading the people of Qurac to his friends and is taking down any resistance that gets in his way......... even when the people are giving him shit for the way he talks and calling him a dummy.  So yeah, that's all we get with Bizarro, but Jason Todd is finally facing his fears by first killing the Joker before the Clown Prince of Crime can kill his younger self, and man is it satisfying, but in the end, Jason realizes that he has to let the past be the past and that he's not that little kid that did everything alone anymore.  With that though, he's able to come to from his little dreamland and discover that he's been getting tortured by General Heinle and his men this whole time and immediately puts a stop to it by breaking free and putting a gun to the General's head.  

In the end, fearing for his life, the General spills the beans that he's not actually in control of the Bow of Ra.  Yeah, he found it and used Akila to gain access to its power, but it seems that when Akila came back from the dead that she wasn't too keen on sharing.  Now Qurac is apparently being held captive by the Amazons and with Artemis believing her sister when she says she wants to take their way of life to the rest of Qurac, I'm guessing that Red Hood could use a little Bizarro backup when Artemis, Akila and her troops show up.  

That's it for this issue of Red Hood and the Outlaws and besides for Bizarro's part, which didn't need to be included at all for what we got, I found myself really enjoying this issue.  Where I thought we were getting a pretty straight forward story at the beginning, it turns out that Scotty Lobdell has a bit of M. Night Shyamalan going on because this issue had a hell of a twist that I didn't see coming.  Even the parts with Red Hood reliving his past, that I thought was well overplayed at this point and even complained last issue about it, I found that part really satisfying and really hope that this is the turning point that I've been waiting for in the character, where he can finally move past his death and get on with his life because even though this installment of "Jason Todd This Is Your Death" was decent, it's called upon too much when dealing with the character.  As always when Dexter Soy is on art duties, this issue looked amazing and the entire art team did a hell of a job.  All in all, this was a decent issue and this series continues to be one that I look forward to each and every month.

Bits and Pieces:

While we're pretty much exactly where we were at the end of the previous issue, this installment gives us one hell of a twist that I didn't see coming and may have even given us the final nail in the coffin of Jason Todd putting his death behind him.  Now while these are all good things, that's pretty much all we get here besides for some amazing art all the way though....... which I look forward to each time this series comes out.

7.8/10