Monday, May 18, 2020

Red Hood: Outlaw #44 Review



The Outlaw Food Truck


Written By: Scott Lobdell
Art By: Paolo Pantalena, Arif Prianto, Troy Peteri
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: March 25, 2020


We're moving over to the war-torn country of Qurac to see if the Outlaws can shake out some of those evil Untitled and hopefully find out what their game plan is with this country... you know, besides simply setting up dark obelisks that will be able to transfer their evil all about and allow the Untitled to grow an army that the world has never seen.  Let's jump into this issue and see if Jason Todd and the rest of the Outlaws can work with General Glory as the United States forces its way into this world of mysticism and monsters and what will they plan on doing with the information about the Untitled when their mission is through?  Let's jump into this issue and check it out.



For this issue of Red Hood: Outlaw, we have ourselves a lot of setting up for our heroes' being undercover.  Jason Todd and Bizarro have a food truck in the middle of a Quraci protest, while Artemis plays herself off as an Amazon bodyguard to the Colonel and ruler of the country, who our Outlaws believe is working with the Untitled.  So yeah, that's our setup here, while in the background we get a little more of the Essence taking over Isabel Ardila's body as she makes her way to Qurac to join Jason in his fight against the Untitled...... more like a happy accident that they get together, but they're all here and it's time to find out how many Untitled there are and where those obelisks are hiding so that our heroes can take them down and save the day.


The only problem with all of that though is Scott Lobdell is flipping the script with the Untitled here and having them feed on the hope of the Quraci people, who are wanting change in their county, but that doesn't really play off that well here because the Untitled aren't really that well known to a lot of people.  Hell, I've read every Red Hood issue there is and this revelation that they've changed their M.O. didn't really affect me at all and I was just left wondering why?  Sadly though, with all of this going on in this issue the best part that we actually dealt with, besides for the small bits of Ma Gunn and The Brain back home, was Jason Todd and Bizarro trying to catch up with one another, while maintaining a food truck and orders coming in.  It did nothing for the story, but it was pretty funny to see and now I just kind of want them to retire and open up a food truck full time.


All in all, the art is okay, but it's not a style that I really enjoy and like a lot of times with this kind of art style, the colors are really muted for some reason and that doesn't do a lot for me either.  As for the story...... It's just changing up the Untitled and since they aren't all that developed in my mind, the big flash, pow of this book with the reveal that they're changing up the way they do things didn't hit me at all and now I'm just left wanting the Outlaws and Essence kicking a little ass because the background story is just going to be evil entities doing evil things in new ways and that doesn't come off all that exciting to me.  Thankfully, the interactions between Jason Todd and Bizarro were so fun because that was really the highlight of the book for me...... and sadly, it doesn't go on all that long.

Bits and Pieces:

While this book feels like it wants to get back to basics, while also doing a rundown of Red Hood's greatest hits, this issue doesn't really do much to explain to new readers what the Untitled are or really anything about Jason Todd's or Essence's powers..... Yeah, recap can be boring, but the way this story is being told just seems like it wants to skip over the details so that it can do something new and exciting........ but the problem is, it's not all that exciting and I'm not the biggest fan of the art here.

5.5/10

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