God dammit! Does Red Hood’s mask have a nose or doesn’t it? You’d think after 40 issues of doing this someone over at DC would say,”Right oh, gents! I jolly do say that this Mr. Hood has no nose on that head receptacle he wears on his noggin.” The cover shows no discernible nose, but flip the damn page and there he is, looking like The Vision with his big old honker.
After months of turmoil, Red Hood, Starfire, and Arsenal are facing their inner demons! But what they find could lead to the end of their partnership – especially if Blackfire kills them first!
Red Hood has had its series of problems over the past forty issues. From hypersexualized characters, bland stories, and inconsistent art, the series seemed to always be clinging to the fringes of the DC New 52. Strange, because Jason Todd seemed like the kind of character that could have the most depth of the entire Bat-family, but unfortunately has been turned into the Spider-Man lite of the DC universe.
Issue #40 is the close to the series, but it does very little to bring to a head everything that has been going on the past few months. The story feels like it had several more issues left to go, but nobody gave the team the memo that the New 52 was coming to and end. Still, even if they had a few more issues I don’t think we would have seen much of an improvement with this shallow story.
You see that blurb above, telling about the book’s story? Yeah, none of that happens, or matters to what the hell is going on. Neither Arsenal or Starfire face any internal (or external) demons, or even share many lines of dialogue together (they just throw some punches and then kiss), and Blackfire doesn’t lay a hand on anyone on the team. Still, we do at least get to see Blackfire in a pose that either proves she has no spine, or is completely made up of Nickelodeon Gak.
The main antagonist here is the being known as, Helspont who boasts about being all-powerful and talks about bringing destruction the earth. That’s all well and good, but if this guy was a serious threat, I highly doubt the earth would send a team of five anti-heroes, three of which have no powers, when the Justice League is back home playing Pictionary. The character himself certainly has the look of an evil space being that could cause problems, but the thing to remember is the word “could”. The problem is that he ends up being all talk throughout this fight and ends up throwing a single punch during the entire encounter.
The entire thing is just so damn bland in execution. I have only been following Red Hood And The Outlaws on and off since it began, but I can name a few bad guys that the team faced that put up more of a threat than this world destroyer did. Flying Killer Croc Batman shirt guy takes out the army in two minutes WITH SCIENCE (not joking) and even better, our boy Arsenal ends up killing Helspont right out of left field in some sort of Star Wars walker that got misplaced from the new Star Wars film. Not sure how he got it, or how it has the power to kill Mr. Evil World Destroyer #3789 (You’d think he wouldn’t give his troops weapons that could easily fry him to a crisp in one shoot), but he does it without so much as breaking a sweat, or saying a word. It’s just so utterly lazy.
Red Hood And The Outlaws #40 is a sad way to end this series. Not sad as it’s going away for good, but sad in that it’s a shame how it was handled. In the end we get Kori in her space-suit, wearing more clothes than I’ve ever seen her wear, taking her sister back home with Mr. Killer Croc Batman Shirt dude flying… Because they had to get rid of him somehow. She wishes everyone well with some hugs and kisses (no signs of emotion from anyone) and leaves back home.
Arsenal just kind of walks away into the forest, perhaps to become the Predator and actually have something to do, while Todd tells Slade Jr. that they were never a team, but instead “OUTLAWS!” Yeah, it’s about as Saturday Morning cartoon as you would expect and a crap way to end this series. At least Starfire will be back in her own book, and this time will be wearing some clothes!
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