Red Hood and the Outlaws #1 and #2 - Review

Through out the past year Jason Todd has had a lot of hype and popularity mainly because of the release of DC Universes last original animated movie, Batman: Under the Red Hood! Jason Todd was killed by the Joker and then mysteriously brought back to life with no soul but then Talia found him and submerged him in the Lazarus pool. The effects did something to Jason and so he trained to become an elite assassin initially to set out on revenging his own death by killing the Joker! This is the story told in the movie while some of it was twisted a little, this was the first movie to really get into great detail on Jason Todd and I loved the movie. The graphic novel based on the movie gets into even more detail and is another book that I recommend reading before picking up this comic series.

The comic book was fantastic besides a few exceptions. Judd Winick gets the chance to start a completely new world and introduce a life beyond revenge to the Joker for Jason Todd. He does a great job on the beginning by introducing us to the characters by throwing us in the middle of a rescue that involves a complete foreign army. Roy Harper is a little crazy and Jason explains his position with humor and a sarcastic tone, which is exactly what I was looking for. The only thing that I wanted to see was that they would get Jason's personality correct and I can give them a ten on that. The beginning is basically Roy, Jason, and eventually Starfire kicking some ass against a complete armory of people and guns. The comic ends with Jason talking to a thing named Essence and she brings up several interesting murders and how they are related to The All Caste and The Untitled are behind it. This whole situation is very confusing and mysterious and it brings the reader in wanting more and especially wanting answers. The book ends with Jason walking up to an old women and saying that he should have never left and that she shouldn't have let him then he turns around to many people pointing weapons at him. The writing was great and the story was definitely something new to offer and as always it kept my interest going.

Last I want to talk about the art, which was done by Kenneth Rocafort and he did a wonderful job. The expressions and body movement was exactly right to the text although I had a problem with the fact that not all the space on some of the pages was used as if they wanted to drag the context out to push more issues. I hope this doesn't lead to a boring outcome in future issues but with the ending of comic issue 2 I doubt that is going to happen. I really liked how he drew Jason in his costume, it looked great and his costume had more detail then I noticed in previous movies and books. Scott and Kenneth put together a tasteful first issue of a new story with new characters and pulled me in so I would definitely recommend this series to others!

The second issue had just as much to offer but with a little more of an explanation on Jason's history which in a way completed the the first issue but yet left so many more questions to answer. Judd throws in a little bit of different history then I'm used to which is how Jason was trained to become an elite assassin and that is by the fact that Talia took him to The All Caste and that they trained him. I'm used to knowing that Jason used a bunch of different people across the world to train him and then he combined the skills to take back Gotham from Batman, Black Mask, and the Joker. That about sums up the second issue other then at the end we see that Roy and Starfire help Jason completely obliterate all the men with weapons.

Both issues were great and I can't wait for the next issues to be released. The story is very promising and the art goes along just nicely!!