Red Hood and the Outlaws #1

You can't tell by this cover but Starfire's outfit is boots.

The series begins with Red Hood (Jason Todd, formerly dead Robin) breaking Roy Harper (formerly Speedy but I can't imagine he's keeping that name) out of a prison in Qurac. It's not unbelievable that they succeed. It's not unbelievable that Roy Harper can fire eight arrows and kill eight guards before Jason Todd's disguise can hit the floor while Jason and Roy are not hit by the many sprays of bullet fire aimed at them. What's unbelievable is that the country of Qurac actually let a prisoner have a visitor! They must be getting soft!

I'll give Todd poetic license for a good line even though he's forgetting Aqualad.

Starfire shows up to destroy tanks. In the New 52 Universe, Starfire is nailing an ex-Robin but this time it's Jason Todd instead of Dick Grayson. At least according to Jason Todd. Maybe he's just telling tales out of Arkham.

Correction. After a few pages of Starfire cheesecake shots, the reader learns (or relearns?) that Dick Grayson did date Starfire. And Jason Todd has tried to kill Nightwing a number of times. That probably all happened in the Pre-52 Universe but still holds true in this one. I don't know anything about what happened with Jason Todd since he's come back from the dead. Except that he was kind of crazy and went after Batman a number of times. So I guess he's still kind of crazy!

Some Raven-esque woman named Essence shows up to tell Jason Todd about a bunch of people who died years after they had organs removed without any sign of incisions. Jason Todd immediately knows this is the work of someone called The Untitled. Great!

So far this first issue isn't making it very easy to follow along! Hopefully things become clearer as it goes. Nightwing dealt with a lot of past history and did it well. This comic seems to be dealing with a lot too. Let's hope it gets better at doing it.

The Teen Titans version with Speedy and Beast Boy and Cyborg and Lilith and Aqualad seems to have existed at some point in the last five years. It had to be the last five years because Cyborg only became Cyborg five years before this moment.

And you know how Betazoids in Star Trek are empaths? No? Well, they are. And it appears Tamaraneans are Amnesiacs. Roy Harper questions Starfire about all of those Titans and she doesn't remember a single one. He doesn't ask her about Jericho or Raven though! I wonder why? And since Starfire can't seem to remember anything about any human being at all, she just goes around having sex with them. So she destroys some things and has sex with other things. And she's not American?

Essence tells Jason Todd that someone called the All Caste is dead and Jason says oh no but she's all-powerful and Essence says oh my god I know right? But then Essence disappears and Jason heads to the Himalayas and finds all the All Caste monks dead. And some guys with hockey sticks are there to greet him. The end!

The Next Issue blurb says, "To be explained." Yeah? I hope so. Because I wasn't following pre-52 Jason Todd adventures. I thought this was supposed to be some kind of reboot so new readers could follow along! Oh well. I hope it all gets explained next issue.