Red Hood Loves Arsenal #9

It's kind of unbelievable that this is an Ed Benes cover because The Joker's Daughter hardly has any boobs hanging out everywhere.

The first thing I thought of when I saw this cover was that it's a good thing Jay and Roy are fighting zombies because they're allowed to kill them without everybody getting all sourpuss faced at them. But then I realized something else: way too many stories these days deal with why the main character kills or doesn't kill (usually doesn't!). Can we all just accept that Batman isn't going to fucking kill anybody and stop having stories where he has to explain why he doesn't? Or he has to prove to a bad guy who thinks not killing is a weakness that the bad guy is wrong? The same goes for Superman! How often does a bad guy pipe up with some shit like "I've got the upper hand because I will actually kill and you are a right puss from Pusspuss, British Columbia!" You can tell my imaginary bad guy is stupid because he thinks Superman is Canadian!

Can DC just put up a poster in their offices with a list of things that we can all just take for granted? Let me start the list! Everybody else can add their own!

Things To Be Taken For Granted In Every Iteration of the DC Universe!
1. When the Metal Men are not in operation, Doc Magnus likes to stuff the Responsemeters up his rectum.

Let's build on this list, DC Fans! Not Marvel Fans allowed! You'll just make a mockery of it!

Currently in Red Hood Loves Arsenal's Junk, the Roy and The Joker's Daughter were kidnapped into Ann Nocenti's Nethers! Jason Todd has followed in the hopes of rescuing them (or at least The Joker's Daughter. Fuck Roy!). Things are going to really get crazy and interesting because the best writer at DC Comics is on the job: Scott Lobdell!

I wonder how much money Scott Lobdell is making off of the Age of Apocalypse X-men movie. He must get some kind of royalty, right? Wasn't he a big part of that garbage which is basically just more of the same from the X-men? Humans versus Mutants with a little Mutants versus Mutants because only good Mutants can stop the Bad Mutants from proving the fears of the Humans true! The Humans are just cowering, lower evolved garbagesicles.

I know! Because Scott Lobdell likes to play his scripts by ear so he changes the plot every month when he gets a new idea! Not that he had an old idea on where his old story was going. That's for pretentious writers who like to have themes and points to their stories! This is just a fun rollicking roller coaster ride of Roy Harper's Narration Joking and Jason Todd's constant whining about how dumb his partner is (while also acknowledging his big heart!).

This story is called "Harmed and Dangerous" because ha ha ha I can't breathe so funny.

Jason Todd is currently putting bullets in a new gang of bad guys who had a really witty name that I can't remember now. Hopefully Lobdell will reintroduce everybody during the first five pages that he always saves for recaps via the main character's super snarky and hilarious narration!

Oh yeah! They were the Iron Rule which isn't as witty as I remember it being. Maybe I'm just not getting the pun! Is it like the Golden Rule but harder?

As you can see, much like the Teen Titans, the Iron Rule takes care of its own. That's the most important thing to both groups! No wonder the Teen Titans seem like bad guys now. They really should start making helping people their first priority or at least move from a Superhero Comic Book to some kind of existentialist Indie rag about how hard it is to be a teenager.

Jason Todd makes sure to think about how he's going to defeat the Iron Rule by treating them as a single organism (something Ducra taught him!) so that when he defeats them the same old way (by punches and bullets and probably some kicks), it'll seem like it was a well-written answer to how he overcame this new problem.

Meanwhile, Roy Harper needs to get some Narration Joking in so it's his turn for a few pages. I forget what he was up to because I probably hated it. He's discovering an old stadium which is now underground because this area was flooded a hundred years ago and you know how when building are flooded they soon sink under the ground and into caverns so that they're not flooded anymore and the water stays above them and it's all very heady geology that's tough for a lot of people to understand so I'll stop explaining it.

No! Don't do it! It's not worth your sanity!

Roy stumbles upon Joker's Daughter being held captive by some asshole whose face she burned a grin on way back in that Catwoman series previously mentioned. That asshole's plan is to knock down a few pillars and cause Gotham to collapse into the Nethers. Which totally doesn't make any sense because the space is so huge that Gotham should have simply collapsed into it a long time ago. I hate the Gotham Underground. I like my comic books to be unbelievable but there's a line! And that line is almost always crossed by Ann Nocenti!

The Iron Rule were paid by Charon to kill everybody in the Nethers which makes less sense than anything else since Charon is going to bring Gotham down on their heads anyway. Speaking of which, he's going to bring it all down on his own head as well. I don't think he's thought his plan through very well. I also still don't know why he needs The Joker's Daughter. It's possible he mentioned it previously but why would I waste any brain matter remembering shit Lobdell wrote?

Jason Todd's battle with Iron Rule isn't any sort of epic. They get the upper hand. Then Jason Todd gets the upper hand by pointing out that he's following the training of Ducra and letting his body be the weapon. But then that totally fails even though it's not supposed to and he's caught by the Iron Rule. But then he somehow winds up on a ledge above them while one of the Iron Rule says, "That was some toss." I don't know who tossed him. I don't know what happened. But I do know that Jason Todd didn't survive this battle by his own skill. He might as well be dead because he's terrible at superheroing.

The Joker's Daughter tries to kill herself when she kills Charon by throwing him into the lava. But Roy saves her with a Save Somebody's Life Arrow and then it's time for the feelings even though this comic book gives me no reason to feel anything for any of these characters except irritation and annoyance.

Oh! Oh! I'm a stupid fucking fan who feels every feeling for Jason Todd because he's such a precious baby fluff and I can't tell when he's being written horribly because I've projected every one of my own issues onto him and he must be kept safe in the way that I like to believe I wasn't (even though I totally was and am really just blowing life with my parents way out of proportion)! Boo hoo! Heroics!

The story ends with Joker's Daughter leaving the rotting Joker face with the lava people and Roy thinking about his last mercenary group he ran until they went rogue: The Iron Rule! DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUN!

Red Hood Loves Arsenal #9 Rating: No change. Here's how a Scott Lobdell book about youths goes: Lobdelled first page, title that's a bad pun and/or song title, snark, snark, snark, terrible jokes, terrible jokes, more irritating snark, bad joke, bad joke, snark, snark, killing that winds up not being killing because the Boys have changed their ways, bad snarky joke which irritates, moment where Jason Todd sees something in somebody else and wants to save them, moment where Roy Harper uses his experience as an alcoholic to help out, feeling of guilt and shame. Oh wait. That feeling of guilt and shame is just me after I'm done reading the comic book.

Don't forget to add stuff to the list of shit that should be taken for granted in the DC Universe, okay?