Red Hood and the Outlaws #4

The question, "What does Crux want?" is finally answered!

The snow globe the Outlaws found last issue bring them to Middleton, Colorado. Why? Because the snow globe said Colorado on it! And Colorado only has the one city. They check for leads in a bar where we see the residents of Middleton are either big, giant oafish men...

Or tight-assed, perfectly-breasted women.

I guess that would make Middleton, Colorado, just another average place on Comic Book Earth.
Jason and Roy make the rounds looking for clues while Starfire remains floating in the air watching over them. Why?

Well? Put some Goddamn clothes on!

Coming to Middleton, Colorado was a pretty good idea because Jason and Roy immediately find one of these Untitled creatures. Yes, it isn't one person. According to Jason Todd, they are "a very ancient and evil mystical race--maybe a dozen left on the planet--who have been hiding among humans for centuries." And they apparently eat people's organs by phasing their hands into the victim's body. Why? To eat the organ and gain the memories of the victim!

This creature thinks the All-Caste broke the truce. So maybe the Untitled were looking for answers in the Chamber of All. And maybe they didn't leave the clue at all but the Chamber of All left the clue because it knows everything and answers the questions of those who traverse its depths wisely. Or something.

Jason is saved by Speedy with a little help from the Untitled.

Your puny weapons can't hurt me! Only a bucket of water can---I'M MELTING!

Luckily for this Untitled, Jason Todd has already informed Roy of this. I mean, unluckily since Roy kills her. But luckily because she didn't just blab the secret of killing her which would have been totally embarrassing in the Untitled Afterlife.

Dead Untitled #1: "Geez! Once I survived to the modern era, I thought I was so safe! I mean, seriously, nobody makes copper weapons anymore!"
Dead Untitled #2: "Tell me about it! Know how I died? Guy dropped a penny off the Empire State Building! Bam! Right through my head!"
Dead Untitled #1: "Oh man! Suck! Know how I ate it? Electrocuted by Copper wiring! Yeah, seriously! Technicality, I guess. What about you, new chick?"
Dead Untitled #3: "I was taunting some guy. And, well, um, I, uh, sort of mentioned that, well, only copper could harm me."
Dead Untitled #1 and #2: "...."

The Untitled doesn't die from Arsenal's copper hook to the head. It reforms its head and attacks Red Hood. But that fight won't be until next issue. Meanwhile, Arsenal has run off to help Starfire because they saw Starfire's 'energy signature' (hee hee) from a distance.

Oh yeah. Starfire. And that guy on the cover. Crux. Ugh. It's less brawl than exposition. Crux distracts Starfire with his endless blabbing about how his parents were killed by a Tamaranean War Cruiser that landed on Earth (specifically, on his parents' car). The Tamaranean walked away without giving out its insurance information and on that day, Crux was born!

It's partly done tongue-in-cheek because it's obvious how stupid the whole thing is. Crux gives Starfire his whole backstory and reason for finding her and beating the crap out of her. He studied all alien technology and tracked all the aliens that came to earth and used their DNA to splice into his so he could use their powers against them and dissected corpses and used every resource available to him (and he even used some resources that weren't available to him. Hunh?) to "find and eliminate" Starfire's kind.

So what does he do? He takes away her powers and leaves.

Perhaps he doesn't know what eliminate means. My friend from high school that I mentioned before, Soy Rakelson, thought that decadent meant delicious. And one of my cousins thought that nubile meant limber. So, you know, maybe Crux thinks 'eliminate' means 'to take away a person's Starbolt power'. Crux takes away her power by using a Tamaranean Transubstantiator which he found in the cellar of a Mayan Temple underneath some old copies of Ritual Killings magazine. And there was no way Starfire could have avoided this thing since it's about the size of a twenty story building and shoots green fire and is just sitting out in the open expanse of snowy waste.

Transubstantiator? So he turned Starfire into Jesus?

While lying on the ice, Starfire moans for Richard. So taking away her power must also have meant taking away her proud amnesia and now she remembers how much she loves Nightwing.

Red Hood and the Outlaws #3

Future Perfect Progressive!

The team continues deeper into Cliché Valley. And since they're deep in the Himalayan Mountains where everything is much more profound than the rest of the world, they encounter a 4,000 year old boy smoking a dozen hookahs from his ancient Papasan chair while guarding the entrance to the Chamber of All.

Also, he's entirely hairless.

This old kid S'aru keeps each of their most cherished memories as the Outlaws head into the Chamber of All. The Chamber of All looks like every other page from Shade the Changing Man. S'aru can't resist looking at Koriand'r's memory.

Starfire's earliest Cheesecake Photo memory.

Starfire's favorite memory is standing up to her captors and remaining the great Tamaran Princess even in the worst of conditions. To be a true badass in comics, you basically just have to beat up everyone all the time even when you're most likely going to get yourself killed. But then you don't get killed and that just shows how awesome you are even when you just acted like a stupid asshole. Roy Harper's favorite memory shows how he understands this rule as well!

A good way to show how tough you are is to say, "Is that all you've got?" just when you're about to get yourself killed.

While this little ancient bald voyeur continues to peep on their memories, the Outlaws get into a boss fight with a giant green toad troll monster. Roy Harper continues to show how tough and badass he is by saying how awesome this fight is even though all he has are a few puny little arrows which don't do anything to this beast. While Jason Todd grabs the thing they were after (a snowglobe of Colorado), Starfire gets herself eaten by the giant beast.

So we all know what happens next. When is somebody going to do the twist to this giant monster eats the powerful person cliché?

The Flash: "How are we going to defeat this gigantic monstrosity?!"
Green Lantern: "I don't know! My giant green monkey wrench is having no effect!"
The Batman: "Look out! It just ate Wonder Woman!"
Superman: "Ha ha! That will be it's undoing for sure! Now we just wait until...."
Gigantic Monstrosity: *CHEW CHEW CHEW CHEW*
Wonder Woman: "AAAARRRRGGGHHHHHLLLEEEE" *BLOOD BRAINS SPLINTERED BONES DEAD!*
Justice League: "...."

So, yeah, Starfire bursts out of the monster's belly, killing it.

Swallowed whole and not a single boob out of place.

They escape with the Untitled's all-important snowglobe which he left in the Chamber of All for some reason. Hmm. Has this comic been making sense and I'm just missing it? So some thing called the Untitled has come to the All-Caste to kill them all and enter the Chamber of All to leave a clue in the shape of a Colorado snowglobe for Jason Todd to find. Is the Untitled the God of Scavenger Hunts and Road Rallies?

But wait! This started because Essence came to Jason Todd about several murders where the victims had been missing organs for years. Did these victims give up their organs to create the Untitled and now the Untitled is getting rid of all of the evidence? Fuck if I know! Also, the Untitled had a truce with the All-Caste. The All-Caste were guarding the Chamber of All and nobody was ever supposed to get in. But when the All-Caste were All-Dead, S'aru the Hairless just lets everybody tramp on into the Chamber of All.

But why did the Untitled even want into the Chamber of All? To leave a snowglobe? I'm sure it entered for information or to travel to a specific place and time since the Chamber of All is a portal to everywhere and everywhen, as Jason Todd explains somewhere along the way. So the Untitled broke a truce, killed the All-Caste, and entered the Chamber of All to accomplish whatever it was going to accomplish (I think it must have needed those organs to accomplish it?). But after this complex plan, it leaves a clue for Jason Todd? Does it need him to be wherever for the whatever to succeed? If so, why not just give him a note to meet there?

Apparently Roy Harper doesn't know how memories work.

On their way out, S'aru offers them their memories back. Jason Todd, being the extremest badass of the whole bunch of them, tells S'aru to keep his most cherished memory. But is this really a tough guy move? Once your most cherished memory is gone, you suddenly have a new most cherished memory. And do you really need the old one back? This just proves that Jason Todd has no curiosity.

This is Jason Todd's most cherished memory. Batman taking a night off from patrolling to spend time with him while he was sick.

Jason Todd's rejection of his memory may be meant to represent his refutation of Batman and his past with Batman. That might be what writer Lobdell wants to portray. But it can't be since Jason Todd has no idea what memory he's giving up. And if that's his most cherished memory then his second most cherished memory no doubt is about Batman as well! Perhaps this moment is just to show that Batman means much more to Jason Todd than anything else he's experienced in his life and his death and his new life. No matter how Jason Todd acts out, Batman is still, fundamentally, at the core of his being. And since Todd has no idea what he's giving up at this moment, it isn't an actual stand he's taking. Which proves that Batman is far more important to this messed up kid than he's willing to let anyone know.

Red Hood and the Outlaws #2

This comic book will be either action packed or very confusing.

This issue begins one and one half year previously. I think I'll start a timeline and label the years AFP (After Flash Point) and BFP (Before Flash Point) Year One will begin with most of the new 52's first issues. Any comic that declares the time is now will begin in the current year and month. AFP 1 begins November 2011 (not September because I'll be going by the cover date on the comics. And as comic fans, we all know how out of whack that system is!). So the first issues that ran in normal time would be AFP 1:1. Who knows if I can keep track of this especially since I'm making up the system after consuming three beers. I'll just add the notations to my Notepad file that has the Super Hero Pecking Order (Batman on top!) and the number of times each Super Hero should have died. I'll be right back.

So, starting over. One and one half years earlier (BFP 2.6), Jason Todd is brought to the Hundred Acres of All and the monks of the All Caste by Talia Al Ghul. So Damian's mother is bringing a former Robin, also formerly dead, to some monks for training. Or spiritual reassessment? Or maybe just to get under Batman's cowl.

Talia is Ra's al Ghul's daughter. Now things are coming together for me. And Talia resurrected Jason Todd by putting him in a Lazarus Pit. Correction. Jason Todd was mysteriously resurrected. But he only regained his soul when he was placed in a Lazarus Pit by Talia.

This old lady is Ducra, the leader of the All Caste. And apparently the greatest fighter ever in the world ever. She decides to train Jason Todd because she can't see leaving him to the real world. Apparently this has-been Boy Wonder is some kind of major player, as Wolfram and Hart might say.
Sixteen pages later and we're back at the end of Issue #1. What the hell kind of story telling is this? Did I really need to know that they were on a plane and Jason Todd got the number of some hot stewardess and Roy Harper is an annoying jerk? Oh, I already knew that.

Jason Todd and the Outlaws have returned to the All Caste, a group of people who are very important to Jason Todd but I've only known about for two comics. And now they're all dead by someone named The Untitled. You know, once you name yourself The Untitled, you've got a title, douchebag. It's like when Prince named himself that symbol so nobody would know what to call him or how to vocalize his new name. But he just became The Artist Formerly Known as Prince. Ha ha! In your stupid Prince face, you arrogant jerk! People are going to communicate no matter how hard you make it!

Jason Todd also kills this thing called Suzie Su on the way to the All Caste.

Jason Todd and the Outlaws are jumped by all the re-animated All Caste Monks. They defeat them and it somehow bonds the bunch of them enough for Jason Todd to consider them a team.

It's a good thing I have four of these comics to read all at once (I think I actually have six but I'm just reading through Issue Four until I catch up on all 52 titles) or I definitely would not be able to follow this from month to month. Let's hope it all clears up and starts dealing in the present and future instead of being steeped so heavily in Pre-52 lore. I don't mind the comic building a past for Jason Todd but it just feels like this comic is relying way too heavily on people's knowledge of the Pre-52 storylines.

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.

Birds of Prey #4

Ha ha ha! I knew David Finch was dying to get his hands on these Birds!

Is this a Birds of Prey story about them in their teenage years? I think David Finch draws men twenty years older than they truly are and women fifteen years younger. I wonder if he walks around and sees the world this way as well. I bet if he's ever accused of statutory rape, he can use his art as a defense.

Finch: "But Your Honor! Every thirty year old looks twelve to me! And fifteen year olds don't look zero! They just look fifteen! I just have to take my chances!"
Judge: "Maybe you should ask them who Paul McCartney is before you fuck them! GUILTY!"

Last issue, we left Black Canary flipping out and calling off the mission because she has a bomb implanted in her brain by a terrorist's kiss. That sounds like the lyrics to a The Cure song (stupid bands and super heroes that have THE as part of their name!). Some voice is speaking the nursery rhyme trigger directly into her head so she plans on throwing herself off the train and killing herself so she doesn't explode and kill a lot of people. What a selfless bitch! Oh, wait. I think I used bitch wrong there. But Starling has a better idea! Remember the knock the people out so they can't hear the trigger plan?

I still don't believe this will work. Black Canary gets a +1 in her Should Be Dead box.

The Birds of Prey premise is that if the subject isn't conscious, the trigger can't fire. But people still hear and process sounds while they're sleeping. And, okay, Black Canary isn't actually sleeping. But the voice is going directly into her brain. And I doubt the medicine needs the patient's conscious effort to work. Also, I don't believe Black Canary would be knocked out by one punch. But since she is, she's dropping to the bottom of the Super Hero Pecking Order with Starling above her since Starling just took her out. Oh! And since Poison Ivy took out Katana and Starling, Poison Ivy is above Black Canary! But Starling is above Katana because Starling was willing to blow everyone up to win. It's a toss up between Katana and Black Canary still.

Back to the comic book!

Black Canary wakes up in Dr. Trevor Cahill's office with her brain back to its normal unexplodable state. And Starling tells the tale of what happened while Black Canary was unconscious.

Well, that explains that. But I think her head would still explode!

While telling the story, she mentions how Katana says, "My husband wishes to meet with you." Then Starling narrates, "Of course, Katana being Katana and believing that the soul of her dead husband is living inside her big shiny sword [Um, her katana?], that's just code for, 'I'm a-gonna chop y'all up into lunchmeat.'"

Oh, of course! Except Starling doesn't know Katana thinks her husband's soul is living inside the katana! That's a secret that Black Canary expressly keeps from her in Issue #2! So that's a problem with making the character's the narrator yet still wanting to use the narration to explain things to the reader. The editing over at DC is abysmal.

But the main part of the story is the part that should have followed, "To make a long story short...." Here's what Poison Ivy found out with her Secret Plant Control Mind Reading Truth Serum Power:

Taking bets on which Bird calls the leader "Joke" during the final battle. I take Starling!

That's their big enemy. Choke and the Cleaners. I'm surprised Poison Ivy got so much information out of this Cleaner without him blowing himself up. I guess she learned her lesson and used her Secret Plant Control Mind Paralyzing Powers on him before using her SPCMRTS Power!

Of course they also got an address. Or half of an address because the plot wouldn't go anywhere if they didn't. I guess they could go around like Batman and beat up lowlife Gotham criminals with names like Jimmy the Pipe and Rodney 'Squeakers' McGillum, until one of them gave up Choke's location. But that's not how girls do things! Instead, the Birds call Batgirl! Girl Power!

Practically the same group! Except replace Scary with an Asian and put a red wig on Posh.

Batgirl seems a little more eager to help a couple of issues later. Even though the team has just gotten worse with Poison Ivy on it! The address leads them to a building where Choke and the Cleaners are headquartered in the spaces in-between floors. I guess they share offices with the Court of Owls and that company with the tiny door that leads into John Malkovich's head.

This is a good example of just how boring this comic's art is.

That room is actually full of invisible Cleaners. But before any fight happens, the mystery voice explains that none of the Birds will remember this and next thing you know, they're all standing out on the street. Except for Batgirl.

I'm pretty disappointed with this comic. I think they should lose all of the bit players and change the title to Katana! Then they should make it a psychological comedy about a mentally ill widowed ninja assassin who is in love with her sword. Maybe I'll write that comic as well as Birds of Pray and send the ideas to DC! No, those sound more like Dark Horse ideas!

Birds of Prey #3

A bunch of the initial pages of this issue are filled with Katana and Starling trying to kill Poison Ivy. You know, because Poison Ivy is a whacko Arkham Asylum loony nutjob terrorist murderer. But if she can help the team, Black Canary is willing to overlook those faults! And all it takes for the others to go from trying to kill her to welcoming her on the team is for Poison Ivy to save their asses when the hostage they took mutters a rhyme and blows the hell up.

Both times someone has blown up by hearing a specific phrase, Black Canary's head began to ring. My guess is that when the stealth assassin kissed her in the first issue, he somehow transferred some sort of explosive stroke medicine virus into her brain. That's some kiss!

But before the hostage blew himself up, Poison Ivy was able to get him to blab the location of his safe house. The Birds head over and find some scraps of paper they think may hold the names of a couple of other people who have bombs in their heads. So they head out to try to save these people by knocking them unconscious so that they can't hear the trigger words. Except how, you know, people can still hear things while they're asleep or unconscious. I don't think it would work.

Um, I also don't think the stroke medicine brain bomb would work either! But I'm willing to accept that as a plot device. I'm just not so willing to accept bad solutions to the plot device!

When I'm at work, I ma'am rude women all the time.

Ivy is tasked with stopping the train. Canary and Starling need to drug the brain bombers. And Katana is walking around on the roof of the train like a good ninja samurai whack-job.
But none of that matters because Dinah aborts the mission when she finds out what we already knew:

Whoops!

Birds of Prey #2

Yes! Shoot the new recruit in the face, Starling!

This Issue starts off with Katana slaying a bunch of assassins that have come after her for some reason. Also, she's talking to her husband's soul in her sword! Yay! This makes me very happy.

Her slaying technique is boring.

Back at the airport, Dinah and Ev (Black Canary and Starling) steal pieces of the exploded journalist and escape the scene before the TSA can get their fat hands on them for questioning.

Here they are leaving the scene. I mean, here Starling is leaving the scene without Black Canary. Except that KRESSSSHHH happens and on the next page:

There's so much wrong with this scene. I'm fairly certain that Dinah is supposed to be in the little airport tram car in that first panel. Because they're leaving the scene of the explosions chaos. See the people calmly walking around because they must be far enough away to not have noticed? So Ev isn't driving toward Dinah who has just picked up the journalist's broken phone one second prior to Ev taking off in the tram. Plus, the stealthy guy says Lance and Crawford are leaving the scene.

Also, you can run a whole lot faster than those stupid airport cars. See the one TSA guy keeping up with the rest of them by jogging behind? Maybe that's why Dinah isn't in the car. She traipsed along ahead of Ev and decided to hop in just before they drive through a plate glass window! Nice one!

Also, the art is very disappointing. It almost looks as if Jesus Saiz could draw but he's not taking any time to do so. Very boring and flat panels. Look how angry those TSA guys are! Or not. And Katana's pose when she's slicing assassins. She's just standing their bored! A comic book full of hot women, you'd think David Finch would have jumped at the chance to draw this one!

A few days later, Black Canary and Starling meet up with Katana and nobody gets shot in the face like the cover suggests. How come every time a hero meets up with another hero in an issue of a comic book, the cover has to suggest that they have a big brouhaha? Stupid liars!

Nice line, Tatsu!

The three Birds do some research and find out the journalist had explosives in his brain (yes, yes) and also another chemical. This one turns out to be an experimental stroke medication that reacts to certain words or phrases (yes, yes, the trigger). And it just happens 4 out 5 of the warehouses in Gotham have had the drug stolen! So they go to the 5th location and find more invisible people!

Why does she even bother using a gun?

Katana slaughters a bunch of the stealth guys while Canary takes out the rest with her Sonic Scream and Starling shoots the wall a bunch of times. Actually, Starling takes one hostage so they have somebody to question to keep the plot moving next issue. And then Poison Ivy appears because Canary asked her to join for some reason. Maybe Poison Ivy is turning over a new leaf! Ah ha ha ha! I wonder how many times that joke has been used in comics featuring Poison Ivy? I'm actually very sorry I typed it. And then didn't delete it. And then hit the Create Post button with it still there.