Red Hood Outlaw #38 Review

Words: Scott Lobdell

Art: Kenneth Rocafort

Colors: Steve Firchow

Letters: ALW’s Troy Peteri

Published by: DC

The somewhat hero taking on the responsibility of newly recruited/created heroes is a trope as old as the format (anyone remember Magneto taking over for Professor X?). Having Red Hood, the “bad” Robin take on the responsibility by Lex Luthor of training a new team that consists of a metamorph (Devour), a 3-month old genius (Babe in Arms), an elemental (Cloud 9) and DNA (as Lobdell writes: whoever, or whatever they decide) should prove to be a real challenge. 

What Lobdell presents however, is a really fun issue where Red Hood takes a back seat as he allows his new team to face off with a creature that is lashing out at S.T.A.R. Labs. It’s an interesting introduction to how the team can fight and also how they go about solving the problem. Having Red Hood stay back is also a smart plot device as it serves a twofold purpose within the comic: a teachable moment for the new characters, as well as putting the full showcase on the new characters. 

The new characters are somewhat interesting, but the best one is definitely DNA as they have the potential of being anything they really want but also as to how they go about solving the problem at hand. 

The other part of the issue sees Artemis and Bizarro dealing with a miniaturized person that must have some significance to long time readers (I am not, so I wasn’t sure who this person was). It helped break up the issue, but really only served the purpose of showing that Bizarro misses his intelligence. 

Rocafort has always had a style that I have loved because it is very dynamic, very “scratchy” and entirely his. If you buy this book just for his art, I wouldn’t blame you one bit. 

All in all, this was a fun issue to read as it gave just enough information as to who everybody was (always a nice perk of a comic) and moved the story forward. I’m not sure if Red Hood as a teacher is a story that a lot of legs to it, but we shall see.