Red Hood and The Outlaws #1
Sep. 21st, 2011 04:23 pm![[personal profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
whitesycamore posting in ![[community profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
scans_dailySo, the first issue of Red Hood and The Outlaws was... surprising.
So much so that I'm not sure what I thought of it. At all. It was very much an introductory issue, and as such it focuses mainly on who the three main characters are, and how they relate to each other. What is clear is that Roy, Jason and Kory have all had extensive changes and/or additions made to their back stories. I've posted three pages that I think illustrate this below the cut.
Some of it is good - like Roy and Jason apparently having something like a friendship...
...And some is bad. Kory now cares very little for individual humans, to the extent that she finds them completely forgettable. Seriously, she doesn't remember any of the Titans, even *Dick,* although her relationship with him is still canon. She has also seems to have lost the 'y' from the end of her name and is now called Kori. The writing and art are both extremely male gaze-y when it comes to Kory. She is depicted with a great deal of sexual agency, but the book drips with the assumption that the only people reading this are the 18-35 male bracket. I found it quite insulting.
Ok, so people who were wondering/worrying whether she might 'get with' Roy or Jason?
The obvious is somewhat subverted by the fact that she's done 'em both. Ordinarily I'd have thought that makes her a lucky lady who gets what she wants, but the rest of the book is so objectifying of her that I feel weird about it. There is potentially some interesting points to be made about her attitude to sexuality, but I think they got lost in her primary portrayal as a male fantasy-style 'nymphomaniac' - people spend an awful lot of time leering at, discussing and photographing Kory, managing to make themselves look like enormous douches in the process. Still, at least she's not being held to the usual comic book heroine standard of being sexy but not actually sexual, I guess? :/
As for the main plot (or what's foreshadowed to become the main plot), it's still very mysterious. It relates to Jason's hitherto unmentioned ties to an organisation called the All Caste. A creepy former member named Essence has come to ask for Jason's help with a string of murders connected to stolen organs, and to tell him that a female mentor of his named Ducra has been murdered. No, I have no idea what any of that means yet either.
So much so that I'm not sure what I thought of it. At all. It was very much an introductory issue, and as such it focuses mainly on who the three main characters are, and how they relate to each other. What is clear is that Roy, Jason and Kory have all had extensive changes and/or additions made to their back stories. I've posted three pages that I think illustrate this below the cut.
Some of it is good - like Roy and Jason apparently having something like a friendship...
...And some is bad. Kory now cares very little for individual humans, to the extent that she finds them completely forgettable. Seriously, she doesn't remember any of the Titans, even *Dick,* although her relationship with him is still canon. She has also seems to have lost the 'y' from the end of her name and is now called Kori. The writing and art are both extremely male gaze-y when it comes to Kory. She is depicted with a great deal of sexual agency, but the book drips with the assumption that the only people reading this are the 18-35 male bracket. I found it quite insulting.
Ok, so people who were wondering/worrying whether she might 'get with' Roy or Jason?
The obvious is somewhat subverted by the fact that she's done 'em both. Ordinarily I'd have thought that makes her a lucky lady who gets what she wants, but the rest of the book is so objectifying of her that I feel weird about it. There is potentially some interesting points to be made about her attitude to sexuality, but I think they got lost in her primary portrayal as a male fantasy-style 'nymphomaniac' - people spend an awful lot of time leering at, discussing and photographing Kory, managing to make themselves look like enormous douches in the process. Still, at least she's not being held to the usual comic book heroine standard of being sexy but not actually sexual, I guess? :/
As for the main plot (or what's foreshadowed to become the main plot), it's still very mysterious. It relates to Jason's hitherto unmentioned ties to an organisation called the All Caste. A creepy former member named Essence has come to ask for Jason's help with a string of murders connected to stolen organs, and to tell him that a female mentor of his named Ducra has been murdered. No, I have no idea what any of that means yet either.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-21 03:51 pm (UTC)I was hoping Kory would be just as strong a lead as Roy and Jason. In fact I was hoping that while both of them would be immensely attracted to her...she would be the one they can't have. That not only puts her on equal footing/role definition with her costars,but it also opens the gates for potential love interests outside of the main 3 (which still could happen mind you, it just becomes a tad more predictable).
Playing Starfire as the "LOL IM A HOT SEX LOVIN ALIEN" is such a huge and overused flanderization that I was really hoping it be obvious to Lobdell to avoid it.
Guess not (at least so far).
no subject
Date: 2011-09-21 03:51 pm (UTC)Well, that's one more mark in the return policy's favor.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-21 03:52 pm (UTC)Ughh... I miss the New Titans Starfire...
At least, Jason & Roy's friendship kinda fun it seems...right?...right?...
*goes back reading the old couple of Arsenal issues* I miss Lian :(
no subject
Date: 2011-09-21 03:53 pm (UTC)I think there's more to it than that. From what Lobdell has said about Starfire's relationship with Dick, it sounds like they had a really rotten break-up. My guess is that it caused the "group" to fall apart in the process, and Kory remembers it all, but refuses to talk about it.
Also, I'm SO GLAD they're mixing up Jason's past with stuff like the All Castle. I personally found Lost Days to be really boring and an overall crap origin story for Red Hood.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-21 03:59 pm (UTC)Well, that is kind of a cliche' in and of itself, isn't it? I'm certain I've seen that story so many times. I would think her having both of them as booty calls is a little more unique AND allows for more potential love interests.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-21 03:59 pm (UTC)And I personally dislike the idea of both of them drooling over the unattainable Kory - I think if anything that's a more cliché story, which again is actually very male-perspective driven.
The hot-girl-you-can't-have is the kind of dude story that gets told over and over. I have to say I actually have no problem with Kory bagging both guys, I just wish it was told from her perspective and that we got to hear more about *her* attraction to *them.*
But the actual experiential part of female sexuality is very unpopular and uncomfortable to comic writers, it seems.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-21 04:01 pm (UTC)I only made it halfway through that last page.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-21 04:01 pm (UTC)It sounds like you understand what my problem is, here. An alternative but equally male-gaze driven story wouldn't exactly solve it.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-21 04:03 pm (UTC)Apropos of very little, "Kori" would technically be more accurate since her name is Koriand'r, the "y" was more for ease of humans reading it, though Kory Anders was her assumed name on Earth.
I agree that making her more alien and, as an example, having her ability to remember things being different from the human approach is an interesting way to go, but in the same way that making Jack Harkness omnisexual is an interesting idea; It's not the concept that's poor, it's the execution.
Based on this, I can't really imagine this Kori and Dick actually HAVING a relationship (Sex, perhaps, but a long term living together relationship.. not really), nor her having the same impact on his life and worldview that she did.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-21 04:04 pm (UTC)Hmm, that's interesting! I could actually totally buy that Kory is faking it to avoid uncomfortable conversations, if it weren't for the fact that on one page she thinks about how she likes spending time with Roy and Jason, it's just a pity she has such a hard time remembering which is which....
no subject
Date: 2011-09-21 04:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-21 04:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-21 04:13 pm (UTC)Well, in that case, maybe she'll adapt to the human method of memory as well? Or maybe she did in the past with them and closed it up because the break-up memories were painful? Granted, I'm doing the same theorizing again, but hey, I like doing that kinda stuff.
I'm just saying, if Lobdell was able to combine the 90s Superboy and the YJ Superboy into one cohesive character, he can do the same for Starfire here.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-21 04:15 pm (UTC)The main plot involves organs being stolen from people without cuts or surgery, while they're still alive. Is it possible that Kory's memory was also stolen?
Lobdell also mentions Kori's joyous nature in interviews, and that wasn't very obvious here. she didn't even seem like she enjoyed the *sex,* she just seemed to have some sullen voracious commitment to having as much of it as possible.
I think something is supposed to be wrong with her.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-21 04:16 pm (UTC)I think your saying that the perspective, empowerment, and sexual fulfillment (are these the correct words?) is for the most part here, being told from the guys POV , when it could be equally distributed among the cast (after all SHE'S sleeping with them too); and that the problem is Kory beating treated as the sexual object, as opposed to being a PERSON engaging in sex with other people?
Which if done right, is a more mature and different form of displaying relationships. I just have no faith in most comic book writers to do it correctly lol (even the talented ones).
no subject
Date: 2011-09-21 04:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-21 04:20 pm (UTC)We see a lot of Roy's/Jason's/random little boy's desire for *her* - we don't get the chance to see through her eyes and experience any of the reciprocal attraction she obviously feels back.
Presumably because that might make a *man8 the object of desire, which would of course be totally gay. :/
no subject
Date: 2011-09-21 04:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-21 04:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-21 04:26 pm (UTC)its a little bothersome the Cheese cakey ness of the Kori art... but at the same time... Kory has never been a shy one (but at the same time again, this is from mostly male writers....so im... confused as to how i should feel) I would feel a lot more comfortable if there was more male semmi nudity (at least that way it would feel more balanced, i mean there was roy... but why not jason too he's a pasty Gotham boy, he needs sun)
i don't really have an issue with her sexuality. i don't see her as a nymphomaniac at all here. i see her as a woman who knows what she wants and goes for it. i don't see her CRAVING sex i see her saying "You are attractive, I am attractive, we are on a tropical island. what more do you need? If you want to, fine if not, its your loss"
like you said, she keeps her sexual agency.
i guess the real issue i have is her... flippancy towards her past human relationships... however, even there, i feel like it could be her "lying to her self" Kory has had a hard life, but she knows things in life are only temporary. maybe when she split with the Titans she didn't WANT to remember them. if that makes any sense. I think in reality she does remember them and does care for them, but won't allow herself to think about things that are in the past....
i didn't dislike this enough to not read it... it seems to have more potential than faults... so i will give it another issue or two....
no subject
Date: 2011-09-21 04:29 pm (UTC)i think there is somethign wrong with all of them.
part of the coming plot seems to involve them facing thier pasts.
i still have faith in Lobdell, perhaps this portrayal is SUPPOSED to make us feel like something is off...
i mean like you said, its good enough and "on" enough that we don't hate it... but off enough so that we just feel... well we don't know how to feel actually....
no subject
Date: 2011-09-21 04:33 pm (UTC)It's the blatant objectification that I found disturbing, not the sex itself. I was also really creeped out by the memory loss, and the way that Roy didn't seem at all bothered by that even though he (presumably?) used to work with her.
i guess the real issue i have is her... flippancy towards her past human relationships... however, even there, i feel like it could be her "lying to her self" Kory has had a hard life, but she knows things in life are only temporary. maybe when she split with the Titans she didn't WANT to remember them. if that makes any sense. I think in reality she does remember them and does care for them, but won't allow herself to think about things that are in the past....
I am actually beginning to wonder if Kory's mind has been 'tampered' with by some outside force, and whether this will become a plot point soon. Her disconnectedness is quite disturbing,and doesn't hold true to what Lobdell said about her being a fundamentally joyous person, imo.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-21 04:34 pm (UTC)well, more money for me!
no subject
Date: 2011-09-21 04:35 pm (UTC)again. i have faith in Lobdell... there is more potenital for good here than for bad.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-21 04:38 pm (UTC)the entire issue felt like being dropped in the deep end, to me. I'm not sure I have enough of a clue about what's going on to judge it.