Red Hood And The Outlaws #2

[whitesycamore]

In my opinion? This issue was quite drastically better than the last one.





There was a lot of cheesy but fun-in-an-eighties-movie-way action, a lot of snark, and a lot of sexual banter - most of it at Jason and Roy's expense this time and some of it about Roy checking out Jason's ass, ha ha. Starfire was also much, much more self-actualised than she appeared last issue, which was good to see. She was still somewhat subdued, but her compassionate nature - and the fact that she doesn't take any shit - was evident. Her memory problem also doesn't seem to be as extreme as the last issue made it sound like it was - she doesn't have any trouble telling her team mates apart here, and she definitely remembers sleeping with Roy, although it doesn't look like she has any immediate plans for a repeat performance.

And this time the main plotline actually seemed, you know, main. The art was gorgeous, with both Roy and Jason drawn beautifully. Unfortunately, although Kory's fanservicey portrayal has been scaled back a lot, it still seems that Kenneth Rocafort draws men much more charmingly, gracefully and *naturally* then he does women.

There were lots of pages that I could name as my favourites, but for the sake of clarity I'll post the last three - which are also the three where the most genuine interactions between the Outlaws take place.


This page picks up where the last issue left off, with Jason finding the body of his former mentor, Ducra - who speaks to him in ghostly form before departing, telling him (fondly) that he''s learned nothing, because he's still all about the vengeance; yep, that's our boy all right.




I wonder if he can't shoot them because they were his friends, or because he feels empathy for anything that died brutally and was brought back damaged?




Interesting that for all he rips on Roy, he doesn't consider it 'his place' to tell him what to do. The person telling him to "see past your past" is part of a flashback to his training with Ducra, by the way.




Hmm. A past he forgot he ever had. Just a throwaway line for sentimentalities' sake, or a hint at the upcoming memory-themed plot in the next issue? And perhaps Kory's lost memories of her past have something to do with all this too.

Comments

[coldfiredragon]

I don't think BIG changes were made which is why I made the comment... was it fan rage and the writer listening or was it that everybody had jumped the gun.

I think people took their issues with #1 of the comic way way too far and it got out of hand. No one was willing to back down.

That said if changes were made for this issue at the last minute they probably involved altering dialogue captions and Jason's personal thoughts.

[star_of_airdrie]

Agreed - based on some of the expressions of the characters, I think the dialog and personal thought were changed in some cases.

[freddylloyd]

Given the timeframe of magazine production, I doubt that the reader reaction came early enough to prompt changes. However, we do know there was an in-house discussion of the first issue before it went to the printer, weeks before any fan response. That might have prompted Lobdell and his editors to change some wording.

[star_of_airdrie]

My best friend used to be editor of TV Guide, a weekly, and they once pulled an issue that was ready to ship due to an error. It was expensive as hell, but it was done. Yes it was just type setting but this was days not weeks.