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Dark_Tzitzimine
Oct 9, 2012

by R. Guyovich
Welcome to the Red Hood & the Outlaws thread!


This series came into existence as part of the N52 reboot at DC comics, and aside from being unexpected, it had one of the most controversial first issues that I've seen in recent memory, but more on that later. Let's meet our characters:


Jason Todd 'The Red Hood'

Mainly known for being Dick Grayson's replacement as Robin, and the dumb-rear end who got himself killed by the Joker in the 80's. Thanks to some continuity-altering bullshit, he was brought back from the dead in 2005 and took over the Joker's former identity becoming sort of an antihero, a constant thorn in Batman's side and an all-around psycho without direction for a few years. The reboot finally gave him a place in the DCU and made him a more heroic character by sticking him leading a team and giving him friends for the first time (amusingly, he was the Robin most benefited by the reboot).


Roy Harper 'Arsenal'

Green Arrow's former protégé. Famous for being a recovering addict, father, and beating people with dead cats. The N52 made him younger, erased any kind of family and turned him into a recovering alcoholic; pretty much a new character with the same name and some shared back-story with the old version. He's a genius at designing any kind of tech and has a knack for turning anything he gets his hands on into weapons. Thanks to some crippling self-esteem issues he chose to hide it all by acting like a clown most of the time. He's the heart of the team and is in a relationship with Starfire.


Koriand'r 'Starfire'

The team's ace in the hole: An alien princess who was sold into slavery by her sister to save their planet and became bitter and cynical due to that 'justified' betrayal. After claiming back her freedom, and a brief stint as commander of a warship, she came to Earth where she met Dick Grayson and formed a short-lived 'team' with him and other teen heroes. After a messy breakup with Dick she took refuge on a deserted island, stranded from mankind until fate crossed her path with Jason's.

The most divisive character in the book by a country-mile, she has little in common with previous depictions of the character, aside from a shared back-story (note a trend here?) and was oddly characterizated on the first issue.

The book was penned by Scott Lobdell for 19 issues, with redemption, trust, and moving forward as the core themes of the plot, while a light-hearted approach allowed for a 'buddy cop movie' kind of feeling. The book was also the best team-focused book back then (not than that was a hard task to accomplish since Teen Titans was a mess and the Justice League was all over the place).

Kenneth Rocafort was the original artist and while his take on female characters is somewhat questionable he drew some really impressive backgrounds making the book one of the prettiest to look at. He was succeded by various artists (mainly on the low end of quality input)

James Tynion IV suceeded Lobdell and almost killed the book with his 13-issues run (from issue 19 to issue 28 and the annual) and the less we talk about it, the better.

William Pfeiffer and Rafa Sandoval took over the book on March for a three issue fill in where the Outlaws faced Frankestein and Lobo:



The arc had a really strong issue but it took a quality dive by the end becoming something entertaining but really forgetable (the last issue even felt more like a Lobo issue than an Outlaws one)

Lobdell finally returned to the book on issue 32 and he brought back everything that made the book so fun before. Issue 32 works as a new jumping point for the series and so is perfect for anyone curious about it.

The book itself was an oddity under Lobdell's, despite being branded as a member of the Batman line of books it spent all of its time outside of Gotham with Batman only getting some references here and there but never the focus. It was only until the editorial mandated crossovers than Jason started interacting with the Batclan.

If you're only reading a few issues of the series pick issue 6 and 18 since those are the best thing Lobdell wrote and fantastic character focused stories for Jason and Kory (Roy got the spotlight on DCU Presents 17).

And lastly, the controversy:


There was a lot (and I do mean a LOT) written about this, so I'm just gonna say that it was tackled by Lobdell later, and there's more to it than meets the eye. Could it have been better? Of course, but if you're willing to give it a chance, I'm sure you will be pleasantly surprised and will have a good time reading it.

Since the OP looks kind of bare, have some kickass fanart:




(yeah, Jason is kind of a dork :haw:)

Well have at it. Everything's fair game on the thread (I will be the only one posting here otherwise :v:)

Dark_Tzitzimine fucked around with this message at 06:16 on Jul 4, 2014

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Madrox
Jan 31, 2001

Does whatever
a multiple can.
Edit: Deleting my amateur editing advice since Dark_Tzitzimine made the recommended changes.

Madrox fucked around with this message at 05:10 on Feb 28, 2014

Senor Candle
Nov 5, 2008
God Bless You Dark_Tzitzimine.

Dark_Tzitzimine
Oct 9, 2012

by R. Guyovich

Oh thanks for that!

See, this is the first OP I'm doing and english isn't my native language so I tend to made some really dumb mistakes on long sentences. Taking into account your suggestions right now and thanks again.

Dark_Tzitzimine fucked around with this message at 20:28 on Feb 27, 2014

Hakkesshu
Nov 4, 2009


I don't give a poo poo about 95% of DC's output, but you have much greater passion for this book than anyone has for any other book on this entire forum, so I will at least check it out :)

Dark_Tzitzimine
Oct 9, 2012

by R. Guyovich

Hakkesshu posted:

I don't give a poo poo about 95% of DC's output, but you have much greater passion for this book than anyone has for any other book on this entire forum, so I will at least check it out :)

Thanks for that!

As I said on the OP, you can't go wrong with issues six and eighteen and if you like N52's Roy his solo issue is pretty entertaining.

Stay the hell away from Tynion's run though, is a steaming pile of poo poo.

Kull the Conqueror
Apr 8, 2006

Take me to the green valley,
lay the sod o'er me,
I'm a young cowboy,
I know I've done wrong
DT, what is your opinion of A Death in the Family?

Was Taters
Jul 30, 2004

Here comes a regular
I have an equal passion for how terrible that loving RHATO book was long before Tynion got his hands on it, does that count? As a female comics reader, it makes me want to sew my vagina closed.

On the other hand, it's nice to know there's a comic for everyone, and someone for every comic.

Dark_Tzitzimine
Oct 9, 2012

by R. Guyovich

Kull the Conqueror posted:

DT, what is your opinion of A Death in the Family?

Is a nice curiosity and Aparo's pencills are great but the story itself is really stupid and dated (the Joker as Iran's ambassador and best buds with the Ayatollah, really?).

Jason's death is better told either in the animated movie or in the few pages it got on the title's zero issue, there's a fun bit of a trivia about the original DOTF though, Jason's ex- girfriend is the stewardess who serves him a drink on the flight to Etiophia. :v:


Was Taters posted:

I have an equal passion for how terrible that loving RHATO book was long before Tynion got his hands on it, does that count? As a female comics reader, it makes me want to sew my vagina closed.

On the other hand, it's nice to know there's a comic for everyone, and someone for every comic.

Absolutely, since I'm one of the few goons who reads the title (making this thread kind of dead) everything's welcomed here.

RealFoxy
May 11, 2011

I'm not making a fucking QCS thread for this but seriously can we take a harder stance on Kiwifarms freaks like this guy, Jesus Christ seriously, you used to be better at knocking these creeps down. I guess ADTRW mods aren't responsible like GBS mods are.

Dark_Tzitzimine posted:

Absolutely, since I'm one of the few goons who reads the title (making this thread kind of dead) everything's welcomed here.
I ended up giving Red Hood and Teen Titans the benefit of doubt and read the first 12 issues of both. I kind of liked it starting out but it got pretty dumb in a dumb way fast. It's not as bad as Teen Titans so I'll give it that.

Dark_Tzitzimine
Oct 9, 2012

by R. Guyovich

Flameingblack posted:

I ended up giving Red Hood and Teen Titans the benefit of doubt and read the first 12 issues of both. I kind of liked it starting out but it got pretty dumb in a dumb way fast. It's not as bad as Teen Titans so I'll give it that.

Shame about that, you didn't missed a lot since the book was kind of held hostage by the Batman's crossvers by then.

So I take than Kory's arc wasn't of your liking or the book went to poo poo earlier?

RealFoxy
May 11, 2011

I'm not making a fucking QCS thread for this but seriously can we take a harder stance on Kiwifarms freaks like this guy, Jesus Christ seriously, you used to be better at knocking these creeps down. I guess ADTRW mods aren't responsible like GBS mods are.

Dark_Tzitzimine posted:

Shame about that, you didn't missed a lot since the book was kind of held hostage by the Batman's crossvers by then.

So I take than Kory's arc wasn't of your liking or the book went to poo poo earlier?
I don't have problems with Kori running around half naked, I just wasn't that interested in the book.

DivineCoffeeBinge
Mar 3, 2011

Spider-Man's Amazing Construction Company
I've read every issue of RHatO because a buddy of mine gets them so I don't have to pay for them.

It is, in my opinion, not a great book. It could be. It has ideas and concepts that want to be awesome. It has potential. But the execution has been terrible since day one and the character designs - yes, I'm specifically thinking of Starfire here - have not helped.



That said... it does have that potential, and Dark_Tzitzimine, you are awesome for being willing to stand up to the prevailing sentiment of BSS and say "I don't give a poo poo what you say, I like this book and I will tell you all why." So good on you.

I still think you're crazy, but hey. ;)

Rhyno
Mar 22, 2003
Probation
Can't post for 10 years!

Was Taters posted:

I have an equal passion for how terrible that loving RHATO book was long before Tynion got his hands on it, does that count? As a female comics reader, it makes me want to sew my vagina closed.

On the other hand, it's nice to know there's a comic for everyone, and someone for every comic.

I feel like there's a lot of money to be made off of this sentence.

Dark_Tzitzimine
Oct 9, 2012

by R. Guyovich

DivineCoffeeBinge posted:

I've read every issue of RHatO because a buddy of mine gets them so I don't have to pay for them.

It is, in my opinion, not a great book. It could be. It has ideas and concepts that want to be awesome. It has potential. But the execution has been terrible since day one and the character designs - yes, I'm specifically thinking of Starfire here - have not helped.



That said... it does have that potential, and Dark_Tzitzimine, you are awesome for being willing to stand up to the prevailing sentiment of BSS and say "I don't give a poo poo what you say, I like this book and I will tell you all why." So good on you.

I still think you're crazy, but hey. ;)

I totally agree, the book is a great time waster but it could be so much more. Lobdell didn't wrote the best stories but it had such a great grasp on the characters than it made for his shortcomings mainly, than he would introduce neat concepts than were abandoned (like giving a sister to Jason). Hopefully Pfeiffer will use the full potential of the book.
I have to ask, you happen to have something positive to say about Tynion's work?

WickedHate
Aug 1, 2013

by Lowtax

Rhyno posted:

I feel like there's a lot of money to be made off of this sentence.

I'd honestly be a little surprised if that hasn't already happened ten times in one of the gritty Bat books since the reboot

DivineCoffeeBinge posted:

It is, in my opinion, not a great book. It could be. It has ideas and concepts that want to be awesome. It has potential.
I was really excited when it was first announced. A Red Hood book alone I thought would be amazing, and then...well, it wasn't the worst of the original New 52, at least, and it's still not DC's worst, so good on it for being published by a company where the bar is currently set very very low.

Cabbit
Jul 19, 2001

Is that everything you have?

So wait-- I thought Lobo was getting some horrible reboot that made him look like Kid Lobo grew up bishounen. That cover(?) appears to have Lobo Classic, though. What's up with that?

RealFoxy
May 11, 2011

I'm not making a fucking QCS thread for this but seriously can we take a harder stance on Kiwifarms freaks like this guy, Jesus Christ seriously, you used to be better at knocking these creeps down. I guess ADTRW mods aren't responsible like GBS mods are.

Cabbit posted:

So wait-- I thought Lobo was getting some horrible reboot that made him look like Kid Lobo grew up bishounen. That cover(?) appears to have Lobo Classic, though. What's up with that?
There's two Lobos now! And they're both pretending to be the same person! I still don't quite know what's going on either.

E the Shaggy
Mar 29, 2010

Flameingblack posted:

There's two Lobos now! And they're both pretending to be the same person! I still don't quite know what's going on either.

I feel like the outlash against TwiLobo is causing some doubts with DC and they're afraid to pull the trigger.

Madkal
Feb 11, 2008

I believe in all the ways that they say you can lose your body
Fallen Rib

E the Shaggy posted:

I feel like the outlash against TwiLobo is causing some doubts with DC and they're afraid to pull the trigger.

Pretty much. It seemed that DC was prepared to say TwiLobo was the Nu52's Lobo because he ain't your daddy's Lobo and the internet blew up. They have had to back peddle since then.

Dark_Tzitzimine
Oct 9, 2012

by R. Guyovich
NuLobo isn't that bad, he's even more heroic than classic Lobo and it was pretty entertaining on Supergirl, however, unless the cover is a red herring I doubt we're gonna see him again.

WickedHate
Aug 1, 2013

by Lowtax

Dark_Tzitzimine posted:

NuLobo isn't that bad, he's even more heroic than classic Lobo

Did we read the same Villains Month issue? Old Lobo may have blown up planets but rescuing people only to enslave them again and sell them yourself so they can be killed and have their bones ground up doesn't exactly make one more heroic and trying to contrast the two is splitting hairs.

Dark_Tzitzimine
Oct 9, 2012

by R. Guyovich

WickedHate posted:

Did we read the same Villains Month issue? Old Lobo may have blown up planets but rescuing people only to enslave them again and sell them yourself so they can be killed and have their bones ground up doesn't exactly make one more heroic and trying to contrast the two is splitting hairs.

Oh, I was talking about his actions on Supergirl. And you're right, calling him 'heroic' is reaching a bit, he's more honorable?; I mean he was giving Kara really good advice before being curbstomped by her :v:

NoMoneyDown
Jan 27, 2009

I've got the advantage. You've got nothing.
I'd also like to share my fondness for that particular book.

It has been a fun action series when it wants to be. Whenever the trio just :smug: s it up with each other, I am in love with this comic. But that complete disconnect when you realize Jason Todd is the wild card behind a secret war of magical cults, it just doesn't seem to add up considering this is Jason Todd. On top of that, we had an amnesia plotline that amounted to very little, and put the book in a standstill for a good chunk.

I'm just waiting to see if this book gets back on track now that we've gotten the gang back together, and this week's issue had a lot of the fun parts that I loved about the run before. So I've got some faith.

Dark_Tzitzimine
Oct 9, 2012

by R. Guyovich

NoMoneyDown posted:

I'd also like to share my fondness for that particular book.

It has been a fun action series when it wants to be. Whenever the trio just :smug: s it up with each other, I am in love with this comic. But that complete disconnect when you realize Jason Todd is the wild card behind a secret war of magical cults, it just doesn't seem to add up considering this is Jason Todd. On top of that, we had an amnesia plotline that amounted to very little, and put the book in a standstill for a good chunk.

I'm just waiting to see if this book gets back on track now that we've gotten the gang back together, and this week's issue had a lot of the fun parts that I loved about the run before. So I've got some faith.

'Sup fellow hoodie :hfive:

You know, the magic cult arc had a lot of potential but it was squandered thanks to Tynion's poor writing. A shame really since I was actually excited by Tynion coming into the book.

I'm also butthurt about how he wrote Isabel off from the book, she could've added a lot of depth to Jason.

NoMoneyDown
Jan 27, 2009

I've got the advantage. You've got nothing.

Dark_Tzitzimine posted:

I'm also butthurt about how he wrote Isabel off from the book, she could've added a lot of depth to Jason.

Well, to be fair, she was basically absent from the book anyway due to aforementioned amnesia plotline. Oh, and the whole Joker thing happened, too. So when they brought her back, it was pretty clear that this was the issue where we write her out. And I think that Jason has had ENOUGH depth with that whole "chosen one" schtick with the previous arc.

Dark_Tzitzimine
Oct 9, 2012

by R. Guyovich

NoMoneyDown posted:

Well, to be fair, she was basically absent from the book anyway due to aforementioned amnesia plotline. Oh, and the whole Joker thing happened, too. So when they brought her back, it was pretty clear that this was the issue where we write her out. And I think that Jason has had ENOUGH depth with that whole "chosen one" schtick with the previous arc.

Yeah, I didn't have high expectatives about Isabel becoming a mainstay but it would've been interesting to have Jason deal with a 'normal' relationship for once, and Isabel could've helped him to deal with his demons on a different way than Roy, Kory or even Bruce.

The Chosen One schtick was loving stupid though.

DivineCoffeeBinge
Mar 3, 2011

Spider-Man's Amazing Construction Company

Dark_Tzitzimine posted:

I totally agree, the book is a great time waster but it could be so much more. Lobdell didn't wrote the best stories but it had such a great grasp on the characters than it made for his shortcomings mainly, than he would introduce neat concepts than were abandoned (like giving a sister to Jason). Hopefully Pfeiffer will use the full potential of the book.
I have to ask, you happen to have something positive to say about Tynion's work?

See, I... don't agree that Lobdell had such a great grasp on the characters. :)

Given the setup of the book, of course... how could he? In the New52 relaunch no one had a great take on any characters because, for the most part, those characters were still largely undefined; it's hard for me to say Lobdell wrote a great Roy, for instance, when this particular Roy Harper was still someone I was getting to know - which, for someone who quite liked Roy Harper pre-reboot, was something of a struggle at times, I admit. And I really and truly despised his take on Starfire, but that's a big ol' can of worms that I'm sure we'll be seeing many, many times in this thread, so I'll just leave it at that.

As for Tynion, I genuinely think he did fairly well given the book he came on to. Lobdell created all these faintly gonzo things like the All-Caste and Ducra and whatnot, but they were so amorphous and unexplainable that when Tynion came on the book, he had to try and do something with them - the All-Caste being baked so heavily into Jason's new backstory that ignoring them would be pretty well impossible - and did the best he could with flawed material.


I've sometimes thought, reading your screeds about Tynion, that you're less upset about the book you got and more upset that you didn't get the book you hoped you were going to get; being less emotionally invested in Lobdell's run, I didn't have that issue. Sure, there was a lot of stuff I thought was pretty dumb, but you can't build a good house on a foundation made of dogshit.

Basically, I don't mind the book's existence; it's not so horrible as to constitute a crime against comics or anything. And it could be really fun... but thus far it's just... eh. It's there. It's not great, it's not the worst, it is what it is. I have a hard time getting excited about it, even though I should be excited about a Roy Harper that doesn't have a dead kid, a heroin addiction, a prosthetic arm, and a tendency to beat up muggers with the corpse of a cat. It's just kinda there.

Dark_Tzitzimine
Oct 9, 2012

by R. Guyovich

DivineCoffeeBinge posted:

I've sometimes thought, reading your screeds about Tynion, that you're less upset about the book you got and more upset that you didn't get the book you hoped you were going to get; being less emotionally invested in Lobdell's run, I didn't have that issue. Sure, there was a lot of stuff I thought was pretty dumb, but you can't build a good house on a foundation made of dogshit.

There's a certain degree of truth on this but my principal problem with Tynion is than he was pandering to the critics, his first issue was focused on giving those who complained about Kory's memories, Roy's past with Dick and who wanted a more street level Jason what they wanted despite that didn't made a lick of sense with the backstory Lobdell built on his run. That kind of pandering really bothers me since I'm of the opinion than you should write to tell a story and not to please the critics (I have the same problem with Simone's work actually). I mean, I want for the writers to do new things with Jason and grow past the 'angsty badass' characterization than Winnick gave him, Tynion was trying to return him to that status quo.

The awful art didn't help but the thing it made loathe his run was those flashbacks where suddenly Jason was a little bitch crying because 'he didn't knew what was right and what was wrong'

spacejung
Feb 8, 2004
I like to compare RHATO with another New 52 title: Voodoo.

The two share a lot of similarities.

The main one is the both of them tried REALLY hard to sell with "sexy" cover art. However, if you got past the cover, the art was very competent. Rocafort and Basri both delivered consistent, professional material, regardless of how cheese-cakey or goofy the script was. It that sense, both the books were more enjoyable to read than the ugly stepchildren of the New 52, these being your Liefeld books, your Brett Booth Titans and the whole Man of War/GI Combat catastrophe.

Story-wise, the initial authors were removed from the book somewhat abruptly. Ron Marz only made it 4 issues into Voodoo; Lobdell made it much farther into his project, farther in fact than Voodoo even made it before cancellation, but the Tynion reset did occur in the midst of the DoTF crossover and this has already been discussed. Voodoo had some of the worst sales of any New 52 book, and Marz was canned in favor of Josh Williamson. Now, in my opinion, Marz was bad but Williamson told a pretty cool story. Gone was the whole succubus/strip club noir thing that Marz was going after; instead it shifted gears into a sort of DC space epic not unlike the path that Lobdell took. I think that from an objective standpoint that issues 5-12 and 0 of Voodoo are pretty good, and in any event far superior to the other Wildstorm output of the period (including Grifter and Superman's short-lived Daemonite crossover). I also think it was trying to occupy the same niche as RHATO. In my opinion, Voodoo did it better. But it starred the character Voodoo, who is not popular and not under the bat-umbrella, so naturally it tanked. Voodoo was good but not great; it certainly wasn't good enough to generate critical acclaim like other popular non-cape titles, Animal Man and Swamp Thing, and the Marz false start didn't help things.

I am not personally a fan of Lobdell's writing - every character has sort of the same 90's Bart Simpson dialogue and I find that incredibly grating. I also don't think his plotting is anything great. But to each their own; I'm curious, Dark-Tzitzi, did you read any Voodoo and what did you think of it?

spacejung fucked around with this message at 21:34 on Feb 28, 2014

Dark_Tzitzimine
Oct 9, 2012

by R. Guyovich

spacejung posted:

I like to compare RHATO with another New 52 title: Voodoo.

The two share a lot of similarities.

The main one is the both of them tried REALLY hard to sell with "sexy" cover art. However, if you got past the cover, the art was very competent. Rocafort and Basri both delivered consistent, professional material, regardless of how cheese-cakey or goofy the script was. It that sense, both the books were more enjoyable to read than the ugly stepchildren of the New 52, these being your Liefeld books, your Brett Booth Titans and the whole Man of War/GI Combat catastrophe.

Story-wise, the initial authors were removed from the book somewhat abruptly. Ron Marz only made it 4 issues into Voodoo; Lobdell made it much farther into his project, farther in fact than Voodoo even made it before cancellation, but the Tynion reset did occur in the midst of the DoTF crossover and this has already been discussed. Voodoo had some of the worst sales of any New 52 book, and Marz was canned in favor of Josh Williamson. Now, in my opinion, Marz was bad but Williamson told a pretty cool story. Gone was the whole succubus/strip club noir thing that Marz was going after; instead it shifted gears into a sort of DC space epic not unlike the path that Lobdell took. I think that from an objective standpoint that issues 5-12 and 0 of Voodoo are pretty good, and in any event far superior to the other Wildstorm output of the period (including Grifter and Superman's short-lived Daemonite crossover). I also think it was trying to occupy the same niche as RHATO. In my opinion, Voodoo did it better. But it starred the character Voodoo, who is not popular and not under the bat-umbrella, so naturally it tanked. Voodoo was good but not great; it certainly wasn't good enough to generate critical acclaim like other popular non-cape titles, Animal Man and Swamp Thing, and the Marz false start didn't help things.

I am not personally a fan of Lobdell's writing - every character has sort of the same 90's Bart Simpson dialogue and I find that incredibly grating. I also don't think his plotting is anything great. But to each their own; I'm curious, Dark-Tzitzi, did you read any Voodoo and what did you think of it?

I did catch the first few issues but I never could made any heads or tails of the plot (mainly because I don't give a rat rear end about Wildstorm), I do remember thinking than having Voodoo being an alien disguised as a sexy woman was kind of a cop-out though.

To be honest I'd totally forgotten about Voodoo until you mentionated it now, and thinking a little they really try it's hand at having variety back then with so many weird rear end titles on the shelves (I, Vampire was pretty dope after the boring first issues and Resurrection Man was really interesting).

And you're right about Lobdell, his dialogue is kind of weird sometimes and is pretty obvious than certain concepts he introduced on the title were just excuses to move the plot forward and yet, he made care about Roy and Kory (I initially was all :psyduck: about their incursion on 'Jason's title') and treated Jason better than any other writer had done.

Dark_Tzitzimine fucked around with this message at 22:05 on Feb 28, 2014

spacejung
Feb 8, 2004

Dark_Tzitzimine posted:

I did catch the first few issues but I never could made any heads or tails of the plot (mainly because I don't give a rat rear end about Wildstorm), I do remember thinking than having Voodoo being an alien disguised as a sexy woman was kind of a cop-out though.

To be honest I'd totally forgotten about Voodoo until you mentionated it now, and thinking a little they really try it's hand at having variety back then with so many weird rear end titles on the shelves (I, Vampire was pretty dope after the boring first issues and Resurrection Man was really interesting).

And you're right about Lobdell, his dialogue is kind of weird sometimes and is pretty obvious than certain concepts he introduced on the title were just excuses to move the plot forward and yet, he made care about Roy and Kory (I initially was all :psyduck: about their incursion on 'Jason's title') and treated Jason better than any other writer had done.

I agree that Resurrection Man and I, Vampire are two extremely good New 52 sleepers.

See what you think of Voodoo from issue 5 forward if you get the chance.

Dark_Tzitzimine
Oct 9, 2012

by R. Guyovich

spacejung posted:

I agree that Resurrection Man and I, Vampire are two extremely good New 52 sleepers.

See what you think of Voodoo from issue 5 forward if you get the chance.

Okay, I read the whole run of Voodoo and I don't see many similarities with RHATO. Marz kind of tricked the readers presenting Voodoo like a stripper and outside of a few jabs on Williamson's run it was forgotten in favor of a more grim and violent story, Lobdell comitted to Kory's sensuality and made it an important par of her character if anything, he added more depth to the characterization.

Despite appearances, Lobdell never tried to turn RHATO into a space-opera and it was a convenient setting brought by Kory's background, I always liked to think of RHATO like an adventurer kind of book. With the team traveling everywhere righting wrongs, collecting bounties or just having a little R&R in the middle of taking down criminal empires. Voodooo on the other hand, was comitted to set the pieces for the EPIC daemonite war and such, lost its creative freedom.

But the biggest difference is the tone, despite the hosed up backstory of the Outlaws there was always hope for them, hope to be better people, hope to find happiness, hope to move forward and build a new future (incidentally, this is why I LOVED the book under Lobdell)

This fanart shows perfectly the idea:


With Voodo, the only hope than I got was the hope of bloody vengeance and things only went worse as the book progressed. The action was amazing (even better than RHATO's I have to admit) but there were no fun or friendship coming from the cast, only death, deceive and despair.

Voodoo is also a straight up villian with no reedeming qualities and Priscila is held up by her past so is hard to root for the main characters, the Black Razors were a great addition to the book but they came too late and were painfully underused (and with the existance of ARGUS I doubt we'll se them again).

The biggest fault of Voodoo is that doesn't have cohesion to the bigger DCU (hardly the writer's fault), the mentions of Superman felt really forced and Kyle's guest spot didn't mesh up with the plot. All of this amounts to a definitive apathy from me, since I know that there's nothing here than will have consequences on other books, Future's end could prove me wrong though.

RHATO was also a little disconnected from the bigger DCU but the little nods Lobdell put on the plot served to remind than while the team was minding it's own business it was part of something bigger (this point is kind of a foul given Jason's backstory in hindsight).

I can agree than both books fall inside the adventure book template and both of them have their strong points but RHATO is a more brighter take on it and therefore the best of the two.

spacejung
Feb 8, 2004
Well I'm glad you enjoyed some parts of it, and I understand what you mean about the things that put you off.

As far as this thread is concerned, I came in expecting to find copious amounts of backlash and mockery (and I'm thinking there is likely more to come) but it seems like you like this particular comic so much that you're not going to change your tune any time soon. You've taken your share of abuse in the general threads; however if it results in people enjoying comics that they'd previously written off, then you'll have done some good in my opinion. Carry on, Dark_Tzitzimine - your train has left the station perhaps headed for somewhere strange yet I for one will stand in its way no longer.

Dark_Tzitzimine
Oct 9, 2012

by R. Guyovich

spacejung posted:

Well I'm glad you enjoyed some parts of it, and I understand what you mean about the things that put you off.

As far as this thread is concerned, I came in expecting to find copious amounts of backlash and mockery (and I'm thinking there is likely more to come) but it seems like you like this particular comic so much that you're not going to change your tune any time soon. You've taken your share of abuse in the general threads; however if it results in people enjoying comics that they'd previously written off, then you'll have done some good in my opinion. Carry on, Dark_Tzitzimine - your train has left the station perhaps headed for somewhere strange yet I for one will stand in its way no longer.

Thank you good sir, it was great talking to you :tipshat:

And you can bet than I'll keep riding this crazy train until the bitter end.

Soonmot
Dec 19, 2002

Entrapta fucking loves robots




Grimey Drawer

spacejung posted:

I agree that Resurrection Man and I, Vampire are two extremely good New 52 sleepers.

See what you think of Voodoo from issue 5 forward if you get the chance.

OMG, Resurrection Man. You want to talk about distractionaly ridiculous cheesecake, the end of Resurrection man takes the cake. Catwoman, Starfire, Voodoo, yeah these were eyerollers epsecially taken to the degree they were. But it wasn't surprising, disappointing, sure, but not surprising.

The appearance of the Body Doubles in RM, complete with panty shots and skimpy torn outfits couple with a "sexy" attitude just destroyed the tone the book was going for. As much poo poo as we all, rightly, gave Red Hood for what it did to Starfire, I think RM got off really easy.

DivineCoffeeBinge
Mar 3, 2011

Spider-Man's Amazing Construction Company

Soonmot posted:

OMG, Resurrection Man. You want to talk about distractionaly ridiculous cheesecake, the end of Resurrection man takes the cake. Catwoman, Starfire, Voodoo, yeah these were eyerollers epsecially taken to the degree they were. But it wasn't surprising, disappointing, sure, but not surprising.

The appearance of the Body Doubles in RM, complete with panty shots and skimpy torn outfits couple with a "sexy" attitude just destroyed the tone the book was going for. As much poo poo as we all, rightly, gave Red Hood for what it did to Starfire, I think RM got off really easy.

I hated hated hated New52 Resurrection Man because the pre-New52 Resurrection Man had been one of my favorite books and the new version simply had no time for subtlety or nuance. It was not very good. :(

Dark_Tzitzimine
Oct 9, 2012

by R. Guyovich

DivineCoffeeBinge posted:

I hated hated hated New52 Resurrection Man because the pre-New52 Resurrection Man had been one of my favorite books and the new version simply had no time for subtlety or nuance. It was not very good. :(

I'm only familiar with N52's RM and I thought it got an interesting premise (specially the reveals of Mitch true origins and the whole heaven/hell thing) but color me surprised about being a poor take on the idea.

EDIT: And now Jason is gonna hang out with Bruce, Babs and the Superman family



:flashfap:

I do wonder if he was always intended to show or if they're only using him because Dick's unavailable though.

Dark_Tzitzimine fucked around with this message at 17:25 on Mar 3, 2014

spacejung
Feb 8, 2004

Soonmot posted:

OMG, Resurrection Man. You want to talk about distractionaly ridiculous cheesecake, the end of Resurrection man takes the cake. Catwoman, Starfire, Voodoo, yeah these were eyerollers epsecially taken to the degree they were. But it wasn't surprising, disappointing, sure, but not surprising.

The appearance of the Body Doubles in RM, complete with panty shots and skimpy torn outfits couple with a "sexy" attitude just destroyed the tone the book was going for. As much poo poo as we all, rightly, gave Red Hood for what it did to Starfire, I think RM got off really easy.

DivineCoffeeBinge posted:

I hated hated hated New52 Resurrection Man because the pre-New52 Resurrection Man had been one of my favorite books and the new version simply had no time for subtlety or nuance. It was not very good. :(

The anime upskirt crap was as ridiculous as it gets, but at least it has a plot that builds to some kind of resolution. How many of the original N52 titles can you say that about?

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bobkatt013
Oct 8, 2006

You’re telling me Peter Parker is ...... Spider-man!?

spacejung posted:

The anime upskirt crap was as ridiculous as it gets, but at least it has a plot that builds to some kind of resolution. How many of the original N52 titles can you say that about?

I Vampire, Dial H, and ??

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