More Actual Comic Book Reviews

I'm on a roll! Thanks to Frankenstorm Sandy, I've had time to catch up on some reading.

Batwoman 11-13, 0
Other than not being all that impressed with Wonder Woman's appearance, this book continues to entertain. I love the art and the feel of the book, and Kate Kane is a great character. But my favorite scenes was the one between Jacob and Bette in the hospital. Kate's origin was retold, tweaked for the new DC. It was a decent reworking of Kate's backstory, but I prefer the original.

And now for the surprise....
I bought issues 10-13 of Red Hood and the Outlaws, and liked them! I was curious, and with an entire year having passed since the reboot, my grief and outrage have diminished enough that curiosity was strong enough to win out. I decided to get just these issues which focused on Kory, and I was pleasantly surprised. The art was nice and the return to Tamaran gave Kory the chance to assert herself as a warrior and now I'm inclined to seek out the earlier issues.

But what really surprised me is that I like Jason Todd in this. I hated him in the old DCU. He was a brat. An obnoxious brat, and even changing his background from one that paralleled Dick Grayson's to being a punk caught stealing a hubcap off the Batmobile didn't help. I was one of the folks who voted for the Joker to kill him. His background is virtually unchanged from his Red Hood days in the old DCU, but he seems less obnoxious here and I can see that he's trying to be a good guy, that he cares about his friends. It's almost ironic that one of them is Roy Harper, who was once as close as a brother to the first Robin, Dick Grayson.

And Roy! Wow. I want to know more about this version of the character, because he's like an entirely new person, only he has the original's inner heart. He's as much an idiot as before, but a lot smarter, too, especially when it comes to tech and science. Plus, he's called Arsenal again. While I liked him as Red Arrow, I always preferred Arsenal, to emphasize that he was no longer in Ollie's shadow.

These are three emotionally damaged characters, for whatever reason, and they've bonded, forming a dynamic that I really like. Roy's relationship with Donna Troy in the old DCU was among my favorite things I miss greatly, but his relationship here with Kory feels like it could be as special. So yeah, I think I'm hooked. I'll be adding this to my pull list and it had better not make me regret that decision.