Red Hood Outlaw #37 Preview/Eventual Discussion

[OBrianTallent]

SO good having Rocafort back doing Red Hood! Love his work.

[Sergard]

Yep. I honestly pity whoever takes over the book, because following in his designs and style is a hard task to do as good.

So far, it looks fun. And again, Lobdell is doing his one page introduction on Red Hood and his team for the new readers. So I guess DC is trying to make this YotV stuff a jumping point somehow.

(I'm sending you over 9000 thousand of ghosty hugs and cuddies, @Serg. Cheer up, keep on and go stamping strong as if you were the boss!)

Thanks for the cheering up . I'm already feeling better. Thankfully, it was just a bad mood and not something worse. So it was nothing what a good night's sleep and reading some good books can't cure.

And I agree, this feels like a good jumping point for new readers. That's why I'm disappointed that the DC Year of the Villain Omnibus will contain RED HOOD: OUTLAW #40 and not #37. #40 won't even be drawn by Rocafort.

[Celgress]

SO good having Rocafort back doing Red Hood! Love his work.

1000X This, great stuff all around.

[G-Potion]

This will be fun for sure. I already love the designs posted in the Jason thread but seeing them here with their particular mannerism is just perfect. I'm very very happy that Rocafort is the chosen one to bring these characters to life. He's a good fit for Lobdell's crazy ideas.

[Zaresh]

Already read it.

spoilers:

It felt a bit disjointed, I think, with the story jumping into some form of exposition twice without barely any transition to soft it. But thanks to that, we got the almost always tedious work of introducing characters pretty fast, going right to the plot in just one issue. And we got a little bit of Artemis and Bizarro, and maybe we will see the return of Ma Gunn. And well, those teens are definitely teens. So it was a fast and entertaining read despite the issue with the exposition and the neck-breaking pace.

end of spoilers

[Rakzo]

Thought this was really good. Lobdell is clearly reminiscing his X-Men days with this new class that Jason has been assigned to teach to. At first it seemed out of character for Jason to follow Luthor's orders but fortunately Lobdell gives him a more understandable motivation.

Glad to have Rocafort back, love his art. If there's something I appreciate about this book is that is not afraid of changing the status quo to keep things fresh.

[brenster21]

The good parts of the issue: the prologue that explained jason's reasoning for training the villains, seeing artemis and Bizzaro together and bizzaro trying to find someone.
The bad parts I feel like the new characters won't last that long with one or two dying and being utterly forgettable. I would have preferred lobell trying to find some unused forgotten teen villains in combination with his new characters so there might be a bigger impact or the characters might be used after this run. Crux, the scientist that turned himself into an alien beast, was one of the few people that actually got cured by Arkham asylum and could actually work as a minor character in stories revolving around Arkham, but he will be forgotten by writers. I would prefer if Lobell could avoid doing that with these new characters.

[Sergard]

All in all I like the issue. There's a lot going on, mainly character introduction. I think I'll reread the issue tomorrow.

So far I like all characters, including Dr. Shay Veritas.
I'm surprised how much I actually enjoy DNA. I need more information about Babe - and about what happened to Doomed/Reiser.
I'm a little sad that Caden doesn't get mentioned. I liked his appearance in the annual.
My favorite part of the whole issue is Bizarro meditating. I hope that he will remember Ma Gunn.

[Jackalope89]

Jason looking out for these kids, whether they like it or not. And now he gets to deal with Doomsday Junior.

You can just smell the snark.

[Dark_Tzitzimine]

I really liked this issue, in fact, is the first one I downright liked in a while. Previous issues had been solid but there was "something" missing with them. Here we're back to what Lobdell does best, team-ups. The X-men influence is more than obvious on the way he handles the setting and the overall dynamics between the characters and surprisingly, Jason fits really well here. Generation Outlaw is a bunch o pretty colorful and interesting characters that again, show Lobdell's skill in creating new characters without real connections to older characters, something rare in modern comic books. That said, I'm pretty sure Rocafort played a big role in their design, or at the very least, Lobdell came with the concepts fully expecting Rocafort to draw this arc. The kids' designs are just perfect matches for Rocafort's style.

Plot-wise, the issue is solid. It introduces the setting, the new characters and, Jason's role in just a few pages and then dives headfirst into the plot making every page count. The callbacks to Lobdell's previous works and current events serve to anchor the story within the larger DCU. This also has the benefit of making this issue a perfect jumping point for new readers. Something intentional I'm guessing, because I'm sure quite a few people who don't follow the book will pick it up on Rocafort's work alone. However, I have to say that Firchow wasn't that good of a pick to color Rocafort's pencils. Colors need to be more vibrant to really bring out all of Rocafort's potential, as it stands, they're a bit muted giving the book a weird, scratchy look.

Regardless, I'm down to see where Generation O goes.

[Zaresh]

I really liked this issue, in fact, is the first one I downright liked in a while. Previous issues had been solid but there was "something" missing with them. Here we're back to what Lobdell does best, team-ups. The X-men influence is more than obvious on the way he handles the setting and the overall dynamics between the characters and surprisingly, Jason fits really well here. Generation Outlaw is a bunch o pretty colorful and interesting characters that again, show Lobdell's skill in creating new characters without real connections to older characters, something rare in modern comic books. That said, I'm pretty sure Rocafort played a big role in their design, or at the very least, Lobdell came with the concepts fully expecting Rocafort to draw this arc. The kids' designs are just perfect matches for Rocafort's style.

Plot-wise, the issue is solid. It introduces the setting, the new characters and, Jason's role in just a few pages and then dives headfirst into the plot making every page count. The callbacks to Lobdell's previous works and current events serve to anchor the story within the larger DCU. This also has the benefit of making this issue a perfect jumping point for new readers. Something intentional I'm guessing, because I'm sure quite a few people who don't follow the book will pick it up on Rocafort's work alone. However, I have to say that Firchow wasn't that good of a pick to color Rocafort's pencils. Colors need to be more vibrant to really bring out all of Rocafort's potential, as it stands, they're a bit muted giving the book a weird, scratchy look.

Regardless, I'm down to see where Generation O goes.

Mmm, colours were a bit too muted for my taste too. It's not that they didn't fit Rocafort's style that well, I think; it's that they were too brown-gray-ish. There were a lot of browns and coals and, in general, they felt like they lacked saturation. Not that every colour needs to be radioactively vibrant, but sometimes you need to point elements in the page with colour as well, call highlights. Blues were good and strong (look at Jason's blue eyes, or those teleport effects); but yellows, greens and reds were weak (desaturated) and, in the case of reds, often too dark (oranges too, were a bit too dark, the reason why it all looked a bit too "brown" to me). Another thing I noticed is that some of them were too dark, or too middle-tone. I recall a few panels that looked a bit like full middle or dark gray blocks.

That being said, I don't think it was a bad work: the colourist is good.

[Jackalope89]

So, is Babe in Arms an actual baby with a genius IQ, or just a small-sized girl?

Anyway, quite the colorful cast of characters Jason has found himself in charge of. He's been a team leader before, but actually looking after up and coming meta-teens...

So much potential for this story. And we even got a little peak into Biz and Artemis.

[Zaresh]

Ah, something I noticed. The kids are wearing a red jumpsuit. Well, they sure are some Misfits, aren't they?

[Dark_Tzitzimine]

Mmm, colours were a bit too muted for my taste too. It's not that they didn't fit Rocafort's style that well, I think; it's that they were too brown-gray-ish. There were a lot of browns and coals and, in general, they felt like they lacked saturation. Not that every colour needs to be radioactively vibrant, but sometimes you need to point elements in the page with colour as well, call highlights. Blues were good and strong (look at Jason's blue eyes, or those teleport effects); but yellows, greens and reds were weak (desaturated) and, in the case of reds, often too dark (oranges too, were a bit too dark, the reason why it all looked a bit too "brown" to me). Another thing I noticed is that some of them were too dark, or too middle-tone. I recall a few panels that looked a bit like full middle or dark gray blocks.

That being said, I don't think it was a bad work: the colourist is good.

Oh yeah, he's a talented colorist. Is just that his style doesn't mesh well with Rocafort's.

Also, the kids are wearing red jumpsuits with red hoods.

[Zaresh]

Oh yeah, he's a talented colorist. Is just that his style doesn't mesh well with Rocafort's.

Also, the kids are wearing red jumpsuits with red hoods.

Every good thing from both worlds .