The Renegade Robins Club welcomes you to the New 52! As the entire DC universe starts over, Scott Lobdell begins his Red Hood run by giving Jason Todd his own team of heroes known as the Outlaws! (Oops! I forgot: we’re not supposed to call them heroes or a team, are we?) Discuss this story in the comments section below!
Addendum: I think it’s unavoidable to bring up the various harassment allegations that have been made against Scott Lobdell, some of which he has confirmed as true. That said, I think it’s best that we address the matter in relation to the comics themselves. In other words, when we see trends in his stories that reflect his real-world problematic behavior, we are entirely justified in addressing those instances. At the same time, it’s best that we don’t turn each session into the bi-weekly “sexism in the comics industry talk” with no real connection to the stories themselves.
Having said that, I think that this first week might be the best place to vent it out if you need to say it. I’m sure that something in the first issue might lead the conversation in that direction…
I remember reading this book when it came out. I knew who Starfire was but I really didn’t know much about Jason or Roy. Of course, I knew Jason died but I had no idea how he came back or anything else. This was a fun a little book, it had some problems along the way and it was never the first read book of the week but it was a good read.
I hated this book when it first came out. I was extremely, overwhelmingly disappointed as a female Jason fan who had been extremely invested in Jason’s history and his particular habit of relating more to women, getting angry at gendered violence, etc. Combined with the fact that Jason has been catapulted back to prominence by a heavily female fanbase, it just felt like a huge slap in the face to have a book so drenched in sexism.
Honestly, I never liked any of Lobdell’s Jason before RHATO Rebirth. Once Rebirth came out, I was able to go back and reread it and appreciate that elements of some of the stuff I liked in Rebirth had started there, and generally go easier on it because I believed it seemed like Lobdell had taken criticisms to heart and worked to improve both the book and, via sensitivity training, himself.
The allegations that came out recently, however, dating to well after he had begun that apparent self-improvement effort, have heavily soured me on New 52 RHATO once more. It is impossible to see his Starfire now and not connect it to this behavior, and while I firmly believe in letting people change and redeem themselves, to hear that he continued this egregious behavior well after I had given him a second chance in Rebirth did not sit well with me. Maybe Lobdell will manage to become a better person someday, but he’s squandered enough chances that I don’t want to read a single other ■■■■■■■ book by him unless he does a WHOLE lot to make amends and regain trust that I doubt he will ever do.
RHATO was certainly controversial with long-time fans of these characters when it was first released. To be fair, the New 52 in general was criticized for many of the same things that RHATO was, so the book largely reflects the culture of the DC offices in 2011, not merely the whims of one author. And to be even more fair, fans naturally tend to dislike change even if the change isn’t necessarily bad. (New Coke tastes better than Classic!)
Here’s a three-part analysis of perceived problems with the first issue:
That said, this series also brought in a whole lot of new fans, and I don’t want them to feel as though they can’t express how much they enjoyed this series. So if anyone wants to talk about their love for the first arc in RHATO, please share your thoughts!
Can anyone recommend what I need to read to catch up to read this? I just finished final crisis and should read the rest of the Batman comics pre new 52. So flash point is all I should read afterwards right?
This story was part of the New 52 launch, so you don’t need to read anything beforehand. In fact, reading things beforehand will only make you aware of all the things that were changed in the reboot. The story makes no reference to Flashpoint, so all you need to know is that the continuity up to this point no longer matters. If you’re vaguely familiar with the general backstories of Red Hood, Arsenal, and Starfire (namely, that two of them used to be sidekicks and one of them used to be romantically involved with Nightwing), you should be fine.
There’s a whole lot I don’t like about this book. I hadn’t/haven’t read or watched much content with Roy besides this so I don’t know how out of character he is but Statfire is… ouch. The sexism is horrible and practically everything about Starfire’s history is incorrect. And with everything I have come to expect from Jason’s stories and character I was/am extremely disappointed in this whole New 52 storyline. I could go on about it for awhile but it looks like @AlexanderKnox left some good articles that can explain to better than I can.
Ok some other stuff I don’t like about it other than the obvious sexism and beyond crappy writer Scott Lobdell. The art and designs. I really, really despise the mouth helmet. Also I felt the team roster was a bit strange Roy makes some sense but not Starfire. I enjoy them both as characters but them teaming up with Jason felt out of the blue for me. There is also stuff such as the horrible treatment of overweight characters in Suzy Sue. Who is admittedly a villain but it just feels insulting to those who struggle with being overweight or obese. Why couldn’t Lobdell have used an already established villain instead of making a stereotypically offensive one?
Sorry for being so negative but there really isn’t any of the New 52 story that I actually enjoyed other than some aspects of the All Caste.
You know, this whole time, I’ve felt like I’ve needed to hurry through the stuff I like the most because I assumed that the members of the club were more interested in reading RHATO than the stories that came before it. And now everyone is expressing the same feelings I have about this first volume of RHATO, and I’m like, “Maybe I could’ve stuck with the Robin and Bullock Adventures just a little while longer.”
I don’t think I will go as far as to say I really like this series or really lionize it, but it wasn’t nearly as bad to me as it was for others, and there are moments here I thought were pretty good. It definitely has a rough start, though.
Honestly, I’m not sure if it’s due to the length of his tenure as writer, but I feel like Lobdell is second only to Winick in terms of shaping the iconic Jason Todd/Red Hood character we know and love.
And honestly, I don’t hate his takes on the other characters either, and as flawed as they might be here, Lobdell puts them in WAY better places than they were before the New 52. I’ll take Roy as a lovable idiot savant with a trucker hat over a depressed heroin addict beating thugs with dead cats any day of the week. Starfire’s “scent as memory” thing is…certainly a decision, but she has a lot more agency than in stuff before where she was just Dick Grayson’s clingy ex.
So yeah, I think this will be an interesting book to talk about as we got along.
I think the first issue is especially bad (even in the way that it structures the story), but it very quickly improves, even in this first set of issues.
Funny you should say that, because that reminds me of something I read (I wish I could find the link to it) around the time this series started.
I forget if this was Lobdell talking about this, or if it was Dan Didio talking about his talk with Lobdell, but when the whole controversy with Starfire was going on, it sounds like Didio went to Lobdell and asked him simply, “Is there a story to what you’re doing here?” Lobdell answered that yes, there was, and Didio let him keep going.
Now, one could ask, did he actually have a story in mind, or because he knew that was meant to be the right answer? I think it’s a little of both. We can see some improvements as early as issues 2 and 3, which would have already been in production by the time the first issue dropped. However, I don’t think you would have gotten issue #7 as it was without that controversy.
It is a series that starts slow. And good about sexualization, when DC hasn’t done this and they aren’t the only one. But leaving that aside this, there are good issus in the series.
All-Caste I like the dynamics that Jason has there, it is almost as if that was his real home, only unfortunately he has not realized it. When he defeats Ra he is very good. The part of the relationship between Oliver and him is a bit crude, but good.
I like the concept that Jason doesn’t know how to spread it, he’s between two worlds, so to speak.
Isabel however is a totally incipient couple. Rose is more the guy, I’m glad he hasn’t formed a formal relationship with Kory, pfff there are more women in the ocean and let’s be honest Kory has never been monogamous, the relationship with Dick has told us a lot about it, both were going and They came with different people, it was not the same Dick who slept with Barbara and then gave her the invitation, tremendous … hahahaha.
Personally I liked it, but the team with Biz and Artemis continues to be better, although it has loosened up a lot in the history after RHATO 25 giving good moments for a better plot and then leaving everything unfinished
Most definitely a very rough start. I really hated the sexism of the initial issues and that almost made me drop the book of I’m honest. I initially only stuck with this book for two reasons.
Firstly, it was a series about Jason Todd and Jason was on a team of his own. I was intrigued with the idea of his having a team and I was just happy to have some writer interested enough in the character to pitch a series with him in it. As a fan who really hated what was being done with Jason’s character prior to the reboot and with all the other Bats having had solo series at one time or another I wanted to find out what an actual series could do for him.
Secondly as rough as the start of this was I saw some really good and interesting ideas at play. I also liked that someone was bothering to move Jason away from Gotham and along with that some of his issues, which to a certain degree stem from it. I thought that was a brilliant idea.
I agree with that assessment @Jay_Kay. No one else has written Jason Todd as Red Hood as in-depth as those two. I’d even be willing to see what Winick could bring to the table now that Lobdell is ending his run.
That is another reason I stuck with the book initially. For all its flaws it did at least put all three of them in a better place then where they were before the reboot. It was a breath of fresh air after years of psycho killer Jason, drugged to the gills Roy and clingy ex Kori to see them acting like normal people again or at least as normal as people in a superhero universe can be. For me it added a spark of life to each of them that had been missing for years.
