Red Hood and The Outlaws: Futures End #1 Review and *SPOILERS*

Written By: Scott Lobdell
Art By: Scott Kolins
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: September 17, 2014

Taking Out The Trash

What's there to say about Red Hood and The Outlaws Five Years From Now?  Well for one thing this
cover is really misleading.  I can assure you before we get into this review that there will be no Arsenal and Starfire trying to take down Red Hood, like the cover suggests.  Maybe just a little Arsenal, but it's briefly glanced at and the important thing to know about this book going in is it returns Red Hood to his roots by allowing him to go off and simply kick ass and take names.  While I've always liked that expression, I've never really got the whole taking names bit.  I've never had my ass kicked and then the person doing the ass kicking asks me "Hey, what's your name?" and I've certainly not kicked any ass in my time.......  That's what I read books like Red Hood and the Outlaws for to get it all out of my system.  So let's see Red Hood kick some ass Five Years From Now and see if he's missed a step in a post war world.  Let's check it out.



Explain It!:

Our story begins with Red Hood in an abandoned building in Central City, surrounded by police outside.  It seems that they have taken offense to Jason murdering the Mayor and they want a bit of blood as retribution.  It's kind of cool because for whatever reason, this scene makes me think about Batman: Year One when our Dark Knight was surrounded by Gotham SWAT.  It's all part of the plan my Hoodies, because just in case something like this would happen, Jason set up some explosive charges to act as a diversion to get away, while the police have to worry about the load in their pants.

Once free and clear from police interference Jason takes the time to reminisce about how he came to be alone and away from the Outlaws.  It seems that Starfire went back to Tamaran to secure her rule and Arsenal stopped slumming it with Jason to take Green Arrow's place in the Justice League.  Now the timeline kind of confuses me because Jason makes it seem like he's been on his own for awhile, but Green Arrow only "died" about nineteen weeks ago and during Jason and Roy's final confrontation, Roy was trying to stop Jason from stealing something and shot him in the head.  Don't worry boys and girls, Jason isn't suffering from any bullet related brain damage, his helmet deflected the bullet.  So that's one hell of a falling out and at most it could only have been eighteen weeks ago, so I don't get how the two could of grown apart so fast.  "Sorry buddy, I'm Justice League now. BLAM!"  Doesn't make sense to me.

After that brief stint down memory lane, we get to the meat of the book where Jason is a feared vigilante taking down the scum of the Earth.  You see he leaves calling cards for people that entails them waking up with a red clothe over their faces and when that happens you have twenty four hours to repent and turn yourself into the police for your crimes, or you know don't and die.  The lucky guy this time is Morgan Edge and I guess he thinks if he hires a team of mercenaries to protect him, then Red Hood won't be able to do his job........ of murder.  Why do people always think that they can survive something like this?  I have yet to see a movie where the bad guy gets to live and the hero........ hero type person who might not actually be able to be called a hero has failed and we all know that movies don't lie.  While Morgan Edge is feeling all safe and sound inside his penthouse, nobody thinks twice about the odd blimp that comes around and we see that Red Hood has really upgraded his gear Five Years From Now, when we see the side of it open and pretty much anything that can kill you is jam packed inside this balloon.  All hell breaks loose as the lead flies killing all of Morgan's Mercs and while reading this I seriously thought that there should of been speakers on the blimp, pumping out something like Carmina Burana O Fortuna, or Flight of The Valkyries.  Just something to pump up the feeling a bit and while it's ridiculous to think of a comic soundtrack, I dare you all to read this part and have one of those songs playing.  So good.

In the end Jason takes out Morgan Edge and moves on to his next target.  Killing is Jason's business and business is booming.  While I hate to think of Jason's friends just leaving him and even betraying him, it seems that not much as changed in Jason Todd's life Five Years From Now.  No emotional scars from the Earth 2 war and no disfiguring scars either, so besides for getting a little lonely, it seems that everything is just fine in the killing world of Red Hood.

That's it for this issue and while it wasn't anything really new, it is Red Hood being Red Hood and I can't fault anyone for that.  Seriously how far fetched would it be is everyone was fucked up Five Years From Now?  Someone had to make it out and resemble the person we knew them to be during our present timeline and it looks like Jason's the model of consistency.  See you next month as we get back to normal around here and see what Lobdell has our Outlaws doing now.

Bits and Pieces:

This has to be the least grand of the Futures End stories and I really dig it for that.  Understand that all of our heroes are doing things that are drastically different than what we've known them to do and Jason is still just continuing keeping on, keeping on and that's awesome.  Just a fun one shot, where we see our former Robin doing what he does best and not making any excuses for it.  On top of all that we've got Scott Kolins drawing the hell out of Red Hood and he just looks awesome in this issue.  Go check it out and get your action on with this Futures End book.

8.7/10