Review: Red Hood and the Outlaws Volume 3 - Death of the Family

Convinced that having a family has made Batman soft, the Joker plots to eliminate all of Batman's partners once and for all. When he kidnaps Red Hood and Red Robin, Starfire and Arsenal must team up with the Teen Titans to find their missing teammates.

Red Hood and the Outlaws Volume 3: Death of the Family collects issues #0, 14-17 of Red Hood and the Outlaws and issues #15-16 of Teen Titans.

Much like Batgirl and Catwoman, Red Hood and the Outlaws was one of many books that was forced to collide with the Joker-centric "Death of the Family" arc from Scott Snyder's Batman flagship title. Unlike Gail Simone's Batgirl, writer Scott Lobdell struggles with creating an organic way for working the Joker into the overall narrative of his book. The effort comes across as hackneyed and disturbs the overall flow, especially following such an epic space-faring arc in the preceding issues. There's little to no character development, Starfire and Arsenal get very little panel time (largely because they are forced to share it with not only the Joker, but also the Teen Titans). By the end of it all, you're ultimately left feeling cheated by having to read such a disposable story.

That said, there are some moments that stand strong. We get glimpses of Arsenal being a leader, as he becomes the de facto commander for the combined efforts of the Outlaws and the Teen Titans. The continued push to highlight the character as a resourceful and remarkably intelligent character has helped in washing away the frat boy persona that made him so detestable early on, which is further aided by Starfire's confidence in him. Similarly, Wonder Girl's position as the Titans' second-in-command suits her. She's much more confident and sassy than she was in previous incarnations, which is great. She's not the weepy schoolgirl mooning over Superboy that we used to know and loathe. The final two issues collected also show some rather touching moments between Batman and Red Hood.

All in all, Death of the Family marked a shocking drop in quality for a title that had established itself as such a fun and insane book. This paint-by-numbers approach to writing a tie-in feels too unimportant and expected. Truth be told, it'd probably be easy to skip over this volume and immediately go onto the fourth.

Rating: C