This is how you do a sexy book
They’re young, they’re amazingly skilled, they’re wanted fugitives and/or thrillseekers, they can take on armies and middle eastern countries and they’re so in over their heads.
The Good:
- Rocafort: Normally, I’d call this “Art”, but Kenneth Rocafort does more than just comic book art. He does art-art. I would eat his art if it tasted as nice as it looks.
- Sexy: This is how you do a sexy book. You don’t need every female ever to run around in her underwear, but you need to have her act the part as well. Starfire’s always been good at that, but in this one, even the guys are sexy. They’re daring, they’re cocky, they’re just very enjoyable characters.
- Fun: The puns are lame… in a good way. “She’s got a lot on her mind… me!” was hilarious. The wordplay with Tanks/Thanks is also funny and in general, it’s a very light-hearted style of writing by Scott Lobdell that makes this book very enjoyable.
- Serious: The tonal shift from “Let’s have sex” and bad-but-hilarious puns to serious and actually rather dark was very well done. It was abrupt, yes. But it showed immediately that Jason Todd is not just some airhead college frat-boy who is out for fun, even though he thinks that the action he’s constantly caught up in is fun.
- New: Who are all these people? Who is Essence? Who is the All Caste? And all that stuff. I want more.
- Hood: The Red Hood’s helmet is pretty cool with its semi-transparent thing that allows you to see the emotions of the wearer and still, you are not able to tell whether or not that will work in real life.
The Bad:
- The credits paragraph: Now, normally, this is not something I look at, because I usually know who does what before the book comes out. However, this one says “Thank you to Jessica Rocafort” and so I read the rest, too. I can’t tell whether or not the colourist’s name is “Blono” or “Blond”. Both are not really real names for all I know, but in general, it would be really good if you could tell the letters apart.
The Verdict
Buy it. Buy it right now. Because this book is an instant favourite among the New Fifty-Two. It’s fun, it’s fast, the characters feel human and sympathetic and you can’t help but want more. Besides, it doesn’t take itself too seriously, which is a very good thing in this grimdark comic book world we’re currently having.
