Brothers in Arms, Brothers in Wings
Jason? Inherently lazy? I'm sorry, but no. It doesn't help that his team renders him generally unnecessary. This is one of my biggest gripes of the issue, for the second major time, a conflict is rendered moot by the appearance of Starfire. Sure, Roy had to rescue her from Crux, but whenever she's around, what has Jason actually had to do? I'm all for powerful female characters, but not at the cost of creating a completely imbalanced team. Not to mention that aside from that scene, Starfire's only purpose in this issue seemed to be not remembering who people were. Well ok, she did have a nice scene with Roy that created some character development.
The art by Kenneth Rocafort was excellent as usual, though his panel designs got a little tame towards the middle. Maybe it was because he did some FREAKING AWESOME stuff towards the beginning and end.
Lobdell kind of tries to force a 'redemption vs. vengeance' theme into the story; though as a far as 'forced' goes, it actually worked surprisingly well. I guess I'd say it felt almost forced because it crammed in some development for the backstory of a character who only showed up at the end of the previous issue after being presumed dead in the first issue. It feels like it should be forced, but it works out decently.
And the Night of the Owls brings character development to the surface. A connection to the Batman Family stronger than we initially knew is revealed. It demonstrates a darker side to a different member, and a softer side to Jason. I don't want to say more, but it's that character development spotlight that REALLY makes this issue work after the odd flaws of Jason's characterization early on, and uselessness in the fight.
In Conclusion: 4/5
A great issue. Not a lot to say. Jason was odd at the start and rendered moot for at least the second time in the middle, but COMPLETELY redeemed in the end. And then Owls next issue.
