Sunday, February 12, 2023

MYTHCOMICS: DARK TRINITY (RED HOOD AND THE OUTLAWS #1-6, 2017-18)

When I picked up this compilation of the first six issues of the "Rebirth" version of DC's RED HOOD AND THE OUTLAWS, a lot of things mitigated against my finding anything beyond basic formula entertainment (if that). As I stated in these reviews, I've devoted only slight attention to the creation of the Red Hood, a.k.a. reborn former Robin Jason Todd. I didn't care that much about any of the early iterations of Jason, and hadn't followed the 2011 OUTLAWS title, though I remember being pleasing that it had ticked off various moral guardians with its sexploitation elements. The new version of the "Outlaws" teamed up Jason-Hood with a brand-new version of Bizarro and some Rebirth iteration of Artemis, a would-be Wonder Woman, with whom I was never particularly impressed. The title of the compilation told me that this tortured trio were meant to parody the "Trinity" of Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman, but I've found a number of Trinity-projects tedious. Frankly, the main reason I selected this TRINITY was because I'd found writer Scott Lobdell had a talent for humor, so even if it was formula, it might be funny.



Like a lot of Lobdell stories, TRINITY is full of cute one-liners, some good, some overkill. What I didn't expect to find was a really thoughtful dramatization of the perils of being a DC "legacy character" of one kind or another. Bizarro was conceived to be Superman's "imperfect duplicate," while both Red Hood and Artemis tried and failed to take over previously established identities. Artemis's relationship with Wonder Woman was entirely acrimonious, while Jason Todd was at least chosen to be the second Robin by the Big Bat himself. But Lobdell extends the notion of the "legacy character"-- often no more than a feeble reprise of some original character-- into a metaphor for the struggles between child and parent. For Red Hood, the struggle is about gaining respect from his Bat-dad and forging his own identity. Artemis's conflict has less to do with Wonder Woman than with the separate Amazon culture in which she was raised. This version of Bizarro has no previous history with anyone, but he is raised knowing that he was designed to be a knock-off, which doesn't do a lot for his ego.



Lobdell also cranks up the parental metaphor by choosing Black Mask as the villain of TRINITY. Though the character was conceived as something of a small-potatoes schemer, subsequent treatments, including that of Judd Winick in the RED HOOD stories, made the character into a ruthless gang-boss constantly seeking not only to kill Batman and his allies but also to eliminate all criminal competition. Without contradicting anything in the origin of the Doug Moench character, this Black Mask is given a Batman-like obsession with Gotham City. In his newest scheme to become the city's new lord and master, he reaches out to Red Hood, whose relationship to Batman many consider ambivalent. The Hood hopes to get into the villain's good graces in order to build a case against him, and so agrees to help Black Mask rip off a shipment of arcane weapons. Artemis, looking for one of those weapons, crosses swords (in a purely metaphorical way) with Red Hood. Despite lots of trash-talk, both are horrified to learn that the weapon Black Mask most desires is a clone of Superman. 



The whole "allies of convenience" is nothing special, but both Red Hood and Artemis are placed in a sticky situation in attempting to liberate a mentally-impaired Superman-clone from the control of a vicious crime-lord. Red Hood, having been reborn under circumstances not unlike Bizarro's genesis, forges a particular bond with the artificial super-being, as illustrated above. This is one of the few times that Kryptonian super-hearing is utilized in order to make the hearer relate to the chaos of the city he inhabits, as well as giving perspective on the relationship of both characters within the overall matrix of common humanity.



But Black Mask, despite his having sometimes appealed to Red Hood to become his new heir (and surrogate son), has been fully aware of the hero's hero-ness the whole time, and uses a techno-organic virus to take control of Bizarro. (Said virus is seen in the first chapter, and then ignored until the writer works it into the main plot. Wow, an actual PLOT-DEVELOPMENT in a modern comic!) Artemis, despite having no real reason to involve herself in Red Hood's battle, does the right thing and delays Bizarro until the Hood can manage to destroy the Mask's control. This includes an inventive sequence, possibly a reprise of a Grant Morrison conceit, in which the villain experiences the enhanced sight of a Kryptonian.

So Black Mask is defeated and almost left to die by Red Hood, though a joke coda gives the villain a fate worse than death, again invoking parental metaphors. For every overkill-joke, there are probably three good ones, and for a modern comic that's a pretty good average. And to top it all off is this cover, in which artist Dexter Soy riffs on the Max Allan Collins version of Jason Todd, first seen stealing the tires off the Batmobile.



 I don't imagine the regular series, which in one form or another ended in 2020, kept up this level of mythic engagement. Still, there are so many lame treatments of DC legacy characters that this arc gives me hope that the company hasn't been entirely ruined by constant reboots and political correctness.

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