Red Hood (and the) Outlaw(s) Annual #3

Now we will finally get to know what happened to Artemis and Bizarro.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Right away we get a lot of information on Jason's state of mind. When we last saw him Lex Luthor had offered Jason the chance to train the villains of tomorrow. He approaches one kid named Caden (codename Vessel in the narration box) that can use the powers of the dead. He seems like a nice kid that doesn't like using his powers because they hurt. Jason clarifies that he isn't asking for him to use his powers to find Artemis and Bizarro as his hand nears the gun in his holster.

The scene is unnerving for several reasons: Jason hasn't used guns much since the last Annual but choses to bring them back here. He doesn't want to hurt a child yet he reaches for a gun to make an implied threat to a kid. I haven't listened to the recent podcast interview yet but Lobdell apparently claimed that Jason's biggest priority is making sure his students survive which begs the question why he felt the need to act like this. Way back in the first volume of RHATO Roy thought Jason would shoot S'aru because he didn't know Jason well at that point. Maybe there's more going on than we're seeing.

Maybe it has to do with Jason's own death?

Caden has an inhuman look and an eerie grin when Jason takes him out of the holo-room. Is he such a threat that Jason has to threaten him to get him in line? Is the politeness an act? He doesn't seem to even take note of the threat except to comply. It's weird because it's also vastly different from the JLU scene with Batman comforting Ace (the girl) on the swing. Jason seemed happy enough to listen to Luthors' offer to be a teacher but doesn't seem thrilled here. He does learn that Artemis and Bizarro aren't dead which means he was starting to believe they were. But could Caden even tell if their on another Earth?

Artemis and Bizarro ended up on an Earth where all metas lost their powers and normal people gained abilties which they used to kill the Justice League. Artemis got seperated from her axe Mistress and Bizarro accidently kills a man by punching him into the sun. I'm not liking the idea of Bizarro causally suggesting killing people. I felt like that should have been a bigger moment when he did kill for the first time but it's shrugged off. There's a lot of potential for the idea of the team being stranded on this Earth of "normal people" being metas but not enough time was given the flesh out this concept. I would have loved to see how Artemis and Bizarro felt being stuck there and see them missing Jason.

Usually Annuals have a lot going on and I feel pretty satisfied once I end the issue. That wasn't the case here, I felt like too much of the story was missing and wasn't a fan of the rushed pace. The Jason scene was my favorite, it had all the information we needed on what he was doing and what he was feeling. While there were other characters like Jack Knife (the Joker?) I wasn't too invested in any of them since there wasn't enough space to see them develop.

A reread might help but I feel a little underwhelmed right now and just want to get to the point the team reunites. Also...where is Ma Gunn?