Biz. Honey. No…

Red Hood And The Outlaws #18
Writer: Scott Lobdell
Artist: Sergio Sandoval
Inks: Juan Albarran
Colors:  Michael Atiyeh
Letters: Taylor Esposito
Covers: Mike McKone & Romulo Fajardo Jr; Guillem March
Editor: Brian Cunningham & Rob Levin
Publisher: DC Comics
$3.99

Queen Bee – ahem, make that H.I.V.E. Queen – arrives just in time to start some mess and drop some clues about what the hell is going on with Bizarro. In this issue we see one of my favorite characters of all time making his first official appearance, get some fun callbacks to Artemis’ past and Jason’s previous adventures with Roy and Kori, as well as a very interesting mention of Jason’s training with the All Caste that makes me wonder if we’ll be seeing the more mystical side of Jason come into play soon. In fact I hope it does, as whatever Bizarro’s doing to himself seems to be ill-fated at best, potentially world-ending at worst and, since all Kryptonians have a weakness against magic, Jason’s innate magical abilities (Ducra was thinking of making him his heir for a reason) may be the only thing that saves Biz from himself.

The artwork, by guest artists Sergio Sandoval, Juan Albarran and Michael Atiyeh is gorgeous. Clean, crisp realistic bodies and facial expressions, combined with wonderfully detailed costumes and backgrounds (Seriously, check out Queen Bee’s outfit. I straight up want to cosplay it and her crew looks fantastic as well.) and colors that just pop off the page made this a re-read just to make sure I caught everything that was going on. If there is anything that I have a quibble about it’s that on some panels Jason appears older than we’ve been led to believe but the overall work is pretty boss.

While we finally get some answers as to what is going on with Bizarro we’re left with more questions and some truly unsettling implications about the mental state of Bizarro and Jason.

If what’s implied to be going on is true things are about to get ugly.

5 Kryptonite baths out of 5.