RED HOOD Introduces New REBIRTH Take on Classic Superman Foe BIZARRO

>Newsarama talked to Lobdell about the new version of Bizarro, how he's approaching the "Dark Trinity," and what readers can expect from the relaunch of Red Hood and the Outlaws.

>Newsarama: Scott, we got a bit of a revamp of Jason Todd in the Rebirth issue. Or maybe revamp is too strong — tweaking? And are you continuing to tweak going forward?

>Scott Lobdell: Yeah, tweaking is a good word. I think going forward, I'd call it "filling out." Some people read the first one and didn't like that Bruce would take Jason out to eat and then make him Robin. And I thought, come on, that's not what happened — there are more scenes in there. It was one issue to show his background, so we hit the highlights.

>But when you see Red Hood and the Outlaws #1, you'll see that we're building things out more. You'll see some of the things that came in between. What we'll see throughout the series is a fleshing out of not only Jason's backstory, but also Artemis and Bizarro — in ways that will not be flashbacks for flashbacks' sake, but like Batman said in the beginning about touchstones in people's lives, how is what is happening in the present to the three of them related to what happened to them in the past?

>How did they get here? How did they become Outlaws?

>And within the context of the Dark Trinity, what happened to them on their way to becoming quote-Batman, quote-Wonder Woman, quote-Superman, and how they wound up being Red Hood, Artemis and Bizarro.

Other urls found in this thread:

newsarama.com/30552-red-hood-introduces-new-take-on-classic-superman-foe-bizarro.html
gamespot.com/articles/former-robin-teams-up-with-bizarro-and-an-amazon/1100-6442470/
darkknightnews.com/2016/08/exclusive-scott-lobdell-discusses-a-new-era-for-red-hood-and-the-outlaws/
youtube.com/watch?v=39PRBpIRSYc
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

>Nrama: Jason has a mission as you start the issue though, right?

>Lobdell: Yeah, it's kind of like Donnie Brasco or Michael Corleone. He's going to find himself getting involved in the Gotham underground. And in his head, he thinks, OK, this is good. I've been trained by Batman, I have all this experience, I can go in and do what I have to do and get out.

>But what he's going to discover is that he starts to have a genuine relationship with Roman, who is Black Mask. And he's going to start to realize that Jason, as a person, is kind of susceptible to father issues, whether it's his own father or Batman.

>And we see it in the first double-page spread where Roman is pining away for the beauty that is Gotham. And in a way, if you read that speech differently, you kind of see that Black Mask wants what he thinks is best for Gotham, not unlike the way that Bruce is doing what he thinks is best for Gotham.

>Then suddenly you have Jason, whose mind might be a little more wide open than the other Robins, is suddenly in this situation where he may have gotten himself in too deep. But that won't be for several issues.

>Nrama: You mentioned the "Dark Trinity," which is the name of the first story arc and is a term you've applied to Bizarro, Jason Todd and Artemis, kind of playing off the idea of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman being DC's well-known "Trinity." When you were coming up with the idea of the new Outlaws in Rebirth, was that idea of a "Trinity" in your mind? Or did it just kind of work out that way?

>Lobdell: I have been charged with examining those elements. It was more a matter of an offer from Geoff [John, DC President and architect of Rebirth,] upon redoing the Outlaws. The challenge was, what is the reason this group together? Who can we put in this group that will best bounce off of each other, or mirror each other's problems or challenge each other to be the better version of themselves?

>I can still remember the meeting when he offered Artemis and Bizarro as the other two Outlaws, and it immediately blew my mind the possibility that we could, you know, not just tell an Outlaw story about three characters and their quest for redemption — which is what the first series was about — but now we could explore, you know, once you redeem yourself, where do you go from there?

>Once you put your past in your past, where do you go with your future, with who you are now?

>While I think that Jason and Artemis and Kent Clarkerman are all fun, interesting characters who have these connections to other characters, I don't think you could write a series about three characters who want to be other people.

>So it's really about three characters who want to be better versions of themselves.

>So while we'll look at this series and see a "Dark Trinity," it seems unlikely to me that the three of them will ever, you know, shout "Dark Trinity Go!" or anything like that, or that they'll be a Dark Trinity headquarters that looks like a glass pyramid.

>Although… that would be kind of cool now that I've said it out loud.

>You have the best ideas.

>Nrama: I don't think I can take credit for that. But you know, these characters are very different from that Trinity.

>Lobdell: By different, you mean cooler.

>Nrama: Obviously. Much cooler. But even different from what people would expect them to be, particularly in the case of Bizarro. You're taking a different approach, right? The solicitations call him "fully formed." Was that something you wanted to do with the character?

>Lobdell: Yeah. Although Geoff presented us with the idea of using these characters, he almost immediately stepped away from what that meant. That meant we could start developing a character that is a Bizarro we haven't seen before.

>That was really important to me, to make sure that this book feels like you're coming into it without needing to know that there's the square world Bizarro, and the, you know, Forever Evil Bizarro, or Match, or you know, any other variant Bizarros we've met over the years.

>This Bizarro is going to be a different — you know, it's so easy to write Bizarro as funny and as childlike and unaware and naive and sometimes stupid, but none of those things appealed to me at all. I want to write a Bizarro who's just bizarre, who thinks differently than everybody else.

>And it's going to take Jason and Artemis awhile to get past, you know, this kind of "me am Bizarro" speaking pattern. You know, it's kind of like when you meet someone from a foreign country and they speak in a broken English. You might assume things about their difficulty communicating, but then you find out they're a surgeon or a present of a college. So it's you putting your own limited understanding of the person onto them. And it's not about them, but your own interpretation of them.

>Similarly, when they first meet Bizarro, it's almost like, oh, we have to take care of this fragile creature with the power to break the Earth in half. But as they get to know him, they start to realize this is a creature who sees the world and the universe and the space between the universe and the subterranean world — maybe all at once. The possibilities with Bizarro are endless, and I'm looking forward to exploring that.

>Nrama: OK, so to finish up, with the first issue coming out, give us the set up for what we'll see. Besides maybe what you've already covered, is there anything else you want readers to know about the way you're approaching Red Hood and the Outlaws for Rebirth?

>Lobdell: The fun part of the first few issues of Red Hood is the fact that we're really giving the characters the chance to breath upon introducing them, as opposed to the three of them putting their hands on each other and, you know, shouting "Team Dark Trinity!"

>Instead, we meet Jason and we establish his situation, and then we bring in Artemis and establish her situation, and then we bring in Bizarro. And as each of the characters start to meet each other, you start to see how they're going to react. In that way, I'm glad that we have the opportunity to introduce them, but I also think it's really important to note that each of these books don't function as, you know, just kind of placeholders for the story as it goes. But each of the 20 pages of story will feel like a story on its own. And I think it'll make it fun to read each issue.

>And of course, like any permutation of Red Hood and the Outlaws that we've seen in the last five or six years, this is a series that has continued to surprise, from arc to arc and story to story, and sometimes even from panel to panel.

>newsarama.com/30552-red-hood-introduces-new-take-on-classic-superman-foe-bizarro.html

>Kent Clarkerman

Wait, is that what this Bizarro is called?

Such a great art, wasted in this shity story.

Before Nu52 happened, Lobdell was about to have Bizarro deciding that he needed a secret identity too, so he would put on glasses and things like that when it was time to jump in the action.

He's probably using that idea now.

Reminder that everything that happened in Teen Titans to destroy Tim, Kon and Bart were demanded by editorial and Lobdell just did what he was told.

Generation X is GOAT and Lobdell is always fun even when he's a madman destroying everything

that's hilarious
this might be be the best Batfam book in Rebirth honestly

Why Bizarro? Shit, Superman's supporting cast sucks so much.

>It was more a matter of an offer from Geoff [John, DC President and architect of Rebirth,]
Based Cereal King, making offers nobody refuses.

God I hate gimp Black Mask

See

It's a bastardization of the "DC trinity".

>Reminder that everything that happened in Teen Titans to destroy Tim, Kon and Bart were demanded by editorial and Lobdell just did what he was told.

He still wrote Teen Titans, Superboy, Red Hood and the Outlaws, Superman and Red Hood/Arsenal horribly.

>Superboy, Red Hood and the Outlaws, Superman and Red Hood/Arsenal

These were good though.

This series has potential to be the best batbook if Lobdell played his cards right.

dubs
King's book is kinda boring
Trinity is going to be beautiful with bland writing
JL sucks dick
Detective Comics is using Harper so its automatically terrible
Batgirl is Babs

this is going to be the best Batfam book for sure

OK Scott

you don't think so?

>Kent Clarkerman
I think Lobell is mediocre, but that's golden.

>Not posting the superior Scalera cover

Thankfully every other writer is going to completely ignore this run.

I don't believe that one bit.

>>Not posting the superior Scalera cover
Because OP forgot to post that.

Final dress

why didn't they just go with that

I really like Scalera variants.

...

There's no possibly way this won't be shit

Maybe someone competent is ghost writing for Lobdell

goddamn lobdell.

Bizarro is great, faggot.

Lobdell is really throwing everything at a wall and seeing what sticks.

Just cancel the book and give him a bigger role in Detective, it had that whole new team dynamic now.

Or just turn him in to a Punisher clone, but that's a bit uninspired.

No, Jason is needed to keep Lobdell contained. Both are made for one another.

>Lobdell is really throwing everything at a wall and seeing what sticks.

Where you get that?

If anything the one throwing shit to the wall is Johns. He was the one that came up with the Dark Trinity idea in the first place.

>Just cancel the book and give him a bigger role in Detective, it had that whole new team dynamic now.

Tynion has never been able to write a decent Jason and Detective is serviceable at best. Is just retreading stories done better by more competent writers.

I only care about Artemis

I just hope she lets Jason creampie her

better than Bizarro I guess

Another Interview

>GameSpot: How has Jason changed since the last series?

>Scott Lobdell: In the first series, it was about him having been comfortable with Roy [Harper] and Kori [Starfire] from the first page of the series. It was kind of an about-face from "Jason was an angry loner," which he had been prior to Red Hood and the Outlaws [Volume 1]. With Red Hood and the Outlaws: Rebirth #1, we find that Jason is a little more skittish. He's tried friendships and it turns out he's probably not very good at it. Just as he's into that realization, he winds up meeting Artemis and Bizarro. Meeting Artemis and Bizarro under any circumstance is going to be a little odd, but the fact that these two ultimately start to challenge him in terms of even the way he views friendships and teammates is going to give us yet another new take on Jason and how he relates to other people.

>It's interesting to me that there was Red Hood and the Outlaws, then there was Red Hood/Arsenal, and now there's a new Red Hood and the Outlaws. While the membership and the pairing has changed over time, the truth is that even if the series had been an ongoing one for the last five years or six years, it would be my inclination to change up the dynamics as a matter of course. We're treating this as a Rebirth but also the third volume in the story of Jason and how he relates to the people around him who aren't Bats or Bat-family members. I think it's been really fun to write and exciting to see him grow as a character.

>Even though they're not brought in right away, can you tell us how Artemis and Bizarro became part of the series? Did editorial suggest them, or did you say, "Hey, I want to use these characters"?

>Originally they said, "We're doing Red Hood and the Outlaws. Who do you want to be in it?" I said, "I want Gorilla Grodd. I want a handful of other characters," and they were like, "Okay. Thanks." Then they called back a little later and they said, "Okay, we have Blackfire and Steel and another character. What do you think of that?" I said, "Well, there's certainly ways to examine that." Then I got called in and I sat down with the wizard of comic book writers, Geoff [Johns], and he said, "What do you think about if instead of those characters, we use Artemis?" I'm like, "Holy moley!" I would never ask for Artemis in a million years. I wouldn't think that they would even think to give her to me. Then he said, "And what do you think about Bizarro?" I'm like, "Oh my God!" I could not have been any more excited at the thought of either of these two characters.

>Then the conversation went on. It kind of grew into, "Okay, if these are the Outlaws, what makes them different from the previous versions?" Right away it was the notion that this was really ... We're calling it a Dark Trinity, but I don't know if dark is necessarily the right word. These are three characters who reflect Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman, but more in a house of mirrors kind of way. They reflect them, but they reflect sometimes the best qualities and sometimes the things that make them the most dangerous. I championed to call the series Dark Funhouse Mirror Reflections Trinity, but I was alone in my love for the title, so we settled on Red Hood and the Outlaws again.

>There are some flashbacks with Jason when he was Robin with Batman. How much of that past will you explore? Will we see more flashbacks throughout?

>Not only will we be seeing Jason's flashbacks, by the time this comes out everyone will have seen arguably the most unexpected flashback in the history of I think the Bat-verse. It's key to Jason's character, both in the past and present, but we'll also be seeing Artemis having flashbacks to the key moments in her life, that took her from a young warrior woman in Egypt. She always believed that she was destined to lead her people, and then at one point she discovered that her people were already being led by Diana, as Wonder Woman. It kind of threw her for a loop when the Egyptian Amazons got integrated by Wonder Woman's tribe.

>We'll also be seeing Bizarro's flashbacks, which are really fun, in the sense that the Bizarro that we meet in our series has never existed before. He's not square-planet Bizarro. He's a brand-new Bizarro, and we'll discover that there are memories locked away in his genes that provide a twisted version of Superman's own memories.

>Since Jason's in Gotham, is Batman going to play a part in the series? Is he going to pop in and out, or are you going to keep the focus on Jason, Artemis, and Bizarro?

>I think there's an awareness of Batman all the time, but I think that's true of probably everyone that lives in Gotham. Either you're hoping he's there when you walk down the street at night, somewhere in the shadows, or you're hoping that he's not as you're one of the people in the shadows, ready to jump out at somebody. I think just by the fact that you live in Gotham, there is a presence of Batman. As of this writing, there is not a plan to have Batman appear in the series other than in Jason's memories of his time as Robin and some of his earlier encounters as Red Hood. I think the way the series has been set up, where Jason has gone deep undercover, kind of prevents the idea that Batman and Jason are going to be meeting at Starbucks and exchanging notes.

>One of the things that I enjoyed in your previous volumes is that you really looked at Jason struggling with his relationship with Batman. Is that something that he's still trying to sort out--his emotions with their time together, the feeling of betrayal? Has he comes to terms with where they're at now?

>I think he has. It's funny that you've mentioned the betrayal part. I think that with any relationship that boyfriends and girlfriends can break up and marriages can end in divorce, but your father is your father and your son is your son. That's how it's going to be for the rest of your life. I think as Jason's relationship with Bruce continues, there are going to be different roadblocks and different off-ramps and on-ramps where he is going to. While he may have come to terms with his disappointment over Batman moving on after his death. I think what we see in the Rebirth issue is this notion that "Okay, that part of our relationship is in the past. How are we going to move forward, and how are you going to trust me if you're going to keep mentally keeping track of all my sins and all my mistakes before this?"

>I think the good thing about this relationship is that it's complex. I think it will remain complex always, because as time goes on, different things come up. I think there may come a time, many, many years and many, many writers from now, when Jason has a son, and then he'll be trying to teach his son things. That dynamic of how he was raised by Bruce and what are Bruce's expectations of him as a son, who's now a father, will change as time goes on. I do think that there'll be a lot of awareness of the dynamic between the two of them, but I do think that that part of the relationship has grown by this point.

>Is there anything you can tease that might surprise readers, without giving anything away, anything major?

>I read a lot about people's concern about having Bizarro on the team. I'll see, "I get Artemis, I get Red Hood, but Bizarro, I don't see how that works," which kind of mirrors exactly when the first Red Hood and the Outlaws came out. Everybody's big concern was, how does a walking supernova like Kori exist with these two yahoos? Similarly, with this version of Bizarro, I'm making an effort to present a Bizarro that is bizarre and not stupid. He's not childlike and not naïve, but bizarre. He thinks in the way that Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind thinks. It's not that he doesn't understand the world. It might be that he sees more of the world than you and I will ever comprehend, because he has a different viewpoint than anyone else. I think that while there will be elements of "me am Bizarro" speech factors, fans can be excited to look forward to a different, a bizarre Bizarro.

>gamespot.com/articles/former-robin-teams-up-with-bizarro-and-an-amazon/1100-6442470/

And another one

darkknightnews.com/2016/08/exclusive-scott-lobdell-discusses-a-new-era-for-red-hood-and-the-outlaws/

>Some people read the first one and didn't like that Bruce would take Jason out to eat and then make him Robin.

Who are these people so that I may kill them?

Ok Continuity notes about the only character that matters, Artemis.

It seems the original Perez stories involving Bana-Mighdall are back in continuity. On the other hand it doesn't sound like any prior appearances of Artemis herself are?

Also confirmation that Artemis is not just a codename for Aleka.

I can't wait to see Soy's take on Artemis

No spolies i reed it and it is good..

Wait, how?

comic shop guy know my dad. Lobdell: writes a good daddy bruce..

Oh, so we are going to get another moment with batdad? Can't wait to read it.

Here are the preview pages from yesterday, not blurry and readable

...

Gandini is such a fucking amazing colorist

And that's it. Funny how we already saw half of the issue

youtube.com/watch?v=39PRBpIRSYc
>That was me, Jason Todd

Batdad teaches to shave
Drinking and driving episode
Trying to flirt with Barbara only to get btfo by Dick

...

>Batdad teaches to shave
>Drinking and driving episode
Ok, that sound very interesting.

Trinity and JL are not Batbooks.

And you skipped All-Star Batman, Nightwing, BoP, Gotham Academy, Harley Quinn

Am I wrong for having hope that this might not be a bad run?

The Ma Gunn origin is back in? Shit I don't think that's been canon since the 80s.

And Lobdell wants to have Ma Gunn as Jason's own Alfred

Batman, 'Tec, Nightwing, and Batgirl have been better, without a doubt. Batgirl and the Birds of Prey might end up better down the road.

Red Hood and the Daddy Issues

People who have read this and the other Batbooks obviously don't think so

Looking at the previews with all the clunky exposition, doesn't look like it.

You misspelled "bad"