"I Found That Essence Rare-----And Deadly!"
By
Elizabeth Airelle
This month we are back to our story involving Red Hood and the Outlaws in avenging The All-Caste. It opens with Crux being admitted to Arkham by a disguised Jason. Here he will be kept heavily sedated. Rather than let Starfire kill him, Jason reasons that it technically isn’t a crime to kill aliens, so killing a non-criminal would be against his (new?) code. Kori understandably isn’t happy with it but let’s Jason have his way with the promise she can kill who ever she wants if they visit her planet.
After defeating Crux they commandeer his
Inter-orbital transport with plans to steal from his “treasure trove of
technology” he’s cobbled together hunting alien artifacts .Essence then appears,
still only to Jason, which leads Kory and Roy to think he’s just talking to
himself. This is how she appeared in the first issue, informing Jason of the
defeat and slaughter of All-Caste by the Untitled. She attempts to comfort him over the loss but
Jason then attacks her. He accuses her of betraying the All-Caste and tricking
him into killing a member of the Untitled. She denies it and attacks back
becoming visible to everyone.
During the fight Essence reveals some of the
Untitled’s past.
They were a clan of nomads that drank from the waters of absolute evil.
She claims that Ducra was there and defied her brother but became linked to the
Untitled. She also claims Ducra was her mother. Jason doesn’t want to believe
her. Essence has the upper hand but vanishes when Jason pulls out some of Crux’s
alien tech on her, in the hopes, something, anything can stop Essence. While
the group continues out of Gotham, Jason calls the Flight Attendant, Isabel,
from an earlier issue. She picks up but he gets cold feet, and hangs up
reasoning he’s doing her a favor. Meanwhile in Gotham, Suzie Su has awoken from
a coma after surgery for the gunshot wounds from Jason in issue 2, and swears revenge.
I liked this issue for a few
reasons. Roy and Jason’s back and forth amuses me. I like the bit about killing
anyone Kory wants on her planet seeing how they will be in space soon! Jason
reveals that he and Essence were lovers at one point but I wasn’t that
surprised by it. Ducra being revealed as her mom did surprise me thoug. There
may have been an error because Baby Essence was behind a dark haired woman in
one scene, then Ducra was depicted blonde, then back to black. I was little confused for a second but
figured it was a mistake.
They only thing I didn’t like was
the abrupt ending to this story. She just vanishes. However, it was announced she is getting a backup
feature so maybe we can learn more. Hopefully she joins them because I like
this character. I heard Crux was supposed to join but considering he hasn’t been
mentioned in future solicits and is currently sedated at Arkham I assume he’ll
be around later at some point? I would
rather Essence join over Crux because she is more interesting and beautifully
drawn. Speaking of the art, next month kicks off the Talon crossover and Red
Robin will be guest-starring and I can’t wait for him to be drawn by Kenneth
Rocafort.
See you then, hoodies!
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