Red Tornado 1.  This is one of those issues I really really was looking forward to and at the same time really really didn't want to read.  
 
Have you ever had a character you love that nobody does right?  Maybe its Hawk who was great under Barbara Kesel but everyone else just writes him like a dick.  Or maybe its Jason Todd who is a strong character and a true hero when written by Starlin or Wolfman but he's either a brat or completely nuts under any other writer.
 
For me?  That character is the Red Tornado...when Peter David is writing him.  He's a great character who thought he had lost all emotion, who tried to distance himself from everything only to find that he couldn't.  He feels detached from most people but he can't help but do his best to protect them, especially children even though they usually annoy the heck out of him.  He's a father figure who would do anything for his adopted daughter...under Peter David.  Everybody else seems to write him as this socially inept jerk because "he's a robot."  Pisses me off.
 
Anyways, so I was hoping, really hoping that with his own mini and with a storyline entitled "Family" that we'd get to see Reddy show some emotion, even if it was seemingly on accident.  No such luck.  John is a first class dick again.  He doesn't care about Traya's recital and he calls people he barely knows fat.  And I don't mean in a cheeky, "maybe if you weren't paying attention you wouldn't notice" kinda way.  He wasn't being funny, he was just being rude.
 
The art is top notch and I love seeing T.O.Morrow.  He's a very fun villain.  This whole four elemental androids thing is a little cheesy but it kinda feels right at the same time.  I could of done without the Red Torpedo (Red Hurricane or something woulda been cooler) but the Red Volcano is awesome.  He just looks massively powerful and well...massive, a true rival for Reddy.  Still, I can't help but feel that the android family is pushing the Sutton family, the ones Reddy really ought to be concerned with, out of the picture.
 
 
Overall, this could just be another mini with a slow start.  This happens a lot.  But if you ask me, the characterization problems in this first issue are probably going to continue throughout the whole thing.  If we're lucky, VanHook will duplicate Peter David's characterization over the course of the mini and we'll be left with the Red Tornado that Young Justice fans know and love.  Don't count on it though. 
 
 
For the Red Tornado Fan: 2/5 
For the Casual Comics Fan: 3/5