Review: Outsiders: Road to Hell trade paperback (DC Comics)

In a recent Comic Book Resources interview, DC Comics co-publishers Dan DiDio and Jim Lee talked about how they've looked at DC's entire comics line and considered what purpose each book has in the DC Universe. This is interesting considering the one book whose purpose I can't figure out is the one DiDio himself writes. Compared to other team books, Outsiders has neither the preeminence of Justice League, the tradition of Justice Society, the youth of Teen Titans, the weirdness of Doom Patrol -- it doesn't even have the political machinations of Checkmate.

I picked up Outsiders: The Road to Hell for the Superman: New Krypton tie-in (which is miniscule) and I'll be back for the next trade's role in "Reign of Doomsday," but I'm scratching my head as to what DiDio wants to accomplish here. At times fairly interesting and at times laughably bad, Outsiders has going for it a group of intriguing characters who don't quite fit in another title, but neither am I quite sure they can support their own.

Road to Hell picks up a hazy distance from Outsiders: The Hunt to find Owlman, Katana, Metamorpho, Black Lightning, and the Creeper all "guests" (read: glorified prisoners) of Geo-Force, the increasingly mad king of Markovia. This, DiDio accomplishes very well -- there's a palpable sense of paranoia in the book, both on the part of the Outsiders who realize their leader is slowly going insane, and on the part of Geo-Force, whose grip on Markovia tightens in response to his grip on his sanity loosening.

All the characters actions are believable at the outset, and DiDio makes good use of Blackest Night to explain why Geo-Force and Katana have become as militant as they are. DiDio's Owlman is especially strong, becoming something of an awkward-but-compelling leading man a la Watchmen's Nite Owl. I also found moving the Outsiders' growing realization that Geo-Force did not defeat Deathstroke in DC Universe: Last Will and Testamant as everyone believed, but rather won only by accident in the process of killing himself (and may still be suicidal). This was unclear at the end of Last Will and previous Outsiders writer Peter Tomasi made no mention of it, so I'm not sure if that's what was intended all along or if DiDio is spinning the facts for his story; it's true to the characters, however, and adds another welcome layer to Geo-Force's troubles.

But on top of what's a good story of danger and madness, DiDio piles on a layer of silliness. The Outsiders fight classic villains the Masters of Disaster, but the Masters' costumes and names (New Wave, Coldsnap) seem hopelessly stuck in the 1990s, as does DiDio's dialogue. "Oh yeah! Now that's what I'm talking about! Am I good or what?" spouts one villain; another replies, "Less talk, more action. Stick with the plan."

DiDio also introduces what could be the worst character find of the twenty-first century, Freight Train, a muscle-bound bruiser spouting the most cliched slang I've ever encountered. "Better listen to your pet bird, Sparkles," Freight Train emotes to Metamorpho at one point, "'Cause I'm just looking for an excuse to bust you up."

Both instances use cookie-cutter stereotypical characters and easy, hackneyed dialogue, and it comes off as a rush job. DiDio does fine for the most part in his portrayal of the Outsiders, established characters with strong personalities and histories to call upon; when he gets to creating his own characters, however, Road to Hell almost seems like it has two entirely different writers.

Given both the good and the bad, when I wonder what Outsiders is meant to be about, I keep returning to an extended sequence in Road to Hell, almost three-fourths of an issue, that leaves Markovia entirely and instead focuses on the vampire Looker, a former Outsider. If one wasn't versed in Outsiders history, they'd have no idea why the book almost completely changes its focus. I would guess, if Outsiders actually continues for a while, that DiDio's intention is to bring the old band back together -- Looker, Halo, and the rest -- and this sequence is the beginning of that story.

That's a worthy goal, I guess; the original incarnation of the Outsiders lasted fifty-some issues and still has a good regard in the consciousness of DC Universe readers, so why not return to the book's classic lineup. At the same time, I don't know that I've really heard a clamoring for Outsiders to be resurrected -- it worked for Doom Patrol and R.E.B.E.L.S., but I'm not sure Outsiders has that kind of popularity. Big fans of the classic Outsiders will no doubt be excited by this homecoming party -- but I wonder if DiDio's not setting the table for a party where no one will show up.

I mentioned before that "New Krypton"'s role in Road to Hell is miniscule; rather, it makes no sense. Unless there's going to be a quick change in Last Stand at New Krypton, no part of what I've read so far suggests that the Kandorians have an Earth-bound representative in the Eradicator; DiDio is fudging facts, essentially, to make it work. On one hand, I don't mind this -- I like the Eradicator how ever he appears -- but on the other, I hope "Reign of Doomsday" helps explain both Doomsday and the Eradicator's origins in post-Infinite Crisis continuity; that will help erase some of the sting of this "New Krypton" tie-in that's actually, let's face it, just marketing fluff and not much more.

[Contains full covers.]

I picked up Outsiders: The Road to Hell because it crossed-over with another comic; that cross-over turned out to be peripheral at best, and at worst not even a crossover at all so much as a blatant attempt at cross-marketing with no real regard for story or continuity. The next trade of this same book will also be a crossover, and chances are despite being completely -- perhaps willfully -- burned here, I'm likely to pick up that volume, too.

I have an awareness, of course, that this situation likely represents what's worst about comics right now -- unapologetic profiteering on the part of DC with no regard to the actual content of their product -- and that I'm only reinforcing these bad habits by going along with it. Yet, I'd argue that if comics is two parts reading, it's one part collecting -- collecting all the team's baseball cards in your album even if you like some of the players better than the others, just so you have the whole team.

I have to say, I breathed a little sigh of relief when I saw that DC is canceling their latest Azrael series -- I never read it, I admit, but I'm hard-pressed to believe we ever needed another Azrael series, nor did I think it would succeed, and as such it seemed a waste of space in DC's comics line. Even as someone who adored Judd Winick's Outsiders, if I hear in a couple months that this incarnation of Outsiders is at its end, I think I'll feel a little relief then, too.

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Review: Outsiders: The Hunt trade paperback (DC Comics)

What had been a somewhat interesting direction begun by writer Peter Tomasi in Outsiders: The Deep comes to a screeching halt in Outsiders: The Hunt. In the title as without, the reason for this about-face seems to be the rather uncertain role the Outsiders (characters and title) play in the DC Universe. As such, this Outsiders volume essentially bows to the whims of both the Batman: Battle for the Cowl and Blackest Night crossovers, and one almost feels bad for the characters being tossed around so much.

[Contains spoilers]

The end of Outsiders: The Deep actually found the team in much the same position as Nightwing and his Outsiders were once, having publicly exploded an enemy base and in danger of having their covert group revealed. Instead, the previous story gets little mention; the Outsiders return to the Batcave to find themselves locked out and their covert charter revoked, shunted to clean up Arkham baddies escaped during Battle for the Cowl largely just to have something to do.

Indeed, that's what those three Cowl tie-in issues feel like -- giving the title something to do. I'm not a stickler for power equality from title to title, but it takes two or three Outsiders to capture each of three relatively minor Batman villains -- Mr. Freeze, Killer Croc, and Clayface; it seems a waste of the Outsiders' (let alone the reader's) time. Tomasi offers a particularly creepy Clayface story, and I liked the Man-Bat cameo in the Croc issue, but none of these are distinctive or memorable outings for the villains.

The final two issues cross over with Blackest Night, in that Geo-Force meets the Black Lantern Terra and Katana is attacked by her dead husband and sons. Katana's family has been an important enough part of her character that the sequence is more engaging than the exploits of the evil-and-still-evil Terra; I appreciated that Tomasi, one of Blackest Night's architects, goes even so far as to have Katana discover the Black Lanterns' mastermind through her struggles with the zombies. It's also a good turn that, as in JT Krul's Titans/Blackest Night crossover issues, enemies become friends in the face of the zombies; I liked the nuances of Croc teaming up with Creeper (giving a bit of flow from the Cowl issues) and Creeper himself ultimately betraying Croc.

I do think Tomasi missed an opportunity, though, when Geo-Force had to dispatch the Black Lantern Terra, finally acknowledging her evil. The conflict of DC Universe: Last Will and Testament was Geo-Force blaming Deathstroke for corrupting Terra, and Deathstroke wounding Geo-Force lead in part to the hero's tougher attitude in this series. Does Geo-Force "killing" the Black Lantern Terra equal some understanding of Terra's own role in Judas Contract? Unfortunately, that's not explored here in the way I might have hoped.

At the end of the book, all the Outsiders go home, and it's astounding given the previous volume's "you will be under deep cover forever" premise. That DC even has an Outsiders book, you'll recall, comes from Judd Winick's 2003 Outsiders that took the "twentysomething heroes" place of Titans; with Titans returned -- and its own concept in disarray -- Outsiders loses the "second generation" role, nor am I sure the "Batman's covert team" concept works either. There's sufficient Bat-family out there (maybe more than sufficient) plus the rumors of Batman's new world-wide recruiting endeavor.

With the team benched at the end of this book, and no greater purpose apparent from the book's solicitations, I'll likely pass on the next volume even with the promised New Krypton tie-in; I just don't "get" DC's current version of the Outsiders, or how it differentiates from your average generic superhero team.

I'll add one caveat to that. What Tomasi does do well (here and in his writing in general) is bring forth the individual personalities of the character; especially, he never loses sight of how long many of these characters have known and worked with one another. The slowly building conflict between Geo-Force's single-mindedness and Black Lightning's compassion is true to the characters, and I enjoyed the camaraderie between Halo and Katana; even, too, that Tomasi lets Katana admit she's tired on a long drive instead of positing her as an ever-powerful ninja automaton.

One thing I'll give the Outsiders is that they're truly believable as a family; I just wish The Hunt had the force of will and purpose that Outsiders seems to have lost some creative teams ago.

[Contains full (but not variant) covers. Printed on glossy paper.]

Up next we're rocking Red Robin (it did have to be said) and then some New Krypton and Justice League. Don't miss it!

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Review: Outsiders: The Deep trade paperback (DC Comics)

I enjoy Peter Tomasi's work, and Outsiders: The Deep continues a line of quality work that includes Nightwing and Green Lantern Corps. But despite an interesting premise and some welcome continuity notes, the story never quite distinguishes itself beyond standard superheroics, and it makes me hesitant to continue following this title.

Alfred, Batman's faithful butler, leads the Outsiders -- I can certainly see how many might dismiss this as preposterous, but I rather enjoyed it. To me, it seems even more ridiculous that Alfred could be Batman's partner all those years and not be capable of heroics of his own; indeed it's past time someone acknowledged, as Tomasi does, that Alfred is in essence Batman's father. Tomasi achieves a tone somewhere between Mission Impossible and Charlie's Angels as Alfred directs the Outsiders remotely, and the cloak and dagger beginning was about the best part of this story.

Tomasi attempts to take a page here from Geoff Johns' playbook, positing a connection between everything else you've ever read about the Outsiders -- that Batman hand-chose all the teams because of how they represent his own abilities on a grand scale, and that the major villains they fought over the years have all been foot soldiers for a shadowy organization called, of all things, the Insiders. This might have been interesting if it worked, but Tomasi fails to offer any real proof for the last point, and indeed the Insiders present as such run-of-the-mill villains -- they'll live forever even if it causes the death of innocents -- that perhaps it would be better if they weren't so tied to Outsiders lore.

The true strength of this story is in the long history between the characters -- that's the real "deep" here. Geo-Force, Katana, and Black Lighting, especially, have never been A-list superheroes, but they've stuck by one another a long time. When Geo-Force and Lightning fight (or Geo-Force and Katana kiss), Tomasi brings out the nuances of their feelings for one another, with clear, expressive expressions from artist Lee Garbett.

Similarly, I appreciated Tomasi making full use of continuity in this book. Outsiders: The Deep rests on both Final Crisis: Revelations, and DC Universe: Last Will and Testament, and Tomasi effectively weaves this story. Geo-Force's rivalry with Deathstroke the Terminator burns palpable in their scenes together on the page, and Tomasi also writes the first meeting, in recent memory, between Ra's al Ghul and Vandal Savage, noting recent changes to both characters. If you were a fan of either of the previous stories, this is your next stopping point, though the tertiary nature of those tales can make The Deep also feel like an afterthought.

Indeed, my difficulty with The Deep is that nothing much comes of the book's sound and fury. Amidst numerous cut-scenes of the Insiders worrying about their immortality, the Outsiders run around a bit, fight a robot, run around some more, fight Deathstroke, and then defeat the Insiders largely through a deus ex machina shuttle crash; Ra's al Ghul and Vandal Savage barely have anything to do with the plot at all. The Outsiders are right, the Insiders are wrong, and the story's resolved neatly in the end. Tomasi makes no egregious mistakes and treats the characters with care, but the story offers no larger payoff for the reader, and as such I'm not left with much impetus to come back again.

Of course, it's perhaps because of this very thing that, after the next volume, Outsiders: The Hunting, this title gets a new writer (Dan DiDio himself) ... and begins to tie to Superman: New Krypton. That's something of a dilemma for me, because on one hand, I'm none too impressed with the current Outsiders tenuous ties to Batman RIP, and I don't expect the ties to Superman to be any more solid; on the other hand, the completist in me wants everything related to New Krypton even if it's just the barest mention in an issue. And if I'm already going to buy the next Outsiders trade after The Hunting, it stands to reason I might as well just buy Hunting as well. And while I recognize I'm in a quandry of my own making here (and "I could stop any time," so to speak), this is where a comics fan begins to get a little frustrated.

[Contains full covers, Garbett sketchbook]

Despite that reading this Outsiders makes me miss my much-favored team from a few years past, Peter Tomasi treats some old heroes with respect in this volume, and I appreciate it even if The Deep wasn't quite a hit for me.

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Review: Batman and the Outsiders: The Snare trade paperback (DC Comics)

The latest incarnation of Batman and the Outsiders isn't a bad superhero team-up book, per se. Certainly there's enjoyment in seeing this mix of characters together. But in comparison to a bevy of other espionage team books that DC Comics published post-Infinite Crisis, this second volume The Snare just doesn't hold up, and indeed the plot meanders so much that the reader can't help but wonder at the intended point, if there is one at all.

Following the events of The Chrysalis, the Outsiders believe Metamorpho to be dead, but instead he's stowed away on a renegade Chinese shuttle headed to space. When Metamorpho contacts the team, Batman sends the Outsiders to hijack yet another Chinese shuttle; the Outsiders are captured and must be rescued by Nightwing and a re-purposed OMAC called "Remac." Metamorpho frees himself and the team begins to investigate a mysterious space weapon, but are distracted by rumors of an alien parasite in Gotham.

We're now ten issues in to Outsiders, the team has been on the same mission for nearly all of them, and we have no clear idea who the main villain is nor what their goals are. We know generally that it involves space, and OMACs, but otherwise the danger is so unclear that I have trouble feeling interested and involved in the story. It definitely doesn't help that the story takes a right turn in the final chapters and the Outsiders embark on a new mission completely unrelated to the first, without any sort of conclusion to the leading story.

In addition, the Outsiders are for the most part passive participants in the story. For most of the team, the main thrust of The Snare is that they try to rescue Metamorpho but instead are captured by the Chinese government (seemingly unrelated to story's villain) and have to be rescued. Metamorpho gets a fair amount of screen time, but even his accomplishments in the story are largely accidental. I felt toward the end of writer Chuck Dixon's run on Birds of Prey that his focus became more the superhero fights than the plot, and the same is true here; I'm not sure why we want to read about the Outsiders being captured and escaping from antagonists unrelated to the story if it doesn't have any bearing on the story's arc overall.

What I like about Batman and the Outsiders is the characters themselves. It's an eclectic group, including Francine "wife of Man-Bat" Langstrom, Batgirl and Green Arrow, former "new" Outsiders Grace and Thunder, and former "old" Outsiders Katana, Geo-Force, and Metamorpho. I like this "legacy" combination of old and new Outsiders, and Dixon does well highlighting the differences in the two team's experiences; it's interesting how the older characters defer to Batman while the new characters cling to Nightwing when he arrives. Dixon also returns former Outsider Looker, and there's some nice nostalgia to the final chapters.

I'm less enamored of Remac. The character's name is silly to start with, and the idea that he's remote controlled/possessed by a goofy scientist seems an altogether worn-out concept. Perhaps if we knew more about where Remac came from or what it's purpose is, the reader might care more; most of the "captured Outsiders" storyline seems made to spotlight Remac, but we learn more about the character's powers than the character itself. As is, Judd Winick already had a funny robot character in Outsiders with Indigo, and Remac sadly is no Indigo.

Batman and the Outsiders: The Snare is a competently-written, action-packed story, with nice art by Julian Lopez, Carlos Rodriquez and Bit; unfortunately, it just doesn't go anywhere. We can speculate that a good amount of this comes from editorial interference; Chuck Dixon had a public enough fall out with DC Comics, and the weird alien parasite story and Batman's quick exit suggest an editorial mandate to clear the decks for Batman: RIP.

Still, it remains that Batman and the Outsiders failed to move me, and I'd be dropping the title altogether if it weren't for the ties the next volume should have with that selfsame Batman: RIP. With a new team on board, hopefully that'll mean new life for the stories as well.

[Contains full covers]

More reviews coming next week ... and soon, the Collected Editions review of Batman: RIP, and our exciting guest review month!

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Review: Batman and the Outsiders: The Chrysalis trade paperback (DC Comics)

As is the case with Batman and the Outsiders: The Chrysalis, sometimes if a trade paperback is drawn really well, and features a whole bunch of your favorite heroes in one adventure together, it doesn't matter whether or not the story makes a whole lot of sense. Indeed, The Chrysalis contains so many new bad guys and vague evil schemes as to make it inscrutable, but the characters are rich enough that plot becomes almost a secondary concern.

Chuck Dixon's Outsiders reads in a sense more like Batman and the Justice League Task Force--that is, more random, varied heroes go in and out of this title than the Hall of Justice bathrooms, and the makeup of the team changes at least two or three times. Part of this, I know, was because Chuck Dixon took over the reins of this title from Tony Bedard before it even began; but it's something that, at the same time, works for the title.

We start the book with Katana and Catwoman on a mission together; this later morphs into a fight between Batman and Hawkgirl with original Outsider Geo-Force looking on; and it ends with a grand smackdown between Batgirl and Green Arrow (all this, and Francine Langstom, too). It makes Batman and the Outsiders something between a Brave and the Bold team-up book and Birds of Prey, with Batman in the all-seeing Oracle role, and the wide variety of characters is just plain fun, even if the plot hangs off the story a little bit.

It's hard to say exactly what The Chrysalis is about. Dixon creates a new "very bad" company headed by a brand new evil genius; the villain's plan involves an OMAC with vague ties to Batman's Brother Eye, but it's never quite clear what that plan is. Dixon perhaps lets Batman keep too much of his own council here; none of what's going on seems a surprise to Batman, but the reader struggles to keep up. Dixon might have been better off using an established villain; it was hard for me to know what was at stake in the heroes stopping the villain's plot, whereas the Green Arrow/Batgirl fight had far more resonance.

In as well as Dixon wrote some of the characters--Martian Manhunter, Catwoman, and Metamorpho, to name just a few--I was surprised by how I didn't like his take on others. Dixon's Batman here seemed far more like his pre-Infinite Crisis self--jerky, mysterious, demanding--than the post-Infinite Crisis team player we've come to know. But even more off-putting is Dixon's take on Thunder, who's been previously established as a pre-med Tulane graduate; Dixon presents her as a petulant brat, speaking in slang in a way that seemed disrespectful to her portrayal by other writers before.

I also couldn't help but groan when I saw Dixon villains Hawk, Bunny, and Militia in this story. One of the things that soured me on Dixon's Nightwing and Birds of Prey, much as I liked other aspects, were his continual use of these one-note, silly villains who continually appeared in his stories, including Mouse, Giz and the trio above. Seeing some of these bad guys in this trade only confirmed my fears that Outsiders would go down the same road (if not for Dixon leaving the title after the next collection). Hopefully we won't see them again next issue, but will get a better sense of the main villain's ultimate goal.

The stories here are pencilled by Julian Lopez and Carlos Rodriguez, with inks by Bit, and I thought all three did a fantastic job. The scenes is spacious and bold, perfect for an action-packed story, and perhaps by virtue of the common inker, it's even hard to tell the two artists' styles apart. There's a bunch of new-to-my-eyes artists I've been enjoying lately-Cliff Chiang and Jesus Saiz among them--and these artists strike me in much the same vein.

[Contains full covers]

We're going to Countdown to Adventure now for all you Countdown fans out there, and we'll see where that takes us next.

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