Comics Cavern

The current incarnation of DC’s Outsiders comic couldn’t possibly get any worse – or so you would think. Like Marvel’s late Exiles books, the Outsiders has spent the last few years as an exercise in waste – waste of characters, waste of talent, waste of readers’ time and money.

Named after the once-great team helmed by Batman in the 1980s, the Outsiders was launched by Judd Winick some years back as a home for heroes who were too old to be Titans and too young to be Justice Leaguers. The book was no great shakes – in fact, in the post-Infinite Crisis One Year Later period, it was pretty god-awful.

Buh-buh-buh but wait it gets worse!

As part of the year-long experiment in pointlessness that was Countdown, the book was rebooted under the name and dynamic associated with the good old days: Batman and the Outsiders. Some of Winick’s Outsiders stayed, while others went on to become Justice Leaguers or (no-longer-teen) Titans.

Batman claimed to have a crucial reason to take over and rebuild the team, a grand covert mission to save the world. What actually happened was the book launched with several simultaneous confusing, boring and unresolved plots, and the team that Batman assembled with so much care changed rosters at least once per issue. This went on for a few issues, until disgruntled writer Chuck Dixon left the book, without making official statements but sending a general message to his fans and comics news sites that “DiDio is a retard, this book never had a chance and whether the perception is that I’m abandoning this sinking ship or that I’m being pushed, I’m just happy to get off.”

After a few more issues, Batman “died” and the book suddenly had a complete new roster, creative team, and was once again titled The Outsiders. For the first time in my life, I found myself thinking: “This book was better when Winick was in charge”.

The cancellation-waiting-to-happen known as the Outsiders is going through more changes, as announced yesterday at the Long Beach Comic Con. Starting in January 2010, the art will be handled by the excellent Philip Tan – but the writing chores will be handled by the master of disaster himself: Dan DiDio. That’s the creative team change. As for the plot, and the team roster? The promotional image accompanying the announcement would suggest that the Outsiders is now a Superman book.

This should be interesting… not an interesting comic, but interesting like a car wreck that’s so gruesome you’ve just got to stop and take a look.

© 2009, Comics Cavern. All rights reserved.

Related Cool Stuff:

Teen Titans: Changing of the Guard (Teen Titans (Dc Comics) (Graphic Novels))

Batman and the Outsiders - No. 7

Justice League - Season Two (DC Comics Classic Collection)

I’ve been going through the old “to read” pile while waiting for the LCS to stock up on all of the new Wednesday releases, and man was last month’s Titans #15 a surprise.

Back when all of us Comic Book Revolutionaries had our Blackest Night Roundtable (I was consistently known as Groovy Superhero back then - these days I have more personalities than Aurora, Norman Osborn, and Margot Kidder), I never would have dreamed that Tempest would be one of the big bad zombies playing a role in Blackest Night.

For one thing, he’s been alive and keeping strictly on the sidelines since - well, since he was calling himself Aqualad, and calling Donna Troy “Wonder Chick”. Not to mention all the high-profile, already-dead Atlanteans to contend with. But DC went ahead and killed him, strictly for the purpose of coming back to life as a Black Lantern.

The irony is that he’s getting more face time as a corpse than he did for the last several decades he’s been alive.

Of course, back in June, I never would have thought I’d be recommending the Titans as a comic to add to your pull list, but as I’ve mentioned, once they kicked Judd Winick to the curb, the quality in this book took a sharp turn for the better.

© 2009, Comics Cavern. All rights reserved.