By Judd Winick, Carlos D’Anda, Shawn Moll, Dan Jurgens, Karl Kerschl & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0460-0
Once upon a time superheroes, like firemen, sat around their assorted lairs or went about their civilian pursuits until the call of duty summoned them to deal with a breaking emergency. In the grim and gritty world after Crisis on Infinite Earths, that precept was challenged with a number of costumed adventurers evolving into pre-emptive strikers…
After the deaths of two Teen Titan comrades, Arsenal convinced the heartbroken Nightwing to run a covert and pre-emptive pack of self-professed “huntersâ€: seeking out and taking down metahuman threats and extraordinary criminals before they could do harm …
This third edgy chronicle eschews individual issue titles but for your convenience and mine I’ve again supplied them from the original issues (#16-23) of Judd Winick’s grim and gritty Outsiders comicbook, with the barely-functioning team facing their most disturbing cases yet and by the end of it all nothing will ever be the same…
The action opens quietly with ‘A Change of Plans’, illustrated by Dan Jurgens & Nelson, with the battered team recuperating after their battle with the Fearsome Five. Soon however recriminations lead to violence and, with co-founders Arsenal and Robin literally at each others’ throats, Jade takes charge, bringing in alien powerhouse and veteran Teen Titan Starfire to bolster the ranks and her position.
The three-part shocker ‘Most Wanted’ (with art from Carlos D’Anda) featured a guest-role for real-life TV criminologist and manhunter John Walsh, whose America’s Most Wanted programme hunts down actual criminals and human monsters with people power and video appeals.
The tale begins when a regular gun-bust also uncovers a child-sex slave ring where all the victims bear the same brand mystery Amazon Grace Choi bears on her back…
With her ghastly past back to haunt her, Grace goes ballistic whilst tracking down the human filth she only barely escaped from when she was twelve, and knowing the elusive slave-master Tanner is still operating drives her crazy…
Pitted against the kind of criminal superheroes almost never encounter, Nightwing calls in an expert to help them find and stop …
With boys and girls being abducted almost weekly John Walsh and the Outsiders pool resources to hunt the predators: going public on America’s Most Wanted where a viewer tip brings the outraged heroes to Tanner’s latest human warehouse a full hour before the police.
The operation is dismantled with uncharacteristic but justified excessive force, but Tanner escapes. Later Arsenal discovers his babysitter has been murdered and his four-year old daughter Lian has been abducted…
Terrified and ballistic with rage, the full force of the Outsiders comes into play as the team smash through the city’s criminal element in a frantic race to save Lian from Tanner, and when Grace finally gets her hands on the beast who has haunted her nightmares for a decade, the result isn’t pretty…
‘Back to Normal’ (Karl Kerschl art) finds the heroes winding down with elemental metamorph Shift and sexy-future android Indigo planning an exotically amorous night in, until exploding villain Shrapnel somehow invades their super-secure HQ. Meanwhile evidence is found that shows the team is being secretly bankrolled by Bruce Wayne, against Nightwing’s express wishes…
The inevitable confrontation between Nightwing and his dark mentor is further exacerbated when Arsenal admits that all their intelligence and target-tips have been supplied by Batman in ‘Silent Partner’ (D’Anda again), but during the heated clash the Dark Knight reveals that although he interfered and provided funds he hasn’t spoken to Arsenal for over a year…
‘Deep Throat’ (illustrated by Shawn Moll & Kevin Conrad) discloses the shocking answer when Arsenal confronts his source and finds that his bat-winged benefactor has been a mere disguise for the Teen Titan’s most implacable enemy: a man who has ruthlessly used the Outsiders to further his own ends almost from day one.
In the ensuing battle the still-recuperating hero quickly realises just how pitifully over-matched he actually is…
The book but not the saga ends on a spectacular cliffhanger in ‘Lockdown’ (Moll & Conrad again) as the Outsiders are sealed within their own citadel by the battered, bruised but unbowed Arsenal. The ex-leader is determined to unmask the mole in the team who has compromised, betrayed and endangered them all. The revelation and brutal dispatch of the traitor will stun you all… and the worst is yet to come in the next volume…
Wickedly barbed, action-packed and sometimes distressingly hard-hitting, Outsiders was one of the very best series pursuing that “hunting heroes†concept, resulting in some of the most exciting superhero sagas of the last decade. Still gripping, evocative and extremely readable, these bleakly powerful stories will astound and amaze older fans of the genre.
© 2005 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.