{"id":8354,"date":"2012-05-13T08:00:41","date_gmt":"2012-05-13T08:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=8354"},"modified":"2012-05-11T21:45:28","modified_gmt":"2012-05-11T21:45:28","slug":"outsiders-crisis-intervention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2012\/05\/13\/outsiders-crisis-intervention\/","title":{"rendered":"Outsiders: Crisis Intervention"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nBy Judd Winick<\/strong>, Jen Van Meter<\/strong>, Matthew Clark<\/strong>, Dietrich Smith<\/strong>, Art Thibert<\/strong> & Steve Bird<\/strong> (DC Comics)
\nISBN: 978-1-4012-0973-5<\/p>\n

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 increasingly sober and serious world after Crisis on Infinite Earths<\/strong>, that precept was challenged with a number of costumed adventurers evolving into pre-emptive strikers\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Arsenal<\/em> and Nightwing<\/em> always intended to run their new team as a covert and pre-emptive pack of self-professed \u00e2\u20ac\u0153hunters\u00e2\u20ac\u009d: seeking out and taking down metahuman threats and extraordinary criminals before they could do harm, but they were continually thwarted as events always seemed to find them off-guard and unready\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Now, following the deaths of more beloved comrades (see Teen Titans\/Outsiders: the Insiders<\/a><\/strong>), Arsenal decides to finally live up to the brief by going after the villainous scum with all guns blazing and the gloves off\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

This fourth edgy compendium eschews individual issue titles but for your convenience and mine I’ve again supplied them from the original issues (#29-33 plus relevant portions of Firestorm<\/strong> #19, covering December 2005 to March 2006) of Judd Winick’s grim and witty Outsiders comicbook, with the barely-functioning team – Arsenal<\/em>, Starfire<\/em>, Grace<\/em>, Thunder<\/em>, Shift<\/em>, Jade<\/em> and Captain Marvel Jr.<\/em> – facing their lowest moments in the aftermath of their betrayal by Indigo<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

‘Unoriginal Sins, Part 1: All Together Now’<\/em> by Winick, Matthew Clark & Art Thibert begins with the out-of-control divine force The<\/em> Spectre<\/em> declaring war on magic-users and destroying mystical fortress The Rock of Eternity<\/em>, thereby unleashing the Seven Deadly Sins<\/em>.<\/p>\n

These personified spiritual anathemas find a new home inside Outsiders antagonist Ishmael Gregor<\/em> who had previously transformed himself into the benighted and demonic Sabbac<\/em> in his unquenchable thirst for power (see Outsiders: Sum of All Evil<\/a><\/strong>)\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

When Deathstroke the Terminator<\/em> offers the painfully ambitious Gregor a position in Lex<\/em> Luthor<\/em>‘s criminal elite The Society<\/em> the stage is set for an epic confrontation, but before the devil can mobilise, Dr. Sivana<\/em> and the survivors of the Fearsome Five<\/em> attack Alcatraz and provoke an immediate response from the mad-as-hell Outsiders\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

When Sabbac at last arrives, in the concluding episode ‘All Hell Breaks Loose’<\/em> using the powers of the Sins to derange friend and foe alike through waves of Lust, Rage, Envy and more, founding Outsider Katana<\/em> is inexorably drawn to the conflict by her ensorcelled sword and saves the day, just before demi-goddess and old friend Donna Troy<\/em> shows up, hoping to recruit the more cosmic team-members for a mission in deep space\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

‘Out of Town Work’<\/em> (illustrated by Dietrich Smith, Thibert & Steve Bird) directly ties in to the company crossover Infinite Crisis<\/a><\/strong> with Troy seconding Jade, Shift, Starfire and the young Marvel as part of a task force to save the universe.<\/p>\n

Significant portions of Firestorm<\/em> #19’s ‘The Forests of the Night’<\/em> by Stuart Moore, Jamal Igle & Rob Stull are also included as the voyagers head for the heart of Creation to battle the unknown enemy but become sidetracked and embroiled in lethal sibling rivalry as Starfire’s sister Blackfire<\/em> ambushes the squad in ‘Detour’<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Meanwhile on Earth, Katana sticks around when Arsenal decides to attack Deathstroke and the Society, culminating in a devastating ‘Deep Impact’<\/em> wherein the Outsiders finally deliver a crushing and costly defeat on the super-criminal army just as all reality goes insane thanks to the aforementioned Infinite Crisis hitting the Cosmic Reset Button.<\/p>\n

The next volume will begin with the first One Year Later<\/em> story-arc\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Wickedly barbed, action-packed and often distressingly hard-hitting, Outsiders<\/strong> was one of the very best series pursuing that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153hunting heroes\u00e2\u20ac\u009d 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, but this volume at least is best seen in conjunction with too many other books to truly stand on its own merits.<\/p>\n

The action is intense, and the dialogue wonderful, but the story won’t appeal or even be understandable to casual readers whilst the effect of the notional cliffhanger ending is rather negated by the deliberately ambiguous closing scene. Page by page and scene by scene this is great stuff, but the imposed conclusion renders all that sterling work irrelevant. This is another one for completists only, I’m afraid.
\n\u00c2\u00a9 2005, 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Judd Winick, Jen Van Meter, Matthew Clark, Dietrich Smith, Art Thibert & Steve Bird (DC Comics) ISBN: 978-1-4012-0973-5 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 increasingly sober and … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Outsiders: Crisis Intervention”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[76,132,162],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dc-superhero","category-older-kids","category-outsiders"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-2aK","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8354\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}