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\nBy many and various (DC Comics)
\nISBN: 978-1-4012-1672-6<\/p>\n
\nBy many and various (DC Comics)
\nISBN: 978-1-4012-1672-6<\/p>\n
Set after and resulting from the earth-shaking events of 52<\/strong>, this tension-drenched, fast-paced series always combined gritty metahuman angst with ferocious action and a huge helping of wry, bleak cynicism as it followed a band of outcast and undercover champions into places and situations safe, regular superheroes wouldn’t and couldn’t go, but times and changing fashions – and probably shrinking sales – eventually predicated the return of Batman to the masthead and the mix of epic unrealpolitik<\/em> and edgy, cynically grim-and-gritty nastiness\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n Finally exposed to a world which had believed them all dead, and also blamed for setting off an atomic blast which devastated a large part of Russia, the underground metahuman coalition known as The Outsiders<\/strong> – \u00e2\u20ac\u0153rogue\u00e2\u20ac\u009d superheroes who proactively sought out threats and ignored political boundaries or repercussions – found themselves on the edge of oblivion as their series hurtled towards a blistering climax and a major reboot.<\/p>\n Following the spectacular crossover Outsiders\/ Checkmate: Check Out<\/strong> this concluding collection gathers five one-shots (released under the umbrella title Five of a Kind<\/strong>) in which Batman auditioned established members and intriguing alternates to form the core of a new covert unit which worked on the peripheries of the system, beyond the niceties of the law, but always at the Dark Knight’s express command\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n Collecting Nightwing and Captain Boomerang Jr.<\/strong>, Katana and Shazam!<\/strong>, Thunder and Martian Manhunter<\/strong>, Metamorpho and Aquaman<\/strong>, and Grace and Wonder Woman<\/strong> as well as that climactic last issue finale in Outsiders<\/strong> #50, the drama begins after a mercifully concise text recap with ‘Grudge Match’<\/em> by Nunzio Defillipis, Christina Weir & Freddie Williams III, wherein the super-fast son of Digger Harkness<\/em> and Batman’s oldest prot\u00c3\u00a9g\u00c3\u00a9 were dispatched to investigate a space station that had gone ominously dark, only to find a deadly chemical menace and brutal betrayal\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n ‘The Queen of Swords & the King of Rock’<\/em> by Mike W. Barr, Kevin Sharpe & Robin Riggs, saw Katana<\/em> and magical maven Captain Marvel<\/em> invade the ghostly realm where her sword imprisoned the souls of all the people it had killed to forestall a rebellion of the doubly-damned\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n ‘Bug-Eyed Monsters’<\/em> (Tony Bedard, Koi Turnbull & Art Thibert) found J’onn J’onzz<\/em> and the tempestuous daughter of Black Lightning<\/em> investigating an alien incursion miles beneath the Earth’s crust, only to stumble into Grayven<\/em>, Prince of Apokolips, a murdering maniac fleeing the unstoppable eradicator of his species (for which check out the imaginatively titled The Death of the New Gods<\/a><\/strong>), whilst ‘Rogue Elements’<\/em> by G. Willow Wilson & Josh Middleton saw the Chemical Crusader and a very raw replacement Sea King try to save an aquifer under the Sahara Desert from contamination and corporate exploitation with the unexpected assistance of Arabic Avenger Hadya<\/em>.<\/p>\n Finally ‘Member of the Tribe’<\/em> (Marc Andreyko, Cliff Richards & Thibert) plunged irascible orphan Grace<\/em> into a storm of anti-Amazon prejudice and a potential nuclear nightmare that not even distant cousin Wonder Woman <\/em>could help her with before all the weary applicants reluctantly reunited for a fraught epilogue by Bedard\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n The convoluted\u00c2\u00a0 casting-call concluded with ‘You Killed the Outsiders!’<\/em> by Bedard, Matthew Clark, Ron Randall & Art Thibert, as the Dark Knight sent his newly-minted but utterly unhappy undercover ultra-squad to infiltrate a nightclub where only the weirdest and wildest of Gotham’s criminal underworld hung out.<\/p>\n What they didn’t know was that the sting wasn’t to trap bad guys but rather off-the-books government spooks illegally rounding them up and deporting them without due process to an alien world\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n