Batman & the Outsiders - A Review

I'm a Batman nut. It's true; at some point throughout my tortured adolescence, I began looking beyond all things X toward all things Bats. Yeah - I was never content with "the little guys" (excepting Cloak & Dagger and Kamui) - I had to be drawn (so to speak) to the major, bank-breaking franchises... needless to say, I never completed my X-everything collection (oh, what a lofty goal - though ultimately attainable when I began in the early 1980s) and I never will. I don't even bother keeping up with everything X- and Bats-related that's coming out, much less what I can afford.

But when I see something that looks like it might be worth getting in-on on the groundfloor, I scoop it up. And so it was with Batman and the Outsiders - or so I'd hoped.

For those of you who don't know (and I can't imagine that's many), Bats is the DC Universe's team-maker; basically, whenever a team is formed, Batman is at the helm. I don't really know why or how that all works, but I assume it has something to do with the fact that he appeared as such in some continuity-less title, issue, or other, back in the '60s and it just stuck.

As a leader, he is... none too effective, which compounds the issues I have with the whole idea, but it is established, so who am I to fly in the face of such an establishment? Basically every Bats-initiated supergroup title begins the same way: someone doesn't like Batman and refuses to acknowledge him as group-leader, but also doesn't have the nerve to challenge him for the title. This goes all the way back to the time I first learned of Bats' role as team organizer (JLA, 1987 or thereabouts - Giffen relaunch, you might have heard about it) and he and Guy Gardener did not get along. Of course, that was my introduction to the idea and it had been around for a lot longer by then, so I'm sure others can come up with more.

The point is that Batman and the Outsiders starts the same way. Okay, we'll let it slide because it's slightly cute and this is 2008 - you basically have to have at least one homage in your work these days, just to "connect" with your target audience, to prove you have a background in the subject. Still, that was a queue for me that maybe this wasn't going to be as much an "event" as a "product" and I'm afraid my initial impressions were doomed to be right.

I persevered and there are some sexy panels - Cat Woman's always good for that much - and some really electric action sequences, but Chuck Dixon never fully gets on his game and though the art is good, it isn't dynamic enough to save the title. Even a guest-appearance by none other than my new icon, Green Arrow, in #4 is enough to save Batman and the Outsiders - and that is about when I quit reading.

The dialogue never "clicks" so how can it sizzle? There is a slightly-inspired interchange when the group is eating Chinese, but upon closer inspection, it turns out that Metamorpho just gets off a few snappy one-liners. And while the art is really good, the artists on the title are cover artists, not sequential artists; the only truly jaw-dropping work appears in individual panels, not sequences. In total, throughout issues #1-3, only one, truly rocking sequence occurs, and it's too short to sell me on the title:

Batgirl joins the team and is being all moody and quiet and mysterious - blahblahblah - and then she walks, naked, past the lesbian couple (oh, did I mention that not even a lesbian love triangle saves Batman and the Outsiders? 2008... gotta love... something) and they comment on how many scars she has. Great sequence - one of the best I've seen in a while and definitely the best in the series - but not enough to change my mind.

Batman and the Outsiders is more than just forgettable (I read the first five issues last night and that's all I remember of it) - it's already forgotten.

© C Harris Lynn, 2008