Outsiders #3

[ratcreature]

Should I feel pathetic because so far getting my comic subscriptions has been the highlight of my week? I'm green with envy of those who had so much fun at ViVidCon. I want to have fun fannish vacations, too. But back to my intended topic --

Outsiders #3 (written by Judd Winick, pencils by Tom Raney, inks by Scott Hanna)
This issue had some really good lines, I'll give it that. What annoys me is that this is the third issue and I still don't feel like I know all the team members, I probably couldn't even pick the characters belonging to some of the names out of a line up, actually I don't think I could list all the names of the team, yet still this issue barely gave them room at all. You could think Lex Luthor and the Joker were the main characters of the series.

I'm not against issues focusing on characters as protagonists that aren't the heroes, but I really think a series should only do that after we got to know those who are supposedly the main characters of the series. A whole issue about the Joker and Lex Luthor frelling each other is all well and good, and it was fun to see quips like Metamorpho's "Wow. A half-naked President being tortured by the Joker. One usually has to surf the web for images like this." And obviously the (twisted) slash fan inside me squeeed quite a bit at the dialog between the Joker and Luthor, so I had at least a bit more fun than with the last issue. But I want to know the heroes before I get the Luthor/Joker special.

The other comics I got this week are Arrowsmith #2, Batgirl #43, Birds of Prey #58, Robin #117, and Superman: Metropolis #7. I'll probably talk about some of them later.

Comments

[kerithwyn.livejournal.com]

Comic are almost always the highlight of my week.

...maybe I shouldn't be so quick to announce that.... :p

Anyway, obviously I have other issues with this book, but your point is a good one too. When the villians are the most compelling thing here *by design*...that doesn't give us much reason to care about the heroes.

Oh, I did pick up (but haven't read yet) the first three Spectacular Spider-Man issues...let you know if I can make any more sense of the continuity, or lack thereof.

[ratcreature]

Unlike you I don't know Grodd at all, so if they mangle his character I don't really notice, and since I'm actually trying to like this series, I've also decided to not think about the inane premise of the new team (and you were right in your post, it doesn't make sense) and I'm slowly, slowly getting over my annoyance that obviously the Joker's appearances won't make sense in the wider DCU continuity -- though another good thing in this Outsiders issue was that at least Nightwing seemed to have noticed that too. ;)

I don't know, I'll just assume that maybe the Joker made evil clones of himself or something and one is still safely at the Slab being monitored by Oracle and the other Joker clones worked out a division of labor thing so that they can pop up all over the DCU in all series at the same time and coordinate their schedules with the omnipresent Lex Luthor clones or something. Okay, so I'm not quite over it, but working on it. Honestly.

But at this point I would have really liked some classic introduction plot with some focus on each team member in turn accomplishing a task. So that wouldn't have been the most original opening plot, and it would have been a formula structure, but it's a formula that actually works when you try to familiarize the readers with knew characters. I think comic writers can count themselves lucky that comic series don't get canceled quite as fast as tv series.

[kerithwyn.livejournal.com]

Clones would certainly explain much.

I would *like* to like Outsiders. It's got Dick and Roy! This should be a good thing! It's just going to take more than Lex-Joker standup to make me believe in it.

I think comic writers can count themselves lucky that comic series don't get canceled quite as fast as tv series.

It's so, so true. *still in mourning for Firefly*

[ratcreature]

I forgot to say: If you provided some insight on the Spectacular Spider-Man conundrum, that would be awesome and much appreciated, of course.

[ane.livejournal.com]

I really love your batcreature icon. It always makes me grin when you use it.

I finally got to read an issue of the Outsiders. First time I got over to the comicbook store before it sold out. I actually intended to buy it but when I flipped through it and discovered that it seemed like it was mostly the Joker I decided not to. Because it's the first one I've read I really don't know who's supposed to be part of the team besides Nightwing, Arsenal, and Metamorpho. I'm clueless.

The things about it that stood out were the one's that you mentioned. Metamorpho's comment about Naked Luthor and Luthor's that the Bat would never love the Joker. I know there's Batman/Joker out there, but... *covers eyes*

I'm not sure about the art. It's probably falls in the middle for me. I don't hate it, but it's not quite as comfortable as Batman or Nightwing. Although it may just be that there were so many Joker drawings and he felt a bit off to me.

I don't think I'll go out of my way to read The Outsiders. And since to read it I have to go to the comicbook store across town, it most likely won't be very often. Maybe if it comes out in trade paperback someday.

I also read the Superman/Batman #1. It was fine. I'm just not really a fan of Batman and Superman collaborating. Who titled this? Don't they know what that / means?

Haven't read Nightwing #84 yet.

[ratcreature]

Don't they know what that / means?

The title convention with the "/" for a team-up really doesn't strike me as unusual. It's not as if slash had a monopoly on that punctuation. I mean, I don't know when exactly this was started -- not the team-ups between Superman and Batman, those have been around since the 1940s, but that the "/" is actually in the title itself -- but when you take a look at DC's backlist and titles you'll see lots of comics like that, like the "Superman/Batman: World's Finest" TPB, "Batman/Aliens II", the "Batman/Superman/Wonder Woman: Trinity" the "JLA/JSA" titles, the "Avengers/JLA" team-up in the latest company x-over, or the upcoming "Batman/Joker: Switch" ... to mention just some titles at random.