Comics Review: FF and Outsiders

I bought these comics long enough ago that I’ve forgotten how I ended up at Coas Used Bookstore.  I was there with dad at their secondary location on Solano.  Though a much smaller store, they still have a good selection there.  I immediately found three items in the comics section.  I felt lucky, since these looked like pretty good straight-up comic book superhero comics.

Fantastic Four #600

This is a floppy, but it’s a 100-page, 50-th anniversary edition printed on slick paper.  It was $7.99 when it came out in 2012.  (Ah, the good old days.)  It looked amazing when I picked it up, so this was an easy purchase.

 

Then I sat down and read the intro page at home.  Let’s just say with rather incredible plethora plot threads, I doubted even 100 pages would be enough resolve what was currently going in the Fantastic Four.  This was entirely prescient.    

 

Part One of this, which would have been about the size of a regular issue was entirely decompressed, which was a terrible design choice for a story that involved an alien invasion of New York city with most of the Marvel superheroes present in defense.  Honestly, you could have filled all 100 pages, with some digressions for side plots, with just this battle and had a resolution.  Instead, it was random action scenes that just ends with a dramatic cliffhanger, which was unwelcome, since there was still 2/3 of the comic left.  Worse, the sparse dialogue featured a bunch of dumb asides and idiotic quips. 

 

The cliffhanger was the reappearance of the Human Torch as his presumed death.  Spider-Man, in a new costume, had taken his place in the Fantastic Four.  Part Two features the story of Johnny Storm getting captured in the Negative Zone and then breaking free.  This was another full-issue that probably would have worked better as a separate issue after the main story had concluded.  Then again, the story was decompressed enough that it likely could have been told a few flashback panels after the Torch’s reappearance.

 

Part Three was an incomprehensible interlude with the Inhumans.  I’ve seen much better artwork from Ming Doyle.  This looked like a quick insert needed for meet the page count.  Then there’s an ominous interlude with Galactus.  I probably liked this short flashback story best in the comic.  Lastly, there’s an even more ominous flashback with some mysterious person grooming Franklin Richards, Reed and Sue’s little boy with god-like powers.  Really scary on some different levels.  There was a kind of pointless subplot in Part One with the Richards kids and their alien friends.  It felt jarringly out-of-place in the rest of the story.

 

Its 100 pages of filler.  I keep emphasizing the page count to highlight what a waste of time, money, and effort this anniversary issue was.  This could have been so much better if it had told the conclusion of the main story.  Instead, you could have skipped this and just gotten a one-page recap in the next issue.  The writers and editors must have been severely degraded at Marvel to have not capitalized on this opportunity.

 

Outsiders: Sum of All Evil

The original Outsiders were an 80’s creation of Batman, who’d left the Justice League, but wanted to lead a super group his way (with EXTREME justice!).  This 2000’s version is led by Nightwing and has the same nebulous, unnecessary function as a super team.  Yeah, it’s basically a marketing effort with some B and C grade heroes, probably partly done to keep up the copyright on some unused characters and to introduce a few useless knockoff characters as new characters. 

 

However, Dick Grayson (Robin I and Nightwing) is one of my favorite comic book characters (yes, really) and Jade is on the team.  I don’t know if it’s the Orion slave girl aspect of Jade or her cool costume and Green Lantern powers that captivates me so.  The book looked like it had plenty of action, so this was another easy purchase decision.

 

As per the intro, this version of the team was started by Arsenal (sort of Green Arrow Jr.) with Nightwing brought in to lead them.  They are supposed to be more proactive in stopping supervillains in their mission.  Also, the group would be more like professionals, rather than like family and friends, to avoid too much personal entanglement amongst the members.  Stylistically, this comic would be more “grim and gritty” to distinguish it from the brighter and more colorful Justice League.

 

Dark is a pretty easy description of this book.  The amount of black ink used in this comic book is overwhelming.  Even scenes in daylight look dark with the heavy black borders.  As far as content goes, while it is super-powered people punching each other like a usual comic, it is pretty grim, if not a bit gross in places.  It doesn’t get any sunnier in the personal relationships.  For a “non-family,” the Outsiders fight with each other like Grampa just brought up politics at the Thanksgiving table with all of the relatives. 

Black Lightning is making that 70's outfit work.

Captain Marvel Jr. is also looking good.

 

The trade begins with Arsenal in the hospital and the Huntress brought in to sub for him.  Helena and Nightwing immediately start fighting with each other for no apparent reason.  There’s no time for further interpersonal conflict as a new super demonic Sabbac is on a mass murdering spree.  Black Lightning (whose daughter is in the group) and Captain Marvel Jr. (the original Sabbac’s arch enemy) join the fight to foil his plan. 

 

There’s a whole issue about Arsenal recovering from his gunshot wounds.  He has meaningless sex with an unnamed woman (I’m not sure who the character is, Cheshire?) and has a fight with Nightwing to prove his readiness to return to duty.  At the end, I think Batman (deep in the shadows) is shown to be group’s motivator with intel.  In the next issue, Arsenal is also revealed to be having an affair with the Huntress.  He gets around.

 

In the next arc, the Fearsome Five is broken out of prison by Dr. Sivana.  They don’t get along with each other either, but they carry out a series of attacks on various Lexcorp facilities for Sivana.  (Lex is obviously out of the picture at this time, as his presidency has just disastrously ended.)  The Outsiders have a losing encounter with the FF and Jade confronts Nightwing on his leadership abilities.  This wasn’t undeserved, as Grayson’s brains are usually considered to be his second-best asset.  (His best ASSet, I will not comment on.)   

 

The relationship between the villains takes a more significant downturn, as Sivana kills Gizmo and leaves them.  The now Fearsome Four then goes on a new mission to take over Lex’s secret nuclear missile base.  This leads to a desperate confrontation by the Outsiders to stop a launch.  Okay, this was the kind of superhero action I was looking for in this book. 

 

So, my opinion on this is that it’s a confused nice try.  This was trying to be something a bit different, but kept falling back on standard superhero tropes, which ironically was the only thing redeeming it.  The dark mood made the otherwise good artwork ugly.

 

The characters, some of whom I already liked, were not likable or even really interesting.  Having two “Alpha” male characters in the group (and neither have superpowers) was unnecessary.  The female characters were mostly unbearable.  They had this angry feminist undercurrent that tended to ridicule the strong male characters, but still take orders from them.  (Tellingly, the two most pleasant characters were a female android and a clone of Metamorpho.) 

 

This concept could work if they went completely one way or the other.  Either make it a standard superhero team comic, but just have Nightwing recruiting members specifically for certain missions and not have a regular roster.  Or go completely to the dark side.  Have this roster of Outsiders taking on dark underbelly of the DC Universe and tackle some uncomfortable real-life issues with a little superpowers mixed in.     

       

Part 2