Sunday Splash Page #74

"Giving Batgirl a Sword is Just Unfair", in Batman and the Outsiders (vol. 2) #8, by Chuck Dixon (writer), Julian Lopez (penciler), Bit (inker), Marta Martinez (colorist), Travis Lanham (letterer)

I thought there would be more than 2 volumes of Batman and the Outsiders (3 counting the one DC's publishing at the time this post goes up), but I guess those titles were just called The Outsiders. One of them, written by Judd Winick, wrapped up in mid-2007, when Batman came strutting in and took over from Nightwing. Typical Batman shit. Leaves a thing along for years, then shows up one day and says, "this is mine," and just takes it.

Then again, I wouldn't have wanted to be part of Brad Meltzer's Justice League book either, so maybe this seemed like a good alternative.

This volume, though, went through all sorts of mess in a short time. Each of the first three issues was solicited with a different creative team (Tony Bedard and Koi Trumbull were listed for issue #1, I know that much), and the roster got mostly overhauled. Catwoman and Martian Manhunter were originally, plus that Aquaman who wasn't Arthur Curry that Kurt Busiek came up with a wrote for a while post-52.

By the time the first issue actually shipped, Chuck Dixon was on as writer, with Julian Lopez as the artist most of the time. Catwoman, J'onn, and Aquaguy vanished (although Geo-Force was still around), and here's Green Arrow and Batgirl. I have absolutely no idea what happened there, but if Cassandra hadn't been added to the book I wouldn't have bought it, so things work out sometimes.

Cass was back to something close to her character from the Puckett/Scott run on her title. Not talking much, not understanding jokes or references, not showing much concern for her well-being. But she was still recognizably Cass, which was a big improvement over the clusterfuck Johns and Beechen had pulled on her the previous two years. Take what I can get. 

Green Arrow seems to be on there to be the one who questions Batman's judgment the most (and the act like a dick towards Cass because she'd been in the League of Assassins). Bats just ignores it, Cass lets Ollie try to kill her if it'll make him feel better, so it's actually Metamorpho who butts heads with Ollie the most. Which is kind of fun. I like Metamorpho anyway. And Dixon brought in the idea from 52 of Ralph and Sue Dibny running around as ghosts. Although they didn't seem to be acting as detectives so much as playing Deadman and possessing people. Still, I think that was more than anyone else ever did with that idea.

Some of the faces Lopez draws look a little strange, and sometimes the proportions seem off (Grace has oddly small fists for how big she is at times), but the work is very expressive. Maybe the faces look odd because a person making that expression should look weird. And it works for the funnier moments. Batman recruited a scientist onto the team who remote controls an OMAC from the Batcave, and some of his actions while he's doing that, and when he meets Alfred are pretty funny. When Lopez needs to string together a sequence of panels for a fight scene, he can do that. You can tell how the action progresses from one to the next easily. There's nothing special about the page layouts or anything, it's just solid artwork for a superhero comic. It makes sure all the information you need is there, it sells the emotions and the action.

The overarching plot involved an alien parasite from beneath the Moon's surface, controlling people and trying to do. . . something. We never found out, because Dixon left the book (or was fired, I forget which) around issue 10. Supposedly because he was angry with how Batman R.I.P. was fucking with his book. Grant Morrison was waiting until the last second to send his stuff in for that story, so DC couldn't change any of it. That left everyone doing tie-ins scrambling to get their shit done on tighter deadlines. I get Morrison not wanting his work fucked with, and I doubt he told DC to make other books tie in, but come on, have some sense of the fact you're making other people's lives harder.

With Dixon off the book, and tie-ins commencing, I jumped ship. Just as well, because once the tie-ins were over, Keith Champagne took over writing and retooled the roster, dumping Cass and Green Arrow among other, and I want to say adding Killer Croc? I don't know. At some point I think Dan Didio started writing it, which is when you know the book is going to be total shit, but I was long gone by then.

Giving Credit, As Best I Can

It has been suggested that for as much wailing and gnashing of teeth as followed her death, their hasn't been enough celebrating of Stephanie Brown's return. I don't know whether that's accurate, I haven't really been paying attention, though her fans at Scans Daily certainly seemed ecstatic.

As for me, I'm glad she's back, even though I wasn't one of the folks screaming for her to be brought back, and I didn't care about the "memorial case in the Batcave" mess. It'd be wrong to say I was particularly angry about her death during War Games, seeing as I didn't drop Robin after it happened. Couldn't have been that ticked off, could I? Still, I liked the character, and I thought her being gone took something good away from that title. Now she's back, so that's one less person Tim Drake has lost that was close to him. Of course, he still felt the pain of thinking she was gone, but maybe she can bring a little more light into his life. She seemed good at making him laugh, and at not letting him brood too much, always a plus when dealing with someone in the Batclan.

However, it occurs to me that I never made a big deal over Cassandra Cain going back to the side of angels, which seems rather rude, given the amount of screaming I did on this and other blogs about that One Year Later storyline, which did cause me to drop Robin. I still contend I would have been fine with her as a Punisher type, though hopefully with a bit more compassion, for innocents, at least. The Dragon Lady with Daddy issues and a possible romantic interest in Tim Drake? A bit too much of a shift in character for me, I suppose. For now, she's back working with the Big Bat, showing loyalty to her new teammates, and not taking it personally when Green Arrow starts trying to kill her. Good times. I really ought to be more excited, but I feel somewhat detached. It seems so much easier to express anger than joy, which is frustrating to be sure. Plus, I don't feel as annoyed by that whole One Year Later character turn now as I did when it happened two years ago, so maybe that's dampening my high.

I don't suppose that compared to getting my cash for the title every month, me saying "Thanks" counts for much, but what the heck. Of course, I'm not sure who to thank. Chuck Dixon is writing both Robin and Batman and the Outsiders, so I guess some thanks has to go to him, and lets throw some in Chris Batista and Cam Smith (the artists on this month's Robin) and Javier Lopez and Carlos Rodriguez (the artists on BatO so far). I suppose the "Slade's hypos" thing plays some part in the Cass Cain situation, but I'm not sure which writer to credit for that, so I'll just give handshakes to Geoff Johns and Adam Beechen. I probably owe Beechen some apologies for harsh words I unleashed on the blog or at the comic store, anyway, so maybe this makes up for it, just a little. I know I ripped on Dan Didio, and he has to have been involved at some level in all this, so thank ya kindly sir. Shouldn't ignore Paul Levitz, since he probably had some say in all this. Danke. Can't rule out the possibility there were some Warner Bros. execs having their say about it all. I don't that either character has enough notoriety attract the attention of the mother companies' executives, but why take chances right? So "Cheers" to you folks whose names I don't know as well.

And of course, thanks to anyone else I didn't already thank (editors, inkers, colorists). I'm enjoying Batman and the Outsiders, so, thanks for giving me a reason to start buying it, so I'd find other things to like about it. And bringing Spoiler back was really nice, I appreciate that.

Two Thoughts From This Week's Batman & the Outsiders

1) One of Batman's tech support people, Salah, was wearing a shirt that said "Friction: it's a drag". I laughed out loud at that. Looking back at #4, he had a shirt that said "Obey Gravity: it's the law!". I don't find that one quite as funny, but it's a nice touch. I wonder who gets credit for that, Dixon or the artist (Lopez for the gravity one, Rodriguez for the friction one). Either way, good show. I look forward to seeing what other science themed joke shirts we'll be exposed to.

2) One of the two Chinese super-soldiers "interrogating" the Outsiders was a woman who says she was named Barefoot Tiger. She asked if Grace knew why she had that name, and Grace made some crack about never wearing shoes. *rimshot* We never did find out why she had that name. Her powers appear to be some sort of powerful eye beams, so I'm not sure what that has to do with a barefoot tiger. And wouldn't tigers always have barefeet? I think what we have here is her superiors being clever. They figure with that name everyone will figure she's some close combat expert, with enhanced reflexes and claws or something, when in reality, she's most effective at range because she has eye beams. Now that's the kind of thinking I can get behind!

Looks like I have to make another new tag. Anyone know the upper limit on tags?