Greetings @LanternCorps!
We’re reading through Blackest Night. The plan is to read 3 or 4 issues a week. Please avoid spoiling anything from issues beyond this week. If you missed last week, you can check it out here
The issues for this week are:
Feel free to use any, all, or none of the questions below as discussion starters.
looks awesome. I need to get through this grad class this week and hopefully can catch up soon!
So, I’ll admit, my knowledge of the Outsiders is entirely limited to the Young Justice series. That being the case, I didn’t really know any of the characters, so I wasn’t too invested in any of them. I did enjoy 2 parts, though.
First, Halo being able to defeat Black Rings. Wasn’t expecting it, but enjoyed being surprised by it.
Second, the vision of what is coming. We’ve been growing anticipation about what happens when the power levels reach 100%, and now we know its name is Nekron!
Here’s just a quick rundown about the Outsiders:
They were introduced in 1983. The long-running series The Brave and the Bold was being canceled, so Mike W. Barr was tasked with coming up with a new Batman-centric series. That series was called Batman and the Outsiders.
In the original story arc, Lucius Fox (whom you may know from the Christopher Nolan Batman movies) was captured and taken to Markovia. The Justice League refused to help out of concern for international politics, so Batman turned to Black Lightning and Metamorpho for assistance. In Markovia, they met Geo-Force, the prince of the nation (and brother to Terra of the New Teen Titans). They would also meet a vengeful Japanese woman known as Katana and an amnesiac young woman with light-based powers, whom they referred to as Halo.
The series would continue until Batman left the team, at which point it continued in Adventures of the Outsiders and a prestige format series simply called The Outsiders. A second volume called Outsiders had a brief run in 1993-1994, also written by Barr.
In 2003, Judd Winick revived the series with Outsiders Vol. 3, this time with a team led by Nightwing and Arsenal. Batman returned to lead the team in 2007, so the series restarted with old Batman and the Outsiders name, but he soon left again (well, kinda-sorta died), and the series was again simply called Outsiders by the time Blackest Night came around.
Arsenal is my favorite Outsider by far! He is like Bat’s and Arrow with a dash of Cyborg. So freaking awesome!
graphics are amazing
Seems that this tie-in is for Halo only. Not sure what part the other Outsiders will play in this series.
Hmm…honestly, I kind of liked #23 most, not because the BN content was bad, but because of the unique team-ups and circumstances in the book, from Katana working with the Creeper, and Creeper then having to team up later on with Killer Croc. I kind of feel like the stuff with Terra kind of dragged way too much.
The Owlman was a surprise. I had to look him up because I never heard of an Owlman in this group before. Strange addition that honestly adds absolutely nothing.
Yep – I have read all of the original Batman & The Outsiders book up until Batman left, and I’ve read a few arcs of Judd Winnick’s Outsiders, as well as a couple of issues of the most recent book.
