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.