Outsiders (v3) #13

Outsiders (v3) #13
"Five by Five, Part One: New Business"
Cover Date: August 2004
Writer: Judd Winick
Artist: Tom Raney


Plot

The four surviving members of the Fearsome Five have re-united to bring their dead compatriot, Shimmer, back to life. Which, you know, would probably be more meaningful if the Fearsome Five were more than B-Listers. Anyway, they head to Dr. Sivana, Captain Marvel's arch-enemy because apparently he's got the technology to do it.

Meanwhile, the Outsiders are out at Alcatraz island because of some flimsy pretext so that they can discover that one of the Fearsome Five has escaped from prison. Also, we get this delightful panel

Oh, Judd.





Anyway, the Outsiders decide to split up and hunt the Fearsome Five down.

Elsewhere, the Fearsome Five go out a kill some Lexcorp executives. Eventually Jade (the Golden Age Green Lantern's daughter) and Metamorpho (or more accurately, a copy of Metamorpho) finally track down Mammoth, the muscle of the Five,  They are able to beat him down for a bit, but then Shimmer, the member of the Fearsome Five who had been dead, shows up alive and manages to knock out Metamorpho, leaving Jade alone to fight the two of them. And then the issue ends. To be continued!

Ongoing Subplot Roundup

1. So how did the rest of the story go?

Eh, the Fearsome Five dicked around for a couple more issues before the Outsiders foiled them just as they were about to nuke Vancouver.

Comments

It feels like nothing happened in this issue. Then again, decompression was 'in' at the turn of the millennium, so I guess I shouldn't be that surprised.

Anyway, the 3rd incarnation of the Outsiders came about when DC wanted to reorganize their teenage superheroes. At the time, they had Young Justice and Titans, but both were kind of limping around. They gave the Titans franchise to Geoff Johns, who swiped most of the characters from Young Justice, while Judd Winick took some of the remaining characters from Titans, added some horrible characters of his own, and then decided to punish the world he hated so much with this book.

This incarnation of the team included Jade, Metamorpho (sort of), Nightwing, Arsenal, Indigo (a robot girl from the future), Grace (A gigantic woman who falls into the "bitchy + promiscuous = empowered female character!), and Thunder (Black Lightning's daughter who can manipulate her density.). So, basically, it's for all the Nightwing fans who bought his solo title, but said, "Wait a minute, God damn it, I need two crappy titles starring Dick Grayson a month!"

Since it's a Judd Winick book, the idea is that it's 'edgier' or some shit like that, which  mainly manifests itself in exchanges like the wetting the bed joke.

Damage Stars: ****