Writer:
Frank Tieri

Artist:
Fernando Dagnino

Letterer:
Travis Lanham

I’ll be honest: I miss the Dixon/Lopez team on this book. It made it so much more enjoyable. However, this one isn’t really bad either, there are things that one must rage about though. But first, let’s see what’s actually going on.

Batgirl is convinced that Batman is gone. And she knows, as do the readers of the book, that the world can’t be a world without Batman. Instant Planetdeath would occur if there was not Batman around. And no, a petite, rather quiet asian girl can’t be the menacing Bat. No chance. Even the asian with the unasian name of Cassandra sees that. So she’s putting together something I have dubbed the BatNet. Basically, it’s a network of people who all have one of the skills Batman has. You see, Batman is so important, people like Green Arrow can just up and leave the world to whatever it might be up to be Batman for a while. Same goes for Spoiler, although she’s hardly relevant anymore, and The Vigilante. Now, anyone who’s read Superman right after his death knows that Networks of people pretending to be one guy don’t really work out and produce the weirdest heroes ever. But still, Batgirl is setting this up... without Nightwing! Oh my god, the forced drama! Naturally, Nightwing grimdarks over the entire thing the very second she turns his back on the computer and Nightwing sneaks up to it, since that’s what Nightwings do when Killer-Ninja-Kung-Fu-Wolf-Bitches use a computer. She would never hear, see or smell him coming. So the big point of this issue is that Nightwing disagrees with Batgirl... Oh, the shock! Oh, the humanity! Oh, how boring. We know, Nightwing and Batgirl don’t like each other much, they’ve proven it numerous times. Why do they have to make the point again?

The other thing that needs raging is The Vigilante. That twat is still one of DC’s most amazing fuckups in recent years that I’ve come across. First, he’s the harbinger of the cancellation of Nightwing because the second he appeared the stories went bad and never got better. Second, he was supposed to get his tell-all, reveal-all miniseries at the end of last year that never manifested for whatever dastardly reason. And now, thirdly, we’re supposed to know, understand, trust and like the character all of a sudden, despite being rather hostile towards the Bat-Family when we last saw him dragging Nightwing’s book down to the gutters.

Dagnino’s art isn’t bad though. Nothing really awesome, definitely no Lopez, but not bad either.

All in all, Batman and the Outsiders #13 is one of the books you can get pleasantly upset over. You want to tear it up, yell at it and hurt the nearest person for no reason at all. But I tell you what, it was quite a bit of fun getting worked up like that. If only the big hook of the story was better, then this would actually get a good rating. In any case, I’m looking forward to this series again.

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Comment

smaller | bigger

Subscribe via email (Registered users only)

Write the displayed characters

Add Comment