#geo-gorce

[thecomicsnexus]

THE OUTSIDERS #9-13 JULY - NOVEMBER 1986 BY MIKE W. BARR, JIM APARO, ADRIENNE ROY, ERNIE COLON, JERRY ORDWAY, JOHN BYRNE, TREVOR VON EEDEN, MARK BEACHUM, GRAY MORROW, JERRY BINGHAM, STEVE DITKO AND CARL GAFFORD

Under the pretense of a famine relief campaign, President Edward Bentama from the nation of Mozambia kidnaps Black Lightning’s ex-wife and the Outsiders fall into a trap while trying to rescue her.

SCORE: 7

I was feeling general disappointment with this run of “Outsiders” but this story proved to be interesting enough, in my opinion, bringing the group back into its original premise.

The fact that this story was released not long after the “LIVE AID” events and the “Heroes against Hunger” comic-book special, may say a thing or two about Mike W. Barr’s cynicism. In fact, he was kind of right, the money gathered in those events only made the conflicts worse, probably causing more deaths (we do know this now, but I doubt people knew that in 1986). And even after the Outsiders end their mission in Mozambia, not so much changes for that country.

Soviet characters and super-groups were popular during the period of 1986-1987, here we get a new group: “People’s heroes” that would make it into a couple of Suicide Squad stories and then vanish into comic-book limbo (or probably die).

Despite so many artists specified in the credits, all these issues were drawn by Jim Aparo, the guests artists do back-up stories centered around the Outsiders, mostly Halo.

Spoilers after the break...

Despite the seriousness of the subjects in this story, everything is pretty simple to follow. Looker is shallow, Jefferson and Lynn are going back together slowly, Katana and Halo have a sisterhood going on and Metamorpho and Geo-Force, despite being the most powerful heroes in the team, are usually ineffective to save their lives.

This last thing is never clearer as in the last chapter, when the whole team is stranded in an island between Africa and Australia (I guess South-East Asia wasn’t close enough for them).

But in general, in a universe full of super-hero stories, this one feels pretty different. While I do not agree in the way their powers were put aside so easily, it does say something about the team that the way they manage to get over it, was through a revolution.