Comics Fondle

An odd issue–apparently a fill-in to cover for the transition between regular artists (Aparo to Alan Davis)–with three stories featuring three of the five Outsiders. Barr really foreshadows in the prologue, starring Halo and Metamorpho, with Halo griping about not getting her own story… notice Batman isn’t there. It’s a fine fill-in idea, but what Barr comes up with for the characters is pretty lame.

Katana–in the best illustrated story, with Jerome K. Moore on the art–has a silent adventure involving gangsters and a stolen vase. Barr sets the whole thing to the play-by-plays of a Gotham Goliaths football game. It’s a cute idea, but obvious and lame. Barr has some space to do something with Katana and instead does nothing involving the character. It could have been–and probably was and has been–Batman or Superman when other writers have needed a quick fix.

Geo-Force’s story, with almost unintelligible Trevor Von Eeden art (going through a line-heavy artistic phase), is actually Jaws 3-D with a mad scientist and a kid in a Superman shirt. It’s not even a cute Jaws 3-D rip, it’s just a flat rip. And it turns Geo-Force into a European lothario, which should be more amusing than it turns out to be.

Black Lightning has the public interest story, as he returns to the ghetto in search of a truant. It’s lame, both in the plot and the resolution, though it does have the most action of all three stories, so I guess it moves the best.

As a concept issue, this one fails. As an anthology sampler, it fails too. It’s not incompetent, it’s not terrible, it’s just empty and useless.

C

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