Comics Fondle

DC cheaped out on the art for this annual apparently, as Dave Ross’s figures occasionally look like something a kid might do. His faces, though not good, at least show some sign of work.

For Metamorpho’s wedding, Barr does a sequel to an old Metamorpho comic (the second appearance), which I suppose ought to be cool. But it’s not. Metamorpho doesn’t really fit in the Outsiders, always the square peg with his romance–not to mention his powers and adventures being far more fantastic than the rest (except Halo, but her’s are Barr’s silly creations, Metamorpho he’s following previous approaches). The not-so lengthy adventure, with the familiar annual chapters, is mostly just the Outsiders fighting various villains. The best is when Batman foils two bad guys from achieving their sinister goal–depowering themselves so they can lead normal lives–which Barr draws attention to, setting Batman up as something of an obtuse jerk.

Ross’s art is real bad at times and the whole book looks really cheap.

I just remembered the first annual is probably the best Outsiders issue, but the second is far from it. With the exception of Halo and Katana (Ross draws Halo like she’s about thirty-nine), none of the other Outsiders really get any attention. There’s also Halo bitching about super-heroing because it might get her hair wet.

The annual’s not a failure, maybe because there is something effective about Metamorpho and his romance troubles (Ross’s Metamorpho being real ugly), but it’s precariously close. Barr brings back the Masters of Disaster, which appears to be his avenue for turning people with speech impediments and debilitating melancholy into supervillains. They’re awful 1980s villains (though not the worst I’ve seen) and just serve to plump up the annual, which could have just been about the characters and Metamorpho’s wedding and how they react to it. Actually, that sounds like a good issue.

C-

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