Teen Titans/Outsiders: The InsidersWriters: Geoff Johns and Judd Winnick
Artists: Matthew Clark, Carlos D'anda, and Tony Daniel
This installment of Graphic Novels is brought to you by this dude.
Hey, all of you out there. I’m back and ready to nip this tpb in the bud. As I said above, this is a crossover between the Titans and the Outsiders (And no, not these guys. I do have to say though that any group with Patrick Swayze in it is an awesome group. WOLVERINES!!!!) . Anyway, a guide to this version of the Outsiders is HERE. This tpb contains Teen Titans #24-26 and Outsiders #24, 25, and 28. Let’s get on to the creative team:
- Geoff Johns – Johns! We meet again.
- Judd Winnick – The writer of the Outsiders. His writing credits include this book, Green Arrow, Justice League: Generation Lost, and Power Girl. This is also the same guy who brought back Jaso…Oh, I’ll spoil that later.
- Matthew Clark – Clark pencils the first two Titans issues and the last Outsiders issue. I don’t know much about this dude. All I know is that it looks good.
- Carlos D’anda – This guy pencils the first two Outsiders issues. I don’t know about this guy either.
- Tony Daniel – Daniel does the last Titans’ issue. His artwork is real good. His credits include Teen Titans, Batman, and others. He’s also a writer, writing and doing artwork on Batman.
Insiders: Part 1
We start out at the Tower’s library. Conner is reading on all sorts of subjects from souls to Lex Luthor. As you can tell, he’s still mulling over the news of his other heritage and wonders if he will go evil like Luthor. Tim shows up and they talk. Conner is now at the point where he’s wondering if he has a soul since he’s a clone and what not (Wow. Deep.). He even asked Raven to check and even she got flustered. Tim tells him to stop worrying about it. Conner then tells Tim that he wants Tim to gather the rest of the Titans in the lobby and that he is going to tell them the truth. Tim is ecstatic that his friend let this big secret out and then leaves. When Conner heads back to his room, he hears a high-pitched sound. He then hears a voice and the words “vincere aut mor”, and his eye color goes from blue to green And then his eyes start glowing red. The next pages are of him shaving his hair and carving an “L” into his shirt. Oh Crap. Meanwhile, the team has gathered in the lobby. Cyborg is glad that Conner is finally letting them in on his secret. Suddenly, it all goes downhill when Conner enters the room:
Bart: Oh man. Conner’s been listening to Chevelle again!
At the hidden headquarters of the Outsiders located in New York, the team is discussing on who is betraying their team. From what I can tell, the team has been unknowingly helping Deathstroke find villains. The team thinks it’s Shift, but they don’t really know. Suddenly, they get a message from Robin at the Tower. He fills them in and suddenly, Indigo, the team’s cyborg, wigs out and proclaims to be Brainiac 8.
She should have also said "Resistance is futile!"
We get a little back story on Indigo, which is good because I don’t know anything about the character. She is a cyborg from the future. In a way, she inadvertently tore apart the Titans and Young Justice in the crossover Graduation Day and led to the creation of the Outsiders and Teen Titans. She was a good teammate to the Outsiders, but that ends today.
We pick up at the Outsiders’ headquarters, where Indigo aka Brainiac 8 (I’ll call her B8) starts kicking the team’s butt. Shift, her boyfriend, tries to talk her out of it, but that doesn’t work. They do what they can, but Brainiac 8 is too powerful for them, even Jade. Luckily, everyone’s favorite bombshell alien Starfire comes in stops B8 from decimating the team. Arsenal is about to unleash his big guns on the villain, but she teleports away.
Arsenal's releasing his ...arsenal. Yeah, I'm not original.
Meanwhile, 3 miles beneath Lexcorp in Metropolis, where Cadmus Labs was located, B8 teleports there and we see Luthor and Conner, who’s still under Luthor’s control. We then meet the other contributor to this group, the real Brainiac (or a clone. Read Superman: Brainiac if you want to know.) Luthor’s and Brainiac’s idea is to destroy this new generation of heroes.
Insiders: Part 3
We’re still beneath Lexcorp in Cadmus Labs. Conner is viewing lab equipment. Long ago (okay the 90’s), Conner was created here to be a replacment for Superman if Superman ever went rogue or died (both have happened). It looks like he was also created for another purpose: to be Luthor weapon against Superman. Luthor talks about how he will deliver a crushing blow to Superman by using Conner to kill. Conner even calls Luthor “father” at this time. Luthor is happy and lets Brainac and B8 worry about the future which involves Donna Troy (ain’t she dead?).
Meanwhile at Star Labs, the Teen Titans and the Outsiders are fighting many robotic Supermen that were sent by B8. Cassie is thinking about how she misses Donna Troy and Conner. Shift tries to get one of the robots to talk, but it blasts him with heat vision. Cassie takes down the robot, which tries to use the same trick on Cassie the robot from Graduation Day used on Donna. Luckily, Cassie is able to block the move and destroy the robot. After this, she goes berserk on these robots. A visit from Ares via car window doesn’t help. She just breaks the window (Take that, “God of War”!). She almost ends up taking out Tim, who’s brandishing a metal brace around his arm. The two embrace and she asks, “What happened to Conner?”
Cassie getting MAD.
Meanwhile, beneath Lexcorp, Brainiac and B8 talk about the future of Colu, Brainiac’s homeworld. Apparently Indigo was sent back in time to kill Donna Troy and the rest of the next generation of heroes to preserve Colu’s future.
Back at the warzone known as Star Labs, Tim tells the rest of the team about Conner being the son of Lex Luthor. Cassie and Bart are shocked and a little peeved. Gar notices how this situation is different from the times the Teen Titans have been betrayed (See Terra, most of the Wilson family, and Raven for example). The Outsiders want to take it from here, but Robin and the rest of the Titans say they need to help Conner and snap him out of what funk he’s in. Suddenly, Luthor and Conner show up and attack the teams.
Kid Flash tries to talk and fight Conner, but that doesn’t help. Robin does his thing, but is stopped. Cassie, with a little help from Bart, gets the lasso around Conner and unleashes all of her rage into the lasso, which snaps Conner out of Luthor’s control. They embrace and are about to kiss, but Luthor says the magic words and Conner is back under his control. Suddenly, B8 shows up and grabs Cassie around the neck and threatens Shift to kill her.
Insiders: Part 4
We start out with another flashback. Shift and Indigo are in bed talking about how they were made through different means. Shift was a remnant from Rex Mason’s body, and Indigo was constructed artificially. Even though they’re different, they know that their love is real. Aw.
Back in the present day, B8 and Brainiac have joined the fight. The teams do what they can against this team of baddies and controlled folk. Thunder is able to take out Brainiac with her powers. Cassie and Conner get to fighting again and she is able to get through to him. Luthor, being the douche he is, starts blasting at Cassie. This act is what breaks Conner out of Luthor’s control completely, and he stops Luthor from killing Cassie.
Kick his bald butt, Superboy!
Soul Searching
We skip ahead one month. We’re in Smallville, where Conner has exiled himself after all that has happened in the last arc. He’s sulking because he was used by Luthor to hurt the Teen Titans, especially Tim and Cassie. He feels that he wasn’t created to help people, but to hurt them. After Ma and Pa Kent leave to go the store, Conner does some more sulking. Suddenly, Raven arrives and pulls Conner into her soul self.
We flash back to Conner’s origin. Luthor (without that red hair, no less) is talking to the doctors about what he wants to name the project. He names it after his father Lionel, and we get the meaning of “vincere aut mor”, which is Latin for “conquer or die.” Superboy busts out of his tube and then we move to the Batcave where Batman and Superman are talking about him. Batman is worried that he could be controlled again, but Superman sticks up for him. Conner tries to tell them it’s not his fault, but they don’t hear him. Suddenly the older version of Conner from the future shows up and tells him to accept his destiny as a Luthor. Conner doesn’t buy it and we then move to another familiar scene: the day Conner lost control. He sees his other self holding Cassie up against a tree, so Conner attacks the other self. They fight, and Conner wins.
Something tells me that something like this might happen again.
It all goes dark and the Conner’s other self disappears. We then see a ball of some sort. Raven pops up and tells Conner that it’s his soul. She recalls when Superboy asked her if he had a soul. Raven tells him that she couldn't tell if he had one until he got off of Luthor's control. She tells him that his soul is a young, new, and growing soul. She asks him to come back to the Titans in San Francisco, but Conner tells her that he is not yet ready. She leaves and Conner gets back to sulking. Boo hoo.
Letting It Go
We start out with Dick and Kory talking after….some midnight lovin! Hmm…interesting page, I think. If Dick wasn’t around, it might even be more interesting, I don’t know. Anyway, he’s thinking about all that happened in the last arc. He blames himself for what happened. Kory tries to tell him that it’s not his fault, but he won’t listen.
We then are at Rex Mason’s (Metamorpho) house, where Shift is sulking. Apparently killing someone you care about does that to you. Rex decides to remedy the situation by getting drunk. Wow, who knew that superheroes have sex and get drunk?
We then shift to Metropolis. Thunder and Grace are at Chaney’s, the most popular meta human night club in the U.S. They drink a little and talk. They eventually end up talking about Indigo and they reminisce about the good times before she went all Borg Queen on everyone.
Jade is on a roof talking to an unknown figure. She, being the leader of the team, blames herself for what happened. The figure tells her it’s not her fault. Jade then asks the figure, who’s Captain Marvel Jr. by the way, to join the Outsiders.
We then go back to Rex’s house, where Shift and Rex have drunk some of that stuff. Shift is still depressed (and drunk, not a good combination) about Indigo being dead.
Superheroes getting drunk: can only happen in a Judd Winnick comic.
Luckily, Rex is able to give him some advice on the whole superhero thing.
At Outsiders HQ, Jade and Arsenal clear out everything. Since their headquarters has been compromised by the villains, they decide to blow it up and let it go.
…………………………………….
So we have reached the end of the Insiders. Is it good? Yeah, I think so. This kinda makes me want to check out Graduation Day to see how all of this started.
The four part crossover was pretty good. I liked that we see Conner finally let loose on someone. Unfortunately, it had to be the Teen Titans and the Outsiders. In previous volumes, we had build-up to something involving Luthor and Conner, so I’m glad that it has finally happened. Luthor, in this tpb (as well as everywhere else for that matter), was awesome as the villain. You really want to root for Conner to beat the snot out of Luthor when he started firing missiles at Cassie. The Teen Titans books were good, and the Outsider books were good. The artwork on all of the issues was good.
The Conner issue was fine. I do have to admit that it was a little annoying to see Conner WHINE about being a clone of Luthor’s. It was cool that we got to see he and Raven talk because they have the same problem. Her dad’s basically the devil (the 8th devil, but no one’s perfect.). Will we see Conner get out of his funk? Oh yeah! The Outsiders’ issue was fine as well. I don’t know much about all of the characters, but it was good to see them dealing with their loss.
Well, I’m outta here. Come back next time and we will see what’s next for these characters, as well as the whole DCU when I talk about INFINITE CRISIS aka “That Crisis.”
NEXT TIME: THAT CRISIS!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment