A Real Graveyard Smash: Reviewing ‘Outsiders’ #5

Sometimes, those things that go bump in the night come right to you. Other times, you heed their dark call. For Batwoman and Luke Fox, it’s the latter.

It’s time to get all dressed up for a night on the town with the monsters of the DC Universe in Outsiders #5, a spooky and illuminating tale from Collin Kelly, Jackson Lanzing, Robert Carey, Valentina Taddeo, and Tom Napolitano.

Oh, what a delightful little tale.

I’m quite a fan of these types of series and stories. Where there is an overarching thread or plot, but things are not shoved into the box of being called an arc. Each issue has its flavors, living up to the idea that this team is explorers over superheroes ready to go where others won’t. Each piece leads to some bigger puzzle but at the same time can just be enjoyed for what it is alone.

Each issue though has a sort of darker tone to the issues or threats the team faces. Carey and Taddeo capture that so well.

Carey’s style is very detailed and dense, slick, and gorgeous. An under-the-surface rough energy can be felt though, even if it’s not visually apparent. Just one of those things that radiates off the page as one reads through. There is an epic sense of framing that comes from the choices made with each panel from the standard ones to the full page spread or splashes.

Each of the monsters (villains) we see on the page is truly unique in both styling and the presence they command. Clayface genuinely feels like a giant being in the opening sequence splash, compared to Livewire or Professor Pyg who are just normal-sized beings. All that scale helps really place what the situation is for our characters.

A heavy hand comes from the colors as well. As before, there is an almost but not quite watercolor quality to what Taddeo is doing. Shadows and sharp reds are very prevalent to set the mood in the issue, relying on the darker tones to get the mission done. Some more vibrant pops are here or there but overall, the spooky vibe is maintained splendidly.

Napolitano accomplishes the same with the lettering. Nocturna, Batwoman’s vampiric “ex,” comes with a stark black bubble ringed in purple with white font. While the strange Upside-Down Man has the normal colored bubbles, but they are all jagged. It gives characters a different voice already and helps us understand how their voices would be different from others. Right away there is a sharp darkness yet almost silky sort of cadence that I assign to Nocturna’s voice in my head.

One of the things that I love about the work that Kelly and Lanzing do for established franchises, is the depth they build. Mining continuity and finding the forgotten threads or pieces that can be mined more is easy. Finding ways to incorporate those so that they don’t feel heavy-handed, forced, or just pure nostalgia bait cameos isn’t as easy. It’s a tough balancing act that can’t always be hit by writers. Somehow this duo always finds a way to do it.

I’m thinking the Hivemind actually does have a hive-mind situation.

Everything they offer up here had me from the word go. Just fully engrossing, giving these handful of characters their due in every single issue. Proving that there is so much that can be done with any characters, even disconnected from the larger characters they might have spawned from. Doing that in the orbit of Batman is a bit easier because his family of characters tend to get more shots than others, but it’s not a cakewalk. So I applaud when a title like this makes its presence known in big but fully natural ways.

Outsiders #5 is now available from DC Comics.