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Batman and the Outsiders # 1 (2019)

By Mark Rodriguez

Batman has been in several super hero times throughout his career, one of them being The Outsiders. This time, Batman's line up includes Black Lightning, Katana, The Signal and Orphan. For those that don't know, The Signal is Batman's latest sidekick who he decided didn't want to be just another Robin. Orphan is Cassandra Cain, the pre-New 52 Batgirl brought back into modern day continuity. This looks like an awesome team and the comic seemed to have gotten great reviews, so I can't wait to check it out.


Lesser Gods Part 1 opens somewhere in LA as a father and his daughter, Sofia, drive down the road. The father sees something and tries to stop the car. They crash into a man powerful enough to withstand a car coming at him. He grabs the father by the neck and green energy blasts out of all over his head, burning him alive. The poor man tells Sofia to run but the mysterious warrior grabs her by the neck as well. He says Sofia doesn't know what she is and he will show her. He throws the girl into a speeding gas truck and it explodes. Throughout the fire and the wreckage, the woman wakes up, relatively unharmed.

In Gotham City, Signal and Orphan watch an armored gunman calling himself Saint John, shooting up a shirt. Signal is eager to take him down but Orhpan tells him to stick to the plan and wait for Black Lightning. Signal is tried of waiting and goes to rush him. Suddenly Black Lightning swoops and blasts John with lightning and Katana slices his gun in half. Lightning tells Katana to close her eyes as he fries the hell out of Saint John.

Black Lightning and Signal argue over how Signal didn't wait for back up and ran off on his own. Signal says Lightning isn't his father or Batman. Lightning tells him that neither is he, which is why they have to work together as a team. Signal walks off and says he'll wait next time. Katana asks if he's always like this and Orphan says he's different after Karma and the injuries he sustained.



Jeff and Bruce meet up at the Kubrick Towers penthouse. Jeff says Duke isn't right, Cassandra isn't taking this seriously and Katana is going to end up killing someone. He asks Bruce why he's leading this team since Bruce doesn't need help. Bruce says they're better off without him. He has some thing he needs to work out and the team needs more than what he can give. Bruce leaves and tells Jeff the penthouse has been put in his name.

As Batman, Bruce studies the murder of Gabriel and the missing whereabouts of his daughter Sofia. Batman ponders on what to do next.

Katana relaxes and pays respect to her sword that holds the soul of her husband. Jeff comes to visit her for some wisdom. Katana tells him to grab a sword and challenge her. As they fight, Jeff says he needs help with Duke and Cassandra. Katana tells him that Duke is using anger to hide his fear and Cassandra is hiding from herself. She says Jeff needs to show them that he is committed and if they fail he will fail with them. Jeff leaves for now. Katana's sword speaks to him and she kneels in tears as she hears from her husband's soul.

Duke and Cass are sharing a motorcycle as they speed down the road. Duke can't get Karma out of his head as he continues to taunt him. Karma tells him to find him in the darkness. Duke freaks out and tells Cass to stop. He gets off the bike and tells her he still sees Karma in his head. Just then, the Batsignal goes off on Duke and Cassandra's watches. Batman is calling them.

Batman rallies up his group and tells them about The Ark Program, created by billionaires that would kidnap, experiment on and torture the poor to turn them into Metahumans. Batman shut it down and managed to save the family of Gabriel, Ana and Sofia. They were moved from LA where they would be safe. Ana died from the experiments taking their toll on her and now someone killed Gabriel and is after their daughter. The Ark Program enhanced Sofia's healing abilities that gets stronger with the more pain she feels. Batman senses that the person after Sofia isn't alone. He says he will continue dealing with the Markovian Black Market and Karma, and the Outsiders will go find Sofia and bring her to Gotham.



Batman leaves and Lightning feels Batman is keeping secrets that can get them killed and he feels that they were more like Outcasts rather than Outsiders. Katana says she wants to find Sofia. Lighting asks her why and she says because they can do it and because she is challenging him. Lightning doesn't trust Batman, but what does matter if that they trust each other since it looks like they're on their own.

Meanwhile Sofia is trying to buy a train ticket to St. Louis, following her father's advice to stay in public places and get out of the city if anyone came after her. Suddenly she is grabbed and pulled somewhere. She is told that the man that killed her father is named Ishmael, and he works for Rah' Al Ghul who will stop at nothing to have her serve him. The stranger says if she runs and hides she will be dead. The man introduces himself as Kaliber and he came to keep her alive.

The man says he has come from the future where she pulls humanity from the ashes. He says the world ends with her and through her a new age is born.


My Opinions-

Pretty good set up so far, though I'm not sure 100% on this Terminator-ish plot. I am very curious on how all of this is going to go down. I also wonder how the team will find Sofia, especially since it doesn't look like she'll be staying in LA for much longer.

I do like the line up though and like the interactions between Black Lightning and Katana. Duke and Cass are cool too, though with all the mentions of Karma, I do wonder if he will factor somewhere into this story. I missed out on the original story between Signal and Karma, but the villain is still in his head.



Batman continues to keep secrets from people, it's a fault he will always seem to have. I know he has his reasons, but he always expects his people to trust him completely while he always keeps things from them because he doesn't trust them.

This issue did serve mostly to introduce us to the line up and give you an idea of where they're all coming from, so there wasn't too much action. The fight with Saint John was incredibly short, he was no match for Black Lightning but I still wish we could have seen everyone jump into action. I'll be grabbing the second issue for sure.

This comic also had a preview to the upcoming Black Label story, Batman The Last Knight on Earth, which is kinda funny because it deals with something people have joked about for the longest time. What if everything we ever read about Batman was just in Bruce's head? What if he was never Batman and and was just locked up in Arkham and dreaming all this up? The preview shows a Bruce Wayne that is finally waking up to reality in Arkham and Alfred explains many years ago he was the one that killed his own parents in Crime Alley, and all the villains were things he made up in his head. I'm curious about this one too, but with it being the Black Label, I kinda hope we don't see too much of Batman like we did the last time.


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