Batman and the Outsiders #1: Page 1

Just your basic pin-up, right?"Heroes for our troubled age" huh? I don't remember 1983 being all that bad, but then I was 12. What did I know? No, what I find most risible (aside from the rather feminine way GF wears that cat mask) is the quotation from John Keats, one of my absolute favorite English poets. Better words were never so misappropriated as "inspiration".

I mean, really, those are some pretty bold words to use as your mission statement for a superhero book starring Batman, a couple of second-stringers and three new characters you've never heard of. "The age to come"... We're too far from 1986 for this to refer to the Crisis, so I guess it just means the Reagan era. Heroes to fight the dark times of economic prosperity and under-the-table arms sales. They will show you the way, give you a new heart, make you give up your mercantile ways. Yeah, that certainly worked out. You hardly ever meet materialists in this day and age (the post-Outsiders age).

"...and be dumb." 1) That line isn't directed at the comics makers and 2) that's not the definition of "dumb" Keats was going for.

In other news, isn't it a bit sad to see a colorist credit in a Showcase edition? Big shout-out to Adrienne Roy, who probably had to keep all those halos straight!

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