The men operating behind the scenes are always scarier than those out in front of everyone.
What They Say:
FLASH FACT! He won’t join the war! (It could dirty his new suit.)
The Review:
With The Outsider, we get a book that at least for me presents a character I know nothing about and appears to be an original one. While we have the big moments of the storyline going on with Flashpoint, The Outsider shows us how there are those that are manipulating the situation for their own ends, mostly greed, but also power, control and potentially other ambitions as well. The book gives us a creative origin story with the birth of Michael Desai, a name gets some six years later, as his birth causes the death of his mother and his father shuns him for it. And to make matters worse, his birth causes the creation of “The Event” back in the sixties where the place he was born was turned into a three mile wide sinkhole with hundreds of thousands killed, except for that tiny little baby in the middle of it. A tiny, little stone skinned baby.
In the present, he’s a mover and a shaker behind the scenes but has a public front as well, which we saw in the first Flashpoint book where he was one of those that Cyborg gathered to form a team with Batman that ended up falling apart. He’s behind the idea as long Batman is involved but has no interest without him, though the reasons he has aren’t entirely clear. He’s a huge multitasker as we see his organization working its magic, funding private armies, mines, various trade deals and so forth, the kind of person who has his finances involved in everything to find a profit for it. But there’s that strange other sense about him because he’s working with the heroes that makes him pretty ambiguous as to what he’s really after. With a life growing up that had him feeling like an outsider, it’s no surprise to see him surrounding himself with people that mean little to him but serve a purpose.
James Robinson gives us a book that has us asking a lot of questions and getting few answers, but very much intrigues us. There are some wonky moments with the dialogue presentation to be sure, but generally it works well as we get a man full of confidence in himself narrating and that has him speaking in what might seem an awkward way. The way he controls and manipulates events and people does get driven home as we see a direct attack on him by some former heroes that he framed for some unknown purpose, but it’s more driven to open the idea that someone else is manipulating events that set them free to get revenge since there is no indication they had escaped from the prison they were in. It’s one more of those pieces where the book asks more questins than it answers, but it has to be said that they’re interesting questions.
Digital Notes:
This digital edition of The Outside from Comixology features just the first printing cover of the issue with no additional extras included in the book.
In Summary:
While I had been a fan of Robinson way back when Starman got off the ground, I didn’t care for his work on Superman and that had me a bit cautious about this. With Desai being an original character it seems, it allows him a bit more freedom and he takes advantage of it with what the character has built up for an organization and its seemingly basic goals of wealth, power and advantage. His inclusion with the heroes is the most curious aspect of it because you wonder what it is he gets from it, but it can be seen as a definite advantage to be on the inner circle there. What he brings to it is another question entirely that’s not answered here, but like the other questions, it definitely keeps you interested and wanting to know more.
Grade: B
