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I've been blowing pretty hot and cold on DC's Outsiders since its launch last year. The series quickly revealed itself as a sequel to the legendary Planetary in its bold and surprising first issue - an exciting twist if ever there was one! But since then, it's spent months mostly avoiding the subject, instead focusing on exploring other lost areas of DC continuity in a series of pretty variable one-off episodes. Given that Outsiders is only a 12-issue limited series, that has sometimes felt like a missed opportunity.
With this week's Outsiders #6, however, the series finally addressed the multi-dimensional elephant in the room. It's a strong issue in its own right and one that also sets up some potentially game-changing developments for the comic going forward. Let's get into it...
Spoilers ahead for Outsiders #6
In 'The Place Between Pages' the attention finally falls squarely on Drummer - the most mysterious member of the team. We've known since the start that she has an oblique connection to The Drummer from Planetary, while not being quite the same person. Now we know exactly what that connection is...
Before that revelation, however, the gang find themselves in a mysterious realm: "the place between the pages." This is thanks to a mishap while Lucius Fox is conducting a quantum visualization experiment. The Outsiders - now a very apt name - find themselves outside of reality and inside a "narrative singularity," one which happens to look like an idealized '50s-style North American city. In other words, and as Luke Fox points out, it's all very Pleasantville.
This, we soon learn, is a metafictional realm where comic book superheroes go when their series have either ended or been cancelled. The team meet various defunct and forgotten DC characters including Cave Carson, Zauriel, Rick Dragon, and even the Golden Age Superman. It's a purgatorial existence, one where these former-heroes live out their non-lives with a certain degree of either resignation or bitterness - and minus their powers. That makes it all the more surprising when it becomes clear that Drummer still has hers and is using them to angrily smash up the town.
Eventually the Carrier (appearing here in human form) manages to take the team back to their own reality, where the Outsiders confront Drummer. She confesses that she is not who she claimed to be noting that "the real one was a sight better on the kit than me." She is, however, a different member of the Planetary team: Jakita Wagner.
Wagner was one of the memorable heroes introduced during the Wildstorm era. Created by Warren Ellis and John Cassaday she made her first appearance in Planetary #1, equipped with superhuman speed, strength, and decreased aging. Her return alongside the Carrier, her disguise as Drummer, and the fact that she's carrying the Planetary Guide really shore up the connections to the Wildstorm universe and suggest that there's some potentially huge changes to come in the back half of this comic's run.
But aside from all that, the issue also tees up the potential for a very impactful main character death. Be warned: we're entering speculation territory...
Possible speculative spoilers for next month's issue
We've known for a while now that a major death is coming to Outsiders. That's thanks to the cover of next month's #7 (revealed in DC's May solicitations) which shows a grieving Drummer (or Jakita as we now know her) holding aloft a body in front of the rest of the team, while the official synopsis states that, "A requiem is held for a fallen friend".
Our first thought on seeing this was: wait a minute, where's Batwoman? Kate Kane is one of the core characters in the current Outsiders line-up and she doesn't appear on the cover. In hindsight, however, that absence feels a little bit too much like an obvious giveaway.
In the wake of this week's issue, I'm shifting my bet. There's such a heavy and mournful focus on Lucius Fox in Outsiders #6 that it's starting to feel like he is potentially the doomed character.
In the issue Lucius reveals to his son Luke that he had a stroke 14 months previously. Following that, he ploughed his money into an experimental project probing at the borders of the multiverse, trying to understand what lies beyond. This issue confronts him with his own fictional nature, though how much of that he truly comprehends remains ambiguous.
Lucius is also absent from the cover of #7, while his long-time friend and employer Batman is present. Bruce Wayne has not been a major part of Outsiders, so his appearance here feels notable.
We could be wrong, of course! Whatever the case, we'll find out for sure one month from now. In the meantime Outsiders #6 is a big step in the right direction for this strange and singular comic - and #7 has shot to the top of my must-read pile for May.
Outsiders #6 is available now from DC.
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