DCU Comic Book Reviews

OUTSIDERS #45

Pay As You Go, Part Two:  Sins Of The Fathers

April 2007

Written by Judd Winick

Pencils by Freddie Williams II and Carlo Barberi

Inks by Art Thibert

Cover By Mathew Clark

Synopsis

One Year Ago... Roy Harper (aka Arsenal) returns home to his daughter Lian.  Three Years Ago...the niece of Jefferson Pierce (aka Black Lightning) was murdered.  Angered the murderer was never apprehended, Pierce unleashed a lightning bolt at him, intending only to injure.  Instead, the man died.  After the recent crisis, Pierce decided to turn himself in and he went to prison.  One Year Ago...Jason Todd (aka Red Hood) tells Nightwing he heard that it was Deathstroke who killed the man by timing a poison at the exact moment Pierce’s lightning bolt hit.  When Nightwing and Pierce’s daughter Anissa (aka Thunder) tell them what they’ve heard; Pierce refuses to believe it, thinking Deathstroke is working an angle.  Afterwards, Anissa runs to Grace’s apartment; she is thinking of breaking her father out of prison.

Review by Binkley (e-mail)

I rather liked this issue, if it wasn’t for the art on the main pages of the story (the Pierce storyline).  Some of the art looked rushed, sloppy, and in some cases almost cartoonish in the sense of Saturday morning cartoons in which the bodies and forms are designed more for laughs and less for proportionality.  In particular, take a look at the first panel on page 12.  Anissa looks like one of the characters from Outland.  Unfortunately, the ending sequence with Anissa and Grace has the same quality.  

Qualms about the art aside, this wasn’t a bad issue at all.  It was nice to see a hero dealing with his small daughter and this obviously begins the seeds for Roy to quit the outsiders.  It also dovetails nicely with his first appearance in the new Justice League of America series, which shows him with Lian (or at least concerned about her).  Hopefully his relationship with Lian (and Dinah’s relationship with Sin as she came to the same conclusion as Roy when she quit the Birds of Prey) will be further addressed. 

The situation surrounding Jefferson Pierce looks to be a little more complicated than simply trying to bust him out of jail, which has me a little bit intrigued.  Did he or did he really kill that man or was Deathstroke the true killer?  Or is Deathstroke lying about killing the guy?  Or is the Red Hood lying in some fashion?

I am still not all that interested in the budding romance between Grace and Anissa, which still seems to me to be added more for its shock value than any real sense that these two people could fall in love.  Based on the short scene at the end, it still feels that way. 

Comic Connection

The death of Joanna Pierce occurred in Green Arrow, issue #30.

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