Outsiders, Vol. 4: Crisis Intervention

Outsiders (2003)

by Judd Winick, Jen Van Meter, Matthew Clark (Illustrator)

After the events of Teen Titans/Outsiders: The Insiders, the Outsiders are left reeling after the revelation of one of their member's ultimate betrayal. Before they can pick up the pieces, they must face a rematch with the Fearsome Five and Sabbac, who now has the power of the Seven Deadly Sins Plus, with Infinite Crisis looming, Donna Troy recruits half the team--along with the other heroes--for an important mission in space, while the rest must contend with the villainous Secret Society

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Dc Comics, Comic Book, Superheroes, Batman, LGBT

128 pages, Paperback

First published April 19, 2006

About the author

Judd Winick is an American cartoonist, comic book writer, screenwriter, and former reality television personality known for his diverse contributions to storytelling across multiple media. He first entered the public eye in 1994 as a cast member on The Real World: San Francisco, where he formed a close friendship with AIDS educator Pedro Zamora, an experience that deeply influenced his later work. Winick memorialized their bond in Pedro and Me, a critically acclaimed autobiographical graphic novel that earned several literary awards and became a staple in school curricula.

Winick's career in comics took off with The Adventures of Barry Ween, Boy Genius and continued with major runs at DC Comics, including Green Lantern, Green Arrow, and Batman. His stories often explored socially relevant themes, such as HIV, homophobia, and identity. He was recognized for introducing gay characters and tackling difficult subjects with empathy and clarity. His work on Batman notably included resurrecting the character Jason Todd as the Red Hood, a storyline later adapted into the animated film Batman: Under the Red Hood, for which Winick wrote the screenplay.

Beyond comics, he created The Life and Times of Juniper Lee for Cartoon Network and served as head writer for Hulu's The Awesomes. In 2015, he launched the Hilo series, an all-ages sci-fi adventure inspired by his own children. The bestselling series has been widely praised and is expected to reach its eleventh volume in 2025.

Winick lives in San Francisco with his wife, Pam Ling, also a Real World alum, and their two children. He continues to create heartfelt and imaginative stories for audiences of all ages.

Reviews

[Jeff · Rating 2 out of 5]

*stifles a yawn*

I’m kind of slow and not up on a lot of DC continuity so it took me a while to realize, but somewhere in the middle of this mind-numbing read, I had a gnawing feeling that I was reading a Teen Titans (plus friends) book – Arsenal, Starfire, Donna Troy - and in a sense I was. The Teen Titans had been disbanded and some of the kids were dumped into The Outsiders, DC’s ad hoc group created by Batman when he hated the way the Justice League did things.

No Batman here or any member of the extended Bat family, although Nightwing does get mentioned a lot (“I miss Dick, wah wah wah!) – so Arsenal, the guy who lugged around Green Arrow’s quiver for years, is in charge and the beret of responsibility wears heavily on his brain pan.



But no Bats. 

I liked Judd Winnick’s run on Green Arrow, but here he has to incorporate one crossover event too many:

Infinite Crisis in the Multi-plex

What if they gave a Rann-Thanagar War and nobody cared?

Villains United to have pets neutered and spayed.

Days of Vengeance and Roses.

Donna Troy: Alive and Kicking Ass



And when the Titans are involved, that a$$hole, Slade Wilson has to be somewhere about. Lurking.

To make matters worse, the kids split up to tackle different events, diluting an already overcrowded storyline.



Sabbac and the Seven Deadly Sins was a cool idea, but was over before he got to Pride and Sloth.



Rescuing Mary Marvel was a plot line that literally came out of nowhere, but had some nice moments.



Starfire’s evil sister, Blackfire, is always welcome at my house because "evil is the sriracha sauce of life" ™.



Bottom line: Some of the dialogue sparkles and Winnick does show some wit, but his efforts are buried under the avalanche that was DC continuity. The art is basically: Starfire – let’s splay her in as many compromising positions as we can think up.

[Lono · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nothing really remarkable to say about Outsiders: Crisis Intervention. Judd Winick and Jen Van Meter (who helps Judd out on this one) just seem to hold course with this collection. I enjoyed the beginning of the book which featured the return of Sabbac, but it never really evolved into anything spectacular. Even Winick’s creative use of Sabbac’s control of the Seven Deadly Sins (prison sex anyone?) couldn’t really do much to push story passed just being mediocre. The second half saw the team split up with one group following Donna Troy to fight somebody off in space. Lame. It reads like the forced tie-in with one of DC’s many Crisis events that it is. Who cares. The other half of the team decides to take the fight to the bad guys and go after “The Society”. This one had some promise too, but ultimately just sort of happened. I think the book was hurt by Nightwing not being around and Donna Troy’s feeble return from the dead only to run off into space again.



And the art was nothing special either. Matthew Clark’s artwork was decent enough at times and he even seemed to channel Travis Charest (who kicks ass) every couple of pages. Dietrich Smith’s stuff didn’t really appeal to me. Sort of a poor man’s Eduardo Risso. Just average, like everything else in this collection. There have been a couple of good artists on this title in the past and DC just kept bringing new illustrators on board. This seemed to hurt this title from the start and is probably one of the reasons it just sort of stayed middle of the road in terms of overall quality up to this point.

2.5 stars out of 5. I’ll be back for the next collection, but probably not as optimistic that Judd and his cast of forever rotating artists are ever going to produce work that is truly awesome on this title.

[Chelsea 🏳️‍🌈 · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't enjoy this volume as much as volume 3. It just didn't grab me.

To be honest, it seemed as though this was made of some tie ins to Donna Troy's story in another tie in. It probably is and I'm just missing it. Anyway, I don't know much about Captain Marvel Jr or Mary Marvel and I never really wanted to. Those are characters I'm just not that invested in.

I didn't mind Katana showing up here. I was interested in her thinking the others hadn't earned the name. I did like the little interlude of her, Grace, Anissa and Roy taking on bad guys together. I enjoyed Grace talking to Roy about him being a superhero and too heroic to truly be an Outsider. I don't know his exact timeline but I know he ends up on the JL at one point and good for him!

I was confused about Sabbac's reign of terror in that it didn't last very long. I expected some True Blood level esque Bacchus plot where he stuck around for a while infecting everyone. I'm honestly a little bummed. I kinda dig plots where the world is cursed to sort of implode and everyone attacks each other. It's hard to fight when you don't want to hurt the aggressors.

But anywho, this was a thing volume and I'm hoping the next one has more for me to latch on to.

[James DeSantis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Whoa, talk about a total letdown.

So after 2 great volumes, and one fantastic one, then we get this...volume 4. Losing some key members of the team the Outsiders are now growing in size, but losing what made them special. The Chemistry between the characters. Not to mention this gets a bit more cosmic with more alien/god like villains returning as well as setting up for the Infinite Crisis Event.

Good: Some cool moments with Roy and him growing as a character. I also liked a lot of the members of the team but...

Bad: None of them really meshed well this volume. Splitting the teams up wasn't the best idea. The second half of this volume is very badly paced and all over the place without anything interesting happening. The art ranges from decent to really terrible, especially some of these backgrounds are just rough.

Overall, super meh volume. I expected better. Hoping volume 5 is much better.

[Richard Schaefer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Still a fun series, but this volume is pretty disjointed. We get a lot of repeat villains and a lot of events that tie into Infinite Crisis (hence the name). I’m a fan of Infinite Crisis, but definitely felt crossover fatigue working my way through these issues.

[Ben Truong · Rating 3 out of 5]

Outsiders: Crisis Intervention continues where the previous trade paperback left off collecting five issues (Outsiders #29–33) of the 2003 on-going series with Firestorm #19 and covers five semi-interconnected stories: "The Forest of the Night", "Unoriginal Sin", "Out-of-Town Work", "Detour", and "Deep Impact".

"Unoriginal Sins" is a two-issue storyline (Outsiders #29–30) that has the Outsiders going against Slade Wilson as Deathstroke, the Fearsome Five, and Ismael Gregor as Sabbac returns. It also marks that return/resurrection of Donna Troy with Shazam and The Spectre also made a cameo.

"Out-of-Town Work" and "Detour" are two one-issue storyline (Outsiders #31–32) that has the Outsiders going against Blackfire – Starfire’s sister with Tatsu Yamashiro as Katana joining the team.

Finally, "The Forests of the Night" is a one-issue story (Firestorm #19) that has Donna Troy joining forces with Jason Rusch as Firestorm. "Deep Impact" is also a one-issue story (Outsiders #33) has the Outsiders going against The Society with the aid of Mary Marvel.

Judd Winick (Outsiders #29–32), Jan Van Meter (Outsiders #33), and Stuart Moore (Firestorm #19) penned the trade paperback. For the most part, it is written moderately well. Winick splits the Outsiders into those offering aid across the wider universe, and those remaining on Earth to track down the Society. It also involves a crossover with Firestorm, portions of which readers would be thankful for at least one-issue of Firestorm. Jen Van Meter writes the concluding chapters and doesn’t seem very interested, but keeps up the pretence all the way to an enigmatic conclusion.

Matthew Clark (Outsiders #29–32), Dietrich Smith (Outsiders #31–33), and Jamal Igle (Firestorm #19) penciled the trade paperback. For the most part the pencilers have distinct penciling styles, which made the artistic flow somewhat rough. It is, mitigated somewhat as Smith combine talents with Clark before taking over for the final story.

All in all, Outsiders: Crisis Intervention is a mediocre continuation to what would hopefully be a wonderful series.

[Christopher · Rating 2 out of 5]

These tie-ins man. It was all over the place with the team split up for different tasks. Was kinda a mess.

Liked Katana being around for this one, though.

Roy is trying to figure out who he is. That's cool. We will see where that goes.

Sabbac was over too fast. I feel like they could have done more with him coming back into play here.

[Batastrophe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Honestly, I still love the Outsiders, but I wasn't really feeling this book.

At first, the team tries to settled into a new norm after the events of Teen Titans/Outsiders: The Insiders.





The loss of Indigo and Nightwing quitting the team means that there are a few spaces open on the roster. Captain Marvel Junior has joined the team, and Katana joins soon after when the team takes down Sabbac. This was probably the most fun plotline of this issue, and we also get the most risque sex scene I've yet seen in a mainstream DC comic:



Good thing the Comics Code Authority was out of fashion by this point.

After that, things get a little derailed.

Donna Troy is back, and she's assembling a team to go off into space and save the universe--or something. It's never quite clear what exactly they're supposed to be doing, but whatever it is, it has very little to do with the Outsiders.



But it turns out that none of that matters anyways, because no sooner do they arrive in space than Jade, Shift, and Starfire end up in a side-plot-within-a-side-plot when Starfire thinks she's sensed the goddess X'hal.



Spoilers: It's not X'hal



Back on earth, the rest of the team is working on taking down the Syndicate in what is admittedly a pretty cool sting operation and by far the stronger of the two plotlines.





But all in all, I thought this book meandered too much, and was a little lacking in plot and character development. I think this series has been at its strongest when Winick delivers those emotional gut punches, and those punches, while still there, just weren't striking as hard this volume. The bits where the Outsiders actually got to be the Outsiders were by far the strongest, but sending half the team into space was pointless and really ruined the book's momentum. The book is clearly struggling to get back on its feet after suffering through multiple crossover events.

The fact of the matter is that lately, the Outsiders keep being beaten, betrayed, and separated. And it's almost as if the series knows it flown a bit off course, going as far as to point it out on two occasions:







I will give the volume props for continuing with the emotional plotline seeded here between Grace and Roy, and allowing Roy to have his own subplot throughout the book where he gets to question what he's really doing with the Outsiders and what he wants to achieve with this team.

But these two moments seem to be trying to herald a turnaround for the Outsiders, and I really hope that will be the case in the next volume once the whole team is back together again. I'll keep reading the series for sure--I love this team, and I love their dynamics--but I hope it returns to having more character-driven moments, developing relationships, as well as delivering some more good plot twists.

[Kathleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really interwoven with Infinite Crisis stuff, but I love the undercover operation in the last issue. Arsenal can't kill bad guys. Whats more--because Dick would never have gotten that far--Roy finally realizes that he isn't cut out for this team. Roy may have put the Outsiders together, but he doesn't fit the mold.

[LBK · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really love these

[Matthieu Savignac · Rating 3 out of 5]

Une première partie très agréable, avec aux crayons un Matthew Clark vraiment très bon, très différent de Carlos d'Anda, ressemblant plus au style un peu plus classique à la Reis. Le retour de Sabbac et l'arrivée de nouveau membre de l'équipe est plutôt bien amené même si la fin de l'arc arrive quand même très vite.
Et on comprend vite pourquoi dans la deuxieme moitié du TPB.

Eh oui, les raisons éditoriales viennent pointer le bout de leurs nez.

Infinity Crisis est là, et il faut que cela emm*** impacte l'intégralité des séries.

On se retrouve donc avec une fin d'arc baclé et une équipe scindé en deux. Une qui va être un tie-in à Rann-Thanagar War et l'autre à Vilains United.

Chaque équipe est d'ailleurs dessiné par deux illustrateur différent - Oh et la partie lié à Rann-Thanagar War est par "hasard" illustré par Clark - sachant que la mini série principale est dessinée par Reis... Bref

C'est fait pour être fait, mais n'a aucun intérêt que ce soit vis à vis de l'event principal, qu'au sein de la série en elle même.

C'est quand même dommage de finir la série pre One Year Later de la sorte...

[Sean · Rating 2 out of 5]

Infinite Crisis' infinite amount of tie-ins were rarely good and this is a fine example of that. The Outsiders are thrown in multiple directions for...reasons. Still not sure why or how even. The adventures in space made no sense and served little purpose. The more earth bound stuff was better but overshadowed by other books. The art also fell off in the later chapters. Overall, this book was a pretty rough read.

[Guido · Rating 3 out of 5]

Intervención crítica.

[cc · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5

[Nicholas Palmieri · Rating 3 out of 5]

The stories weren't bad, but they weren't too memorable. A major step down for the series, mainly because it had to tie into all of the series going on around Infinite Crisis. The first two issues were a fun little story that featured the return of Sabbac and the Fearsome Five, in spite of the fact that the central plot device relied on something from a different title (Day of Vengeance). Then we get the completely-out-of-place Firestorm issue, which isn't terrible but doesn't belong here. Then there's one more Winick Outsiders issue, which is good, if a little unfocused... and then Jen Van Meter takes on the final two issues, wrapping up what Winick started. The final three issues are one complete story with a few different elements, but none are particularly interesting and all are tied up with events in other series. There's a nice acknowledgment of the significance of a plot twist from volume 3, but there's no real elaboration on its significance. Van Meter is stuck in a fairly problematic situation here, and with the weak stories without the clever dialogue like Winick uses, it's not too interesting. The art splits based on the two story threads, one artist of which is great but the other of which is not very good. The stories in this book are solid enough, but they aren't quite at the level of previous Outsiders books.

[Warren]

Occurred during Infinite Crisis

[Sophie · Rating 2 out of 5]

No Nightwing. :( This also was a bit of a mish-mash, and I never felt really invested or even interested in the story. Which could be due to the lack of Nightwing, I admit. *g*

[Erik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Try to stay out of trouble you kids