Straight away it is evident of the massive improvement on all areas here. Not only has the writing stepped up with Peter Tomasi at the helm, but the artists in this are on another level. Very crisp looking art with some awesome spreads.
Along with the fresh new look we get a mostly new line-up, most of which are pretty sweet. Geo-Force takes on the leading role, with Metamorpho and Katana continuing their tour of duty. Old Outsiders Black Lightning and Halo rejoin the action, along with newbies Owlman and Creeper. Black Lighting and Geo-Force have some tension between them that could erupt at some point. Speaking of Geo-Force, he really shines through on this, giving us a much deeper insight to his character, which is a lot darker than I previously thought. Rex is as usual, his comedic self, although he isn't the fruitiest dude on the team anymore...enter the Creeper. Jack Ryder is the alter ego (literally) to the insane freak show that is Creeper. I really don't understand why he was chosen by Batman to be on the team, considering he is a massive wildcard. Something of which I wouldn't think Batman would be that keen on, but oh well I'll roll with it. I found his dialogue really hard to read, even though I knew it was suppose to be nonsense. The highlight of the new crew would definitely be Owlman for me. I know, I know "but he's basically Batman?!" (blah blah blah). Who cares he is awesome, plus he's actually really different to Bruce in my opinion. Then there's Halo, an older Outsiders member from back in the day. For me I didn't find her that impressive or interesting. If they wanted some more girl power they should have brought back Grace, she was a powerhouse and she had some grit to her.
Anyhoo...back to the story. Butler boy Alfred Pennyworth is left a message from a presumed dead Batman to assemble the Outsiders once more to take on some bad guys. And after going on a massive trip around the globe he assembles Batman's "dream team" of heroes. The story moves along nicely with the guys traveling all over the globe to unravel the mystery of the poorly named antagonists', the Insiders...really?! Anyway, they're a bunch of immortal weirdos who walk around in the nude and spend there time underground trying to look for fragments of an ancient meteor that crashed into earth thousands of years ago. A meteor that happens to be the same source of power to another immortal bastard, the malevolent Vandal Savage himself. Along with Savage we get an appearance from my favourite DC assassin, Deathstroke. I'm not sure where it takes place, but Geo-Force and Slade previously had an epic battle in which Brion had come out the victor. So there are some heated moments between the two as Slade taunts Brion, who turns out to be quite a hot head. To top it all off we get some Ra's Al Ghul action in there.
If your looking for a jumping point into this series then kick off here. Although it helps a little to know what happened in the last volumes, it doesn't really come into play here. I love this team so it's obvious I was going to enjoy this. If you want to try something different then check this out!