I’m not one to harp on writers usually but Dan Didio took all the heart and soul out of pretty much every member of the Outsiders and thus, the book itself. What started as a group of people representing the best of Batman has degraded into an angst-ridden group of thirty somethings who have displayed no motivations to act like they do outside of providing the means to reboot the team for the umpteenth time.

Forget the great moments of Brion’s desperate takedown of Deathstroke in Last Will and Testament or the fantastic spotlight that Jefferson got as both a teacher and a hero in Black Lightning: Year One. Those great character moments are replaced with cliche royal snobbery and a two-steps-back qualifying “kiss my black elipses”.

The bad characterizations don’t end there: Owlman doesn’t say a word after inexplicably acting like a character from Twilight with Katana last issue, Katana backs Geoforce acting like a prick and then threatens to cut his head off, and Alfred, who’s the leader of the group, gets punked by a guy who looks like Ronald Reagan after throwing the guys campaign.

Speaking of the look of the book, while I don’t hate Philip Tan’s stuff as much as the average iFanboy, much like the Batman and Robin arc, its inability to gel with the words on the page make it “eh” at best. The drawing itself is solid but the storytelling just isn’t there.

Much like the much maligned Titans this series makes characters I love apart hate them when they’re together. Also, Spolier Alert,  Black Lighting’s secret power is black lightning.