"The End" Week begins, with The Outsiders #28!

I do this every year, and buy last issues all year round, but somehow I'm still surprised as we start yet another "The End" week, with as many last issues as we can cram in. This year's opener, from 1988, the Outsiders #28, "...A Land Down Under..." Written by Mike W. Barr, pencils by Erik Larsen, inks by Mark Farmer.

DC does this sometimes where they would have a crossover, to hopefully improve the sales of some books by bringing in some new readers, while also cancelling the book in the middle of said crossover. (Captain Atom, Chase, Booster Gold, among others.) What's the point of that, then? This was a Millennium crossover (and the aforementioned Booster Gold was cancelled there as well) and already the Outsiders had lost long-time supporting cast member Dr. Jace as a Manhunter sleeper agent, she had blown herself and Metamorpho up. (He'd be back, on a better team! Surprisingly in recent years, Dr. Jace would be a villainous supporting character on the Black Lightning CW show.)

Looker had been psychically summoned back to Abyssia, the underground civilization that had given her powers. Lia gives a bit of a recap, including probably more about her estranged husband than the Outsiders probably wanted to know. They are greeted by old friends, who try to warn it's a trap, of the Manhunters! Looker was able to put a force-field around the team, and they are able to smash up the blue-faced robots, but when they try to infiltrate disguised as Manhunters, they are discovered by "Queen Tamira the First," whose outfit is...a lot going on, let's say.

Tamira is easily baited into a challenge match with Looker, which gives the Outsiders time to break out of the dungeons. Realizing Tamira shouldn't have been able to get powers like hers, since she wasn't a descendant of the Abyssians' ruling class like her, Lia 'unmasks' Tamira's psychic illusion, and she got real ugly. Tamira returns the favor, by turning Lia back into her pre-Looker self. Lia manages to hit her in the eyes before getting thrown into lava, and Tamira takes the big dive. But before the Manhunters are completely beat, one takes a shot at Katana, that Halo throws herself in front of. In the end, Lia returns to her husband (boo!) and Halo is left on life-support, with Katana grieving over her, as Geo-Force thinks the Outsiders' time is, for now, over. 

I don't think the Manhunters add much to this one; they could've been replaced with Abyssian guards with no impact. This is pretty early work from Larsen, and it's a bit cartoony in spots--there also seems to be a bit of Keith Giffen influence in there? And the various Outsiders, and the team itself, would of course return multiple times over the years. Looker might've been the first to return, in or around Detective #605.