Damnit, I'm on record as liking the idea of the Outsiders way more than anything I've ever read with them; but I've liked other stuff from these writers. Still, I feel like I see what they were trying to do, and I hate it. From 2024,
Outsiders #8, "Hex" Written by Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly, art by Robert Carey.
In the ghost town of Zero, Batwoman confronts
Virginia "Jinny" Hex, although she's really there to help; that's just kind of how she is. Jinny is being chased by ghost cowboys, and her gun is the only thing that works on them; although Batwoman buys them some time with salt. She explains, they maybe have a mutual friend:
Jenny Crisis. She was a Century Baby, like Jenny Sparks had been, and maybe DC finally scraped bottom on stealing from Alan Moore, time to go for Warren Ellis. ('Stealing' might be harsh there, but this feels like playing with somebody else's toys maybe without permission. Which probably sounds weird from me, sure.) Jenny had been helped by the Outsiders before, but there were other Century Babies out there that needed help, like Jinny. Batwoman isn't sure what it all means, but knows those kids are important somehow. OK, fair enough. Then, the ghost of Jonah Hex shows up.
Jonah tells a three-page text story, of being maybe mortally wounded, before he found a magic gun in a crevasse; that saved him from dying, and helped him put down 37 of the Elliot Gang. It helps when you don't have to reload, I suppose. Jonah killed maybe two hundred with it, but was haunted by ghosts and felt he wasn't firing the gun anymore, it was firing him. He put it in a box and buried it; and asks Jinny why she had to use it: she had space guns, she didn't need it. Except, she did, during a burglary, when she put down a guy kicking down her bedroom door. Jonah feels bad about it, but tells Jinny she can't put the gun down: "...last life it took has gotta be
yours." That feels like a load.
He put it down...
Batwoman takes the gun instead, feeling that Jinny deserved a chance at a life; hers was already pretty wrecked, this wouldn't hurt much more. Jonah maybe is a little too sarcastic here, so Batwoman shoots him, then shoots the other ghosts...which, doesn't seem to do much? Like maybe the gun holds them off a bit, but doesn't permanently shut them down. She then calls the Outsiders: maybe they both said some things, but she needs them, since she could "contain the situation...but I can't
solve it." But the others might not be in any position to help...
Ugh, where to begin? Mystic stuff and Jonah Hex, that's only going to work in the absolute smallest of microdoses, or you get the
Jonah Hex movie. And Jonah doesn't currently have a comic, so his corpse and/or his ghost have shown up in the present more than once, and once was probably more than enough. I like the idea of Batwoman trying to take somebody else's burden, but it feels like taking away from Jinny's story. I know Lanzing and Kelly maybe did some other stuff with
Planetary characters in this title--the Drummer and Jakita are mentioned--but that was a book I loved to death yet don't feel ready to revisit, or continue. I don't know the magic gun's full story either, but good lord, I'm afraid it belongs to the
Saint of Killers or something. And I liked Jinny as a legacy character, but this feels like saddling her with one or two
more legacies, on top of that. (No spoilers, but Jinny would be back in two issues, so this maybe didn't completely break the character.)
3 comments:
You know things are bad when they’re mining Elllis. Also goes to further prove my & many other’s beliefs that Jim Lee NEVER should’ve sold Wildstorm to DC. DC doesn’t necessarily have the best track record when it comes to assimilating other companies’ comic characters too well, with but a few exceptions. It doesn’t help that a lot of the more popular, established Wildstorm characters are more or less derivatives of certain DC characters already.
It does seem like the problem with bringing in these other universes' heroes is, there's already an established character filling their spot that isn't going to be shoved aside for the new kid. Apollo and Midnighter are Superman and batman (but more violent and in love), but DC already has the actual Superman and Batman. I feel like there was a Captain Atom mini-series at some point that basically was all about how redundant he is in the DC universe, but he might actually bring something to the table in Wildstorm, if only because he has some moral and ethical lines that distinguish him from the local big players.
Which is kinda sad if that’s the way he’s really viewed by DC. I know that was almost 20 years ago, and DC’s changed hands since, but I could see Atom still being perceived as less than his peers. If that’s the case & it takes placing him in other universes to be seen as special or adding something that was otherwise lacking before he arrived, then that’s a massive failure on DC’s part for letting that happen.
Yeah, as it’s been pointed out by many people, Wildstorm characters, when seen standing next to DC characters, just come off as cheap knockoffs and derivatives, which further devalues not only those creations, but the work of countless creators who invested time & energy into them.
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