Review: Batman and the Outsiders Vol. 1- Lesser Gods
Quick Summary
Pros: The book is filled with fun action. The characters are compelling the whole way through. The entire book does a solid job in setting up future books. The artwork looks fantastic and enhances the reading experience.
Cons: One of the villain’s subplots is lackluster.
Overall: This is a great first entry in a series with plenty of potential. The book has exciting battles, a compelling group of characters, and beautiful visuals. Plus, it succeeds in building excitement for future entries. The only significant problem is that a few minor plotlines are mediocre. In the end, this is a book for readers who are interested in starting a new series featuring a promising new team.
Story
Batman and the Outsiders Vol. 1: Lesser Gods, by Bryan Hill, is a very promising start to the new Batman and the Outsiders series. The comic brings together a great group of characters and immediately throws them into an action-packed storyline. The resulting narrative is fun while also building a lot of potential for the next volumes. The biggest downside is that a few of the minor plotlines are lackluster. Overall though, this is a solid volume and a great start to this series.
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The most immediately striking aspect of Lesser Gods is the action. There are intense clashes between good and evil, some surprising twists from Ra’s al Ghul, and the uncertainty of what Batman has in store for his team. It creates an exciting and energetic storyline.
This all helps jump start an intriguing narrative for this series. The entire volume sets up a battle between Batman’s Outsiders and Raʼs al Ghul’s League of Assassins. As mentioned above, this battle is already playing out in pretty spectacular and epic fashion. However, over the course of this book, it evolves even further and appears to be building something for the future. I’m excited to see how this grows and changes as the series continues.
Enhancing all of this is the characters within this series. The Outsiders themselves are constantly enjoyable to see and the relationships between them, though new, are already compelling. They also have individual problems and issues that are dealt with or that are being reserved for later.
The downside in Lesser Gods is that the narrative feels a bit cluttered at times. There is a lot going on in this book and not quite enough time to complete it all. This leaves some plot points feeling underdeveloped when compared to others. Specifically, I thought the villain’s story was pretty lackluster. This isn’t a huge problem but is something that could have been handled better.
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Art
The artwork in Lesser Gods is fantastic and is a major reason to pick up this book. Dexter Soy’s work throughout this volume is seriously appealing. The characters and locations are all designed well and look fantastic in nearly every scene. However, the best part about the artwork is the way it enhances the action. Action-packed battles are a big part of this collection so making these battles look good is important. Soy creates some awesome and energetic action scenes that absolutely enhance the reading experience. Altogether, these artistic positives add to an already enjoyable book.
Continuity
Batman and the Outsiders Vol. 1: Lesser Gods is the start of the Batman and the Outsiders series. The narrative here picks up from Detective Comics Vol. 8: On the Outside (Review).
The story here continues in Batman and the Outsiders Vol. 2: A League of Their Own (Review).
This volume also references other comic books, detailed below:
- Lex Luthor’s presence in this collection is a tie-in to the Year of the Villain (Review) event.
- Batman briefly references problems in his personal life. This is likely referring to what took place in Batman Vol. 7: The Wedding (Review) (Reading Order) and what took place across the entirety of Tom King’s run on Batman (Reading Order).
- The symbol in the sky, at the end of this collection, is a reference to Justice League: Justice/Doom War (Review), the finale to Scott Synder’s run on Justice League (Reading Order).