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greenygalI don't usually read OUTSIDERS, and I haven't got to the comic shop yet anyway. (GREEN LANTERN #181 isn't much of an incentive.) But I'm hearing worrying things about this particular issue. Can anyone fill me in as to what, exactly, happened?
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Date: 2004-09-30 07:47 am (UTC)Dick is still having problems coping with the death of Donna Troy in Graduation Day. Dick signed onto the Outsiders under the condition that it would be business. He was not going to get close to the Outsiders in the same way he had to the Titans. No matter what, the Outsiders would never be family.
Roy had thought, when Dick signed on, that things would change with time, and that Dick would start to see the Outsiders as his new family. But after recent events in which Jenny was hurt, and Thunder (Anissa) was almost killed, Roy is starting to realize that Dick was serious when he said the Outsiders would be strictly business.
Anyway, Roy says something along the lines of, "You've always been terrified of turning into Batman. Well, congratulations, because in trying not to be like your mentor, you've become him."
Dick, stung, tells Roy, "Oh yeah? Well you're just like yours too. Shallow, womanizing..." blah blah blah, "...but at least Ollie was never a junkie."
At which point, Roy and Dick proceed to try to kill each other with their fists--destroying half the Outsiders headquarters in the process.
Meanwhile, Jenny has also decided that Dick is a bad leader, so she decides to crown herself queen of the moment, and takes it upon herself to invite a new member to sign on with the Outsiders--without consulting anyone else on the team, I might add.
Her new team member of choice? Starfire.
Oh, and then there's the whole three-part John Walsh/Outsiders special that starts next month in Outsiders #17, which, I believe also has people a little riled. :-)
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Date: 2004-09-30 08:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-30 10:11 am (UTC)That said:
But after recent events in which Jenny was hurt, and Thunder (Anissa) was almost killed, Roy is starting to realize that Dick was serious when he said the Outsiders would be strictly business.
I'm just not following Roy's reasoning here. Viewing one's team as family is necessary in order to lead them competently? Admittedly that could be how Winick has been writing the situation--like I said, I haven't been reading the book--but the idea that Dick would be careless of the safety of anyone he leads, simply because he's not personally attached to them, is so far outside my comprehension that I really hope I'm misunderstanding something here.
Her new team member of choice? Starfire.
This is just weird. I can, actually, see the attraction of this particular team for Kory--although while I don't generally complain about characters being in more than one book, two separate teams does tend to be pushing it--but she's a very out-of-the-blue choice for both Jade and Winick. I'm not positive she's ever even met Jade; where the hell is this coming from?
(Okay, so they were in a NTT/Infinity Inc. crossover together twenty years ago, but somehow I don't think that's relevant.)
Oh, and then there's the whole three-part John Walsh/Outsiders special that starts next month in Outsiders #17, which, I believe also has people a little riled. :-)
...yes. I might buy this issue; I am not touching the subsequent ones. (John Walsh? Huh?)
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Date: 2004-09-30 10:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-30 11:51 am (UTC)Personally, I don't think Roy's problem with Dick's attitude isn't so much that it's contrary to leading an *efficient* team [1] as much as it's about the fact that Dick's attitude is contrary to leading the kind of team Roy wants to be a part of.
[1] Like, you can't really argue that Roy wouldn't have gotten shot if the Outsiders were warmer and fuzzier, for example; Donna is a counter-example that would be fresh in their minds.
And let's face it, Roy has always been the one who needed the Titans to be a family more than just about anybody else (on the original TT anyway.)
Knowing Dick as well as Roy does, it was hardly such a crazy plan to, you know (1) put Dick in a room full of people (2) wait two months (3) voila, have yourself a functioning family unit. ;) I'm not saying this was Roy's primary intention in creating the team, but I think it was definitely an expectation that he had... Whether Roy was doing this for his own sake or for *Dick's* (or a little of both) is still up for debate as far as I'm concerned.
I don't think Roy's pissed because Dick is being careless of the team, so much as he's being uncaring. Which doesn't really make him a bad leader (see Batman) -- I think Roy wanted *Dick* to be on his team, and instead all he's getting is Nightwing, and Dick's trying very hard to make there be a difference there. Although I do think it's very weird of the writers to have this big Roy/Dick throwdown just five issues after the sheer lovefest of Roy/Dick male-bonding that was #11.
(All opinions subject to change after I read the issue itself.)
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Date: 2004-09-30 12:07 pm (UTC)Okay, if what
I agree with everything you said above; I think that's at least part of what Roy wanted and expected out of setting up this team, and it's perfectly in character for him to get ticked when Dick is still playing Batman months later. It was only the apparent connection of "not a family" to "people get killed" that had me concerned.
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Date: 2004-10-01 07:41 am (UTC)Oh yeah, the Starfire thing was weird too. I really hope she doesn't stick around.
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Date: 2004-10-02 02:27 am (UTC)Okay, if what iamza meant was not "Roy feels that people have been injured because Dick doesn't care about them" but "after seeing Dick's reaction to people being injured, Roy realizes that he doesn't care about them"--then that would be the misunderstanding on my part that I was hoping for; that makes perfect sense.
Hm. Well, that *is* what I meant, but now after reading the issue, "You're too cold and unfeeling and you're gonna get us all killed" *does* seem to be what Roy's saying. Which is... yeah. Odd. I mean, they've *shown* the Hall of Dead Titans over in TT, so we *know* that they both know that's not true.
I guess it's possible that Roy thinks that Dick's just not being the *best* leader that he can be, as long as he keeps to the detached, Batman-y leadership style. It might work for other people, but it's clearly *not* working for Dick, and I can see why-- it's just *unnatural* and it's got to be putting a strain on him to go against every basic instinct that he's got, and keep those walls all the way up.
I mean... he's not doing *awfully.* Nobody's actually died yet. But when that's the best you can say, it's really not saying very much... and most of the team *has* come pretty close to dying at least once. (And it's not like the team's exactly made up of lightweights, either!)
So, maybe Roy has a point, maybe he doesn't... I mean, when they decided to be hunters instead of firemen, they had to know it would be a bit riskier... so maybe Dick's leadership style wouldn't have mattered either way... but on the other hand, I think you could make a good case arguing that Dick *could* have maybe done a noticeably better job at molding the bunch of them into a well-oiled *team* if he'd actually let himself relate to the group as people, and friends, instead of just a bunch of soldiers.