TW: SA, Grooming, Coercion, Suicide
Batman and the Outsiders is a silly little book about Batman training a new group of superheroes. If you want to know if this book for you, ask yourself if you can handle 80s era weirdly patriotic writing. If the answer is yes? Then yeah itâs a fun lighthearted Superhero romp that occasionally delves into more difficult topics and handles them adequately.Â
But Issue 15 gave me an aneurysm so fucking bad man.Â
The setup is simple and happened in the previous story, itâs a story about Brionâs college friend Denise Howards after she got sexually assaulted and was nearly groomed into a relationship so she could get a scholarship by the dean.
This leads to Denise attempting to take her own life.
Now, unfortunately for all the Brion Markov fans, he very recently started a relationship with Gabrielle Doe (or Violet Harper). From what I can tell from what my friends tell me, this is not going to come up a lot in the future. But for this story? It makes it so much worse (and this story needs all the help it can get).
 For those who donât know, Gabrielle is a very clear highschooler. According TO PREVIOUS ISSUES, between 15-17 and generally considered 16. She is definitely coded to be a child. Brion is taking college classes. At the least he is 18, but he is taking GRAD SCHOOL classes. At the very least, he has to be at least 19. Mike W. Barr probably realized how weird this story would sound so immediately in #19 he broke this pair up (also implying that Brion wanted to sleep with his sister which is so much grosser).
Already after a relationship with a weird age gap and a break up that would be legendarily bad for centuries to come, Brion starts a streak in his long career (at least from what my friends have told me, I havenât been given a reason to think otherwise). A streak where he seems to be the only one who seems to treat groomers with any amount of severity.
So what does Batman do? Well he calls Superman to make sure that Brion doesnât kill Dean Raeburn. At the face, itâs very funny to have the only character who can stop Brion be Superman. (Think itâs kinda funny to have Superman listening to such a christian seeming song but Iâm also not knowledgeable enough to make more than an observation).
Brion and Clark fight for a bit and I think some of the conversation is darkly weird. The fight itself is well drawn and given a lot of interesting choreography. Though it has Superman say some stuff that, sure makes some sense, it feels like itâs written in bad faith. You have seen Barr write a weird age gap that seems like grooming earlier. This comes off as extremely hypocritical from Brion even though what heâs doing is extremely valid.
Ultimately, the resolution is Batman and Superman saying âYeah the guyâs an asshole but the lawâs definitely going to get him :).â It seems grossly naive from Batman who, mind you, lives in Corrupt Cop Central Gotham. Itâs also wildly naive of Investigative Journalist Clark Kent to blindly trust the authorities and the system to work perfectly. Hell if it wasnât for the fact that Batman was rich, Dean Raeburn wouldâve continued working as per usual. It seems unfortunately a real life scenario that is being used to say that laws are always just and always going to be followed.
I think the book itself is fun but itâs so clear that itâs been written in the 80s from the perspective of a man who blindly trusts the law.
What was the point of this?Â
I have no fucking clue, Iâm frustrated another man I like in comics did something weird.
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