The Outsiders is an international organisation funded and lead by Luke Fox, dedicated to gathering knowledge about the strange and unusual in order to protect the world. It acts independent of all superhero teams.
History
Formation
Fourteen months ago, Lucius Fox suffered a stroke and believed he caught a glimpse of the structure beyond the infinite Multiverse. He gathered the greatest scientists and engineers to work on a project of mapping all of reality, personally recruiting the world's greatest archaeologist; a mysterious metahuman known only as "Drummer".[1]
To gather the data he needed, Lucius founded the Outsiders. He convinced Luke to join by pitching it as an alternative to the endless cycle of fighting between superheroes and supervillains which ultimately never achieved anything. The Foxes used their family's money and Wayne Enterprises' technology to build the global network of outposts and researchers they would need, but kept Batman out of the loop. Luke also recruited Batwoman to serve alongside him and Drummer as the Outsider's field team and leadership committee.
On their first mission the Outsiders discovered The Carrier, a fifty-mile long sentient starship from another multiverse, deep below the surface of Antarctica.[2] They would go on to encounter an infant sea monster,[3] invade the collective subconscious of every Batman in the Multiverse,[4] meet the Spirit of the 21st Century in London,[5] and gatecrash a party for monsters in New York City.[6] Lucius analysed the data gathered from all their missions to build his model of reality.
Limbo
At the party, Drummer got the location of a "Place Between Places" from a demon and "extra-fictional entity". Lucius was able to use this to complete his model. The Outsiders gathered at the Carrier and Drummer fed Lucius' model into the ship's computer. It generated a hologram of all of reality, which took the form of a snowflake. However, this caused the Carrier to suffer a system meltdown and activate its self-destruct, declaring "Continuity Paradox Detected". The four of them were sucked into a white void an emerged in a Limbo dimension for stories that had ended, alongside a human manifestation of the Carrier.
Although the others were confused, Drummer had apparently expected this and ran off looking for something. When she did not find it she rampaged through the dimension, destroying everything in her path until Batwoman was able to calm the Carrier down and get it to teleport them home. When they returned Batwoman revealed that the Carrier had told her who Drummer really was and ordered her to tell the Foxes the truth. Drummer admitted that her name was Jakita Wagner, and told them that she hadn't joined their story, they were all part of hers.[1]
Jakita revealed her backstory to the Outsiders, explaining how she was a refugee from a lost universe and had gone to Limbo in search of her missing friends. She also told them that she had visions of a "Multiversal Library" beyond their reality, where a being she called the "Observer" was able to read the stories of their lives and know everything. Lucius Fox believed her, as everything she had told them was supported by the data they had gathered, but Batwoman quit the team.[7]
The Library
Approximately two weeks later, Jakita lead the Foxes to the "Lost City of Cannon" in Yucatan. They found the Lords of Chaos and Lords of Order battling over the city and the giant multiversal cannon that dominated it. They each believed that the "cycle" of the world was coming to an end and each wanted to claim the cannon and use it to destroy the elements of the Multiverse that they deemed aberrant. No matter who got control of the cannon, trillions of innocent people would die. Rather than allow that, Luke Fox called in the Carrier and threatened to use it to destroy the entire city and all of them. The two sides backed down and the Outsiders took the cannon into the Bleed.
On the ship they reunited with Batwoman, who had had her own adventure with Jinny Hex and found a cursed revolver that could destroy the world. Luke welcomed her back onto the team, but Jakita snuck away and stole the revolver.[8][9] She built a weapon from the cannon and the revolver in a secret chamber deep within the Carrier, which would allow her to destroy the Multiversal Library. The Carrier had helped Jakita construct the weapon, as it also wanted to return home and viewed Jakita as a "friend". However, it also allowed Batwoman to discover what they were doing and try to stop them, as the Carrier also considered Kate and Luke its friends and wanted to help both sides.
At Batwoman's instruction, the Carrier teleported Jenny Crisis, Jinny Hex and the baby sea monster into the chamber to stop Jakita. Jakita easily defeated the three Century Babies, but they were able to delay her long enough for the Outsiders to reach the chamber. However, when Luke was about to attack Jakita, she challenged him to see what would happen rather than play his role in the story and "go out fighting", implicitly threatening that she would kill him if her trued to stop her. Luke stood down and Jakita fired a "cosmic round" through a dimensional rift in The Bleed, destroying the Infinite Frontier. The Outsiders were once again swallowed by the void.[10]
The Carrier managed to save a possible future timeline and pull the Outsiders from it at the cost of destroying its sentience. Jakita, Luke, Kate and Lucius Fox all landed in the Multiversal Library. The Outsiders squared off with Jakita again, and she once again easily overpowered them. However, Lucius challenged her to "do better" and make a better story than the one she was given. Jakita realised that she was no longer the hero of the story and now had to choose whether she would be the villain or the narrator. She used the Planetary Guide, a record of all the team's adventures, to write an "ending" for their story; writing in the book that she fired herself into the Library rather than the cosmic round. She placed the book on the library shelf, restoring reality and sending the Outsiders back to Earth while she remained in the Library.
Kate resigned from the Outsiders and returned to being a vigilante in Gotham City. Luke recruited Jenny Crisis and began working with the other Century Babies of the 21st Century.[11]
Notes
- The Outsiders are similar in many ways to the Planetary organization.
See Also
- 10 Appearances of Outsiders IV (Prime Earth)
- 13 Images that include Outsiders IV (Prime Earth)
- Organization Gallery: Outsiders IV (Prime Earth)
Links
- None.