Outsiders trades 5 and 6 out of order?

[Animation]

All,

I dont follow DC closely really, I'm years behind. I've also never read any Outsiders. I bought all 6 of the trades and read them start to finish. Luckily I did the same thing with the Teen Titans and I happened to pick up the TT/Outsiders: Insiders thing. So when all that happened with the traitor on the team I had the trade I needed to follow it.

However, when I got to Outsiders 5, the team are suddenly supposed to be dead for some reason and some kinda nuke accident and a Dr S framejob exposes them. Then I get to Outsiders 6 and I get some story about why they are supposed to be dead. Its like its out of order.

Help?

Lewis

[Gottaluvit]

Ahh, the dreaded OYL mark.

It's most certainly not out of order, just confusing for fans who weren't around at the time of Infinite Crisis. Dc left fans confused for ages as to why and how the team came to be 'Dead' but all is revealed in the latest trade "Pay As You Go" It's a flash back arc that fills in the gaps as to why and how..

Also, you may find the same sorts of 'gaps' in most DC books at that time. DC literally skipped forward an entire year in the characters lives in one month.

[The Xenos]

Wow. They didn't even warn people about it in the trades? Ha. I guess even there One Year Later was a messed up failure. I kinda enjoyed the idea at the time, but it really went nowhere and they ended up having to use entire arcs as flashbacks in most of the books anyway.

[Animation]

Ah ok, thanks for the heads-up.

So, if I just want to read them in the "in-universe chronological order" I'd read Trades 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and then 5? Or do the "One Year" things not match the trade boundaries?

Lewis

[Gottaluvit]

Its up to you, but thats how I read them, but #6 does open with NW thinking stuff though and then says something like "One year earlier...." and heads into the flashback, so it does let you know its a flashabck story.

[Animation]

As an aside, I have to say that the Outsiders trades, while excellent overall, are depressing as hell.

Looking at the cover to the first trade, 3 of the 7 characters die off by the end of the trade run. One of those 3 also becomes a supervillain and dies twice. One of those 3 kills 40 people first. Of the 4 that live, one gets demoted, one gets shot up and eventually quits because he isnt cut out for the team, one gets kicked off because someone else decides she isnt cut out for it, and the other one has a back-story of being a child slave.

Aside from that, they let out a bunch of supervillains (though not really anything they could have stopped), get framed, botch a rescue leading to massive death, and end up being on the run.

Its a pretty depressing series, even though I loved the series (just finished all 6 trades).

Lewis