Outsiders/Checkmate: Checkout #1

Members of the Outsiders are being captured one at a time until only Nightwing remains. He discovers Checkmate is responsible so he infiltrates their castle to free his teammates and instead, him and the rest of the Outsiders are offered a job.  

Greg Rucka and Judd Winick, the main series writers for both the Checkmate and the Outsiders come together for this joint story arc. The mixed combination of these two teams worked beautifully. We still have that espionage feel you get while reading Checkmate and all the crazy action and drama you get while reading the Outsiders. The added comedy was a nice touch. There's not a lot of it, but there is one line that comes off pretty funny. 

The dialogue was great throughout the story. One of my favorite parts would be the dialogue towards the end between Batman and Nightwing. That put a smile on my face. Great characterization and well presented. Kudos to the writers on that. 

One thing I didn't care for was the choice of villain in the comic. Egg-Fu is such a stupid character in my opinion. At least the story was still good. I think it had a lot to do with the kind of mission and predicament the characters were caught in. 

The art is by Joe Bennett, Matthew Clark, Eddy Barrows and Ron Randall. Together, their combined efforts get the job done. The art is a little darker, just like it is in these respective teams solo series. The action sequences are captured real nicely. No complaints on the art from me.

If you're a fan of either team then you'll definitely enjoy this comic. I highly recommend reading both Checkmate and the Outsiders solo series as well as this. It provides all the good things you would want while reading a comic.  The writers did a great job creating a story with all these characters that felt more natural than forced.