Outsiders Biohazard

On what was suppose to be Free Comic Book Day 2020, the nation is still dealing with a pandemic, from the unleashed coronavirus, trapped in isolation to prevent contact.


The team of heroes formed by Batman had to deal with a potential pandemic as well....but they were slightly more successful in stopping it before it got out of the lab that created it.


Here is that story from Outsiders #15 (January, 1987) from Mike W. Barr, Dan Jurgens and Mike Gustovich!

Biohazard

The story starts when Dr. Helga Jace, the Outsiders' resident scientist, arrives at Biogen Laboratories in upstate California. 

There, she meets with her former student, Dr. Marsha Chandler, who had created an aggressive virus designed to attack the immune system...and Dr. Jace berated Dr. Chandler for creating something that could be turned into a terrible weapon. 

This was enough to distract Dr. Chandler, who accidentally exposed herself to the virus, triggering an alarm, and getting Dr. Jace to summon the Outsiders.


The call went to Halo and Katana, who were in the middle of training, and they summoned the rest of the team.

Once at the lab, Black Lightning used his electrical powers to break in, and found gear to prevent them from breathing in any foreign microbes.  The heroes fought a group of the labs' staff, seemingly possessed, then found Dr. Jace and other members in isolation. 

Dr. Jace explained that the virus also attacks the brain, and had mutated into sentience.  Dr. Jace, using Dr. Chandler's notes, realized the virus could only survive in hosts, and would not survive long in the air, and thus creating a vaccine would eliminate it. 

The virus didn't want to die, so it started to possess the military called in for containment, and started to use the lab safeguards against the Outsiders, with the group saved by Metamorpho.  Dr. Jace finished Dr. Chandler's cure....but as Geo-Force saw, was allergic to one of its components. 

The team rounded up the military members, and got them the cure,  but the virus took Dr. Jace as a host, but some quick thinking by Looker got the virus out of Dr. Jace's body, ending this possible pandemic before it even started!  Would that it were so easy to wipe out a virus in a day!

An Outsiders Christmas Carol

The Outsiders have been celebrating Christmas for a few years, and Charles Dickens' classic tale has been around for a few years longer....

....so, it only makes sense to mash them together!  

Outsiders 

Mike W. Barr and Jim Aparo brought us "A Christmas Carol - 1985" in Outsiders #5 (March, 1986), with the Scrooge like character being Eben Mudge, a man who was forced into being a mob account 40 years ago for Tommy Sinclair, after losing his partner at Christmas time.

The Outsiders try a Christmas Carol operation on him to try to get him to turn state's evidence, with Katana putting a samurai potion in his coffee to make him suggestible.  Mudge is then visited by the ghost of his old partner (Geo-Force), who tells him of the three ghosts who will come next.  

Halo arrives as the Ghost of Christmas Past, Metamorpho as the Ghost of Christmas Present, and Black Lightning as the Ghost of Christmas Future.  Mudge not only gives up the evidence to telepathic Looker (who needed the trip down memory lane to probe his mind), but also convinced the man to reconcile with his estranged family.

As a back up tale by Mike W. Barr and Trevor Von Eeden, Black Lightning and Katana help save a department store from thieves who kidnapped the store's Santa's son!

Adventures Of The Outsiders

Now, a year later in Adventures Of The Outsiders #43 (March, 1987), this tale was reprinted for the newsstand (The Outsiders followed in the footsteps of the New Teen Titans and the Legion of Super-Heroes having a Baxter series direct to comic shops, then a year later, reprinted the tales for newsstand distribution).

This experiment didn't last long (only 8 issues in The Outsiders case), but did give us this Kevin Maquire/Bruce Patterson variant cover of Jim Aparo's original cover.   The Outsiders had had a few previous Christmas tales, one meeting with Phantom Stranger, the other with Superman, and A Christmas Carol was also used by the Teen Titans as well!