In light of the new season of Young Justice revolving around the Outsiders, it occurs to me that there are plenty of heroes from that on-and-off again DC Comics superhero team I can take a look at. Sure, the sword-wielding Katana has been rather prominent with different incarnations of the Suicide Squad, but the rest of that group pretty much sticks to itself.
As such, let’s stop to look at one of the more conventional ones and check out Geo-Force.
The Outsiders were a superhero team originally published in a book titled Batman and the Outsiders back in 1983. The basic concept behind the team was this: a frustrated Batman quits the Justice League to fight the bad guys in a way that the League’s by-laws and traditions won’t let him. He finds himself in the fictional Eastern European country of Markovia and ends up founding a brand new team of heroes made up of himself, lesser-known DC heroes Metamorpho and Black Lightning, and then a couple rookies who could be shown the ropes of superheroing.
Geo-Force was one of those, and his real name was Prince Brion Markov. Yes, he was the ruler of Markovia, and the kingdom was under siege from the evil Baron Bedlam. The only hope for Markovia was for Brion to gain the ancestral powers of his family, and fortunately, a scientist named Dr. Helga Jace was there to make sure it happened.
As Geo-Force, Brion had the power to do all kinds of stuff involving the earth itself and gravity. He could control rock and stone, summon lava, and by nullifying gravity, he could even fly. Of the new superhero team that came to be called the Outsiders, he was probably the one with the most physical powers of the bunch. He’s been more or less a mainstay of the Outsiders ever since, as there has rarely been an Outsiders team, always generally a group that is not quite connected to the other big DC superhero teams, without him on it in one form or another, and he even did a stint on the Justice League at one point.
Though it is worth noting, he isn’t the first Markov to get earth manipulation powers to appear in comics. His sister Tara went by the name Terra and was actually originally rather evil, betraying the Teen Titans in one of those stories that, when I read it, I wondered why the introduction told me many fans refused to believe she was evil when she looked pretty evil from the start. Then again, there are people who think Allison Williams’ character in Get Out was another innocent victim too for some reason, so I don’t question these things too hardly. That’s how you hurt your brain.
So, why list the guy who is almost always on the Outsiders as a Misplaced Hero? Well, that has more to do with the Outsiders as a team than it does as Geo-Force as a character. The Outsiders are a group that DC only tries to make a go off every so often, and if there isn’t an Outsiders title in publication, there’s probably no sign of Geo-Force hanging out anywhere other than the background.
Still, he does have a nice role in the new season of Young Justice.
But he’s a fairly straight forward character. If you want someone odd from the Outsiders, you probably need to take a look at Geo-Force’s teammate Halo. She was pretty weird.
I’m going to have cover Halo next week, aren’t I?
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