I wonder if Charles Dickens knew what he was handing to the world when he composed A Christmas Carol? The story is told and retold so many times, and always, always works. Is it just that we can all relate too much to the closed off person who is reminded of his links to humanity? Grim thought for this time of year, I guess.
This was a strange comic - I'm not sure if what the Outsiders do here is at all ethical - they basically gaslight an old man into confessing secrets he knows about a mobster. It's less physically violent than an old-fashioned superheroic brawl, but it's also less honest. The team is not, as far as I could tell, doing this to help redeem a man who has spent much of his life covering up crimes but rather to arrest the crime boss he works for. The accountant who serves as the Scrooge stand-in here is incidental in many ways. They get the information they want from him, and then are surprised that, having experienced "3 spirits," the old man confesses his crimes to the police and turns himself in. It's as if the notion of the man redeeming himself never even crossed their minds. All but Halo, who says she feels bad tricking the man this way.
All in all, a strange Christmas story. It calls back to its original for sure, but doesn't quite grasp the same spirit of fellowship that Dickens was, ostensibly, looking for.
To be continued.
