Warning: spoilers for Outsiders #6 ahead!

Summary

• DC reveals Zauriel's whereabouts in the Place Between the Pages, changing DCU storylines.
• Zauriel, the Justice League's angel, serves a key role with DC's heroes in supernatural matters.
• Placing Zauriel in a liminal space offers unique storytelling possibilities for DC's forgotten characters.

The Justice League has gone through many different rosters and iterations, but one of its strangest has to be Zauriel, the oft-forgotten angel of the 1990s. A difficult character to find a story for, DC finally reveals where Zauriel has been since the Rebirth event — and does so in a way that forever changes how storylines work in the DC Universe.

Outsiders #6 by Jackson Lanzing, Collin Kelly, and Robert Carey opens with the team's latest multiverse experiment going horribly awry, sending the Outsiders and Lucius Fox to "the Place Between the Pages," a pocket reality where DC's characters reside when not currently in publication. Stepping into a malt shop, Luke and Lucius are greeted by "Zee," a pale winged man whom astute readers will instantly recognize as Zauriel of the Justice League.

Zauriel serves Luke and Lucius chocolate malts while another denizen (possibly DC's Lieutenant Carson) explains the publication limbo in which they have found themselves. This new locale — and Zauriel's presence there — opens up a number of storytelling routes for the DCU, many of them deeply strange and complex.

Zauriel Is the Justice League's Very Own Angel

Who Is DC's Niche Angel Character?

This is a welcome return for Zauriel, one of DC's most fascinating niche characters. Zauriel first appeared in JLA #6, abandoning his position in the heavenly host after falling in love with a mortal woman. The JLA: Paradise Lost miniseries further expands Zauriel's story, with him playing a key role in stopping the rogue angel Asmodel and the devil Neron's assault on heaven. Afterward, Zauriel is bequeathed new armor and formally inducted into the Justice League as the team's resident expert on the supernatural, and is included in the JLA roster from JLA #16 onward.

Zauriel was created by some of the most well-known comics creators of the '90s and 2000s: Grant Morrison, Mark Millar, Howard Porter, and John Dell.

As an angel, Zauriel is well-equipped to defend the Justice League from threats both physical and metaphysical. A formerly heavenly being, his firsthand knowledge of the divine and mystical is second to none — save for the highest tier characters of DC's cosmology. Zauriel also wields super-strength, flight, a sonic scream to rival Black Canary's, and a heaven-forged flaming sword and suit of armor. Given his strengths, it's no wonder that early issues of JLA conveniently and frequently saw Zauriel teleported away by some villain lest he immediately spoil their plan.

DC Comics Has a Major Cosmological Problem

Where Do Angels Fit into DC's Cosmic Mythos?

Placing a character like Zauriel within the DCU comes with a unique set of problems that aren't necessarily apparent at first glance. On the macro level, adding angels and an Abrahamic Heaven and "Creator" figure wreaks havoc with DC's existing cosmic order. There are dozens of "creator" figures and godly pantheons at play in the DCU outside of classical mythological figures: the New Gods, the Lords of Chaos and Order, Perpetua, the Hands, the Endless, and more. Between figures of such a colossal scale, it is difficult to appropriately place an Abrahamic God and their Heaven in the omniverse.

Azrael, created by Denny O'Neil and Joe Quesada, is another well-known angelic figure from the DC Universe. Unlike Zauriel, Azrael is most often associated with Gotham and the Bat-Family.

Then there is the issue of moral absolutism. In general Abrahamic theology, God is (loosely) the divine, perfect principle, and angels are God's messengers; having an angel as a member of a superhero team implies that the team has divine approval. This seeming approval ruins any attempt to explore the moral quandaries of said heroic figures, as the mere presence of an angel in the Jutsice League's midst acts as automatic validation that their actions are correct and that the actions of those who oppose them are morally wrong. Such black-and-white morality makes it incredibly difficult to shape compelling characters and conflicts.

DC's Versions of Heaven and Hell Have Long Histories

New Gods, Sandman, Hellblazer, and More All Explore Big Concepts

In a medium such as comics, where conflict and Crisis drive the narrative, it is easy to include the presence of a Hell — series like Hellblazer and Sandman have appropriately spent significant resources on inking hell.

By contrast, Heaven is much more staid. While Hell is chaotic by definition, Heaven is order; outside visual motifs such as clouds or garden landscapes, Heaven offers artists less leeway to explore. Likewise, as ostensibly beings of pure "good," angels are difficult to fit into a narrative; in order to maintain conflict, angels most often appear in comics as false prophets (as in Sandman: Nightmare Country) or as antagonists (such as Gabriel in Hellblazer). The conflict-driven nature of comics does not play well with divine intervention suddenly solving an issue — and angels are divine intervention made manifest.

The Place Between The Pages is a treasure trove for exploring characters that DC has overlooked, and Zauriel stands out among his other forgotten peers.

Zauriel's Place in DC's New Liminal Space Shows Big Storytelling Promise

Outsiders Continues to Explore DC's Weird Corners

All of this perfectly explains why Zauriel is in the Place Between the Pages: the angel is too thorny a character for general mainstream use. At the same time, publishing Zauriel in this manner allows the angel to still exist in the general DC consciousness. Zauriel could become the protagonist for day-to-day stories of life in the Place Between the Pages, or even the caretaker and defender of his new home. The Place Between The Pages is a treasure trove for exploring characters that DC has overlooked, and Zauriel stands out among his other forgotten peers.

Zauriel's publication history has been fascinating and fraught, but it is good to see that DC has given him an appropriate tribute in the Place Between the Pages. Outsiders #6 is quick to point out that being relegated here is not the end, however, with the team's detour proving pivotal in the Planetary plotline revival. Zauriel may no longer be with the Justice League, but Outsiders proving more and more willing to explore DC's metanarrative potential, he may have just found himself on the frontier of the wildest stories yet to come.

Outsiders #6 is available now from DC Comics.