The Fearsome Five #1
The Good: The cover's nothing spectacular, but it doesn't really need to be. It's a standard cover that works just fine. It's got the set of main villains all in menacing poses, and..... actually I take that back. This cover is great because it's such a perfect subtle parallel to the cover of the first issue, using the Fearsome Five instead of the Outsiders. It's fitting especially since this arc has ties to story elements since the first issue.
Dr. Sivana is very charismatic, which is probably due to him being intriguingly genre savvy. He knows what it means to be a villain, which is why it's kind of interetingly odd that he's trying to smooth out the kinks in the Fearsom Five. I'm eager to see what his endgame is.
There's some little touches that show how Winick approaches the more realistic timeline, such as the fact that Grace's hair is still pretty short, only partially grown after being entirely burned off by Sabbac.
Nightwing is starting to show some subtle signs of the worrisome personality traits that Huntress mentioned. I'm seeing some kind of schism or internal conflict at least in the team's future, and Jade appears to be the most likely candidate to challenge Nighting's leadership. This is extra good because it means Jade is starting to show more signs of an interesting and complex personality, something she's lacked in this series.
The Fearsome Five has as interesting and amusing a chemestry as the Outsiders themselves. Most of this issue is about them working on their evil machinations, and revealing a lot about their personalities doing it.
The Bad: I'm not a big fan of the changes in Tom Raney's art. I'm not sure if it's him doing his own inking or if Gina Going's doing something different with her colors, but its just not working for me. I can kind of see what they're trying to do, but for me it just reminds me of Cliff RIchards' artwork. It's not too much like Richards', but it's still not quite my taste.
Even though this arc started off the same as the Outsider's usual M.O., it's turning out to flow the same as any normal atory arc, with the heroes playing catch up to the villain's plans.
In Conclusion: 4/5
This is almost a villain spotlight issue, and it works incredibly well. We get to see that villains can be just as dysfunctional a family as heroes, and the beginning of big story arc with the promise of quite serious threats. The Fearsome Five are quite an interesting and intimidating group for the Outsiders to fight, and I can't wait to see how this arc plays out.