Young Justice S02E05 – Review

By: Brandon Vietti (story)

The Story: Who says girl groups are dead?

The Review: Obviously, the biggest difference between this and last season is the team’s roster, which has grown a little bigger and a lot more colorful.  The writers have so far kept the focus on the returning characters, though they’ve wisely given the newbies substantial parts to play, getting us used to their presence.  Now seems the right time to get to know the rookies better, as they do represent the future of the team—unless we get another time jump in season three.

Of all the new members, Blue Beetle is a natural to break out.  His versatile power set, bizarre origin story, and racial and urban appeal make for a potent combination, and thanks to a cult-favorite ongoing and a Smallville appearance, he’s perhaps more familiar to us nowadays than you might expect.  But I’d say the biggest factor in his favor is he gives the show access to a whole realm of stories it’s only just now exploring: the socially relevant.

Young Justice S02E03 – Review

By: Kevin Hopps (story)

The Story: Now this is the textbook definition of “frienemies.”

The Review: One thing that has really impressed me with this show is how well the writers have paced themselves in terms of revealing major plot points, throwing in the occasional twist, and building up character storylines.  Although season one had the rare filler episode, they always felt like enjoyable breaks rather than irritating distractions because the nearly every episode had some overarching importance to it.

Season two continues that trend, only now the writers have to do double-duty in setting the grounds for future events, but also bringing us up to speed on the current state of affairs for the characters.  Of course, we’re all wondering about the missing YJers, the ones that haven’t stayed on as mentors or that haven’t moved up to the big leagues.  You have to wonder if their departures were amicable, violent, or something uncomfortably in between.

Young Justice S02E01 – Review

By: Greg Weisman (story)

The Story: YJ’s philosophy toward recruitment?  The more the merrier.

The Review: When I reviewed the show’s season finale last week, I was all settled in for a summer’s break until its return.  I suppose I should have known by now to give up trying to figure out this show’s release schedule.  Who could ever predict that the premiere of the second season would follow right on the heels of the first’s season finale?  I can only guess this is Cartoon Network’s way of keeping up its newly-minted DC Nation block.

The first few minutes of the episode get you pumped for another season of teen superhero action, as you watch Superboy, Miss Martian, and Robin take down Clayface in a sewer with great finesse and confidence, proving their victory aboard the League watchtower did wonders for their street cred.  When Robin appears from the shadows in a whole new costume, you’re only briefly curious.  Then an alligator slides down a chute and becomes Beast Boy.  Blue Beetle flies in, remarking on the smell.  A shrunken Bumblebee hovers above and resizes back to normal.  You think to yourself, Wow, their street cred really must have taken off to recruit this much.  And then Superboy reports back to HQ, only to be told to head back by one “Nightwing.”

Teen Titans #5 – Review

By: Scott Lobdell (writer), Brett Booth (penciller), Norm Rapmund (inker), Andrew Dalhouse (colorist)

The Story: Oh, let them punch and electrocute each other—kids will be kids!

The Review: The first time a team comes together usually goes one of two ways: they may, by fate or fortune, surpass all expectations and work as a unit naturally, or (much more frequently) they barely manage to get through their scrape without major incident, usually questioning their communal future afterwards.

Of course, the Teen Titans fall into the latter category.  They’re young and raw, many of them having only just taken up their heroic identities, and they’ve got a long way to go in working out the kinks in their teamwork.  Most of the issue has each Titan taking on Superboy on their own, with the others either spectating or standing by to rescue their teammate when the clone eventually dispatches them.

With the fall of each Titan, you begin to wonder what the point of banding up for the sake of mutual protection was if their combined might doesn’t even seem to make Superboy break a sweat.  Even in the Justice League, Wonder Woman and Martian Manhunter give Superman a run for his money in the powers department.  Hopefully, this issue doesn’t indicate the team will someday turn into “Superboy and his Merry Band of Back-Ups.”

It’s true, however, that Superboy has gotten a lot more formal training than his opponents, and you can’t help noticing throughout the battle how much more honed and technical he is with his telekinesis now than he ever was in his previous incarnation.  The Superboy of old had a more hands-on approach with his telekinesis, as opposed to the Jean Grey school.  In a lot of ways, that helped keep him from becoming too powerful, since the applications of full-throttle teke are pretty much limitless, as he demonstrates here.  How can his colleagues hope to catch up?

Teen Titans #4 – Review

By: Scott Lobdell (writer), Brett Booth (penciller), Norm Rapmund (inker), Andrew Dalhouse (colorist)

The Story: Cheer up, Wonder Girl.  For some, it’s traditional to get beat up on New Year’s.

The Review: Thus far, most of the Titans are pretty one-dimensional as individuals.  Like J.T. Krul, the last writer to handle the title pre-relaunch, Lobdell has a habit of stamping a mantra to a character and emphasizing it over and over.  You have Tim, wordy and pensive; Bart, frenetic and impulsive; Cassie, defiant and contrary; Miguel, upbeat and easygoing; Superboy, sullen and aloof.  As any one of their narratives demonstrates, these kids can very easily get on your nerves if you have to deal with them on their own.

Throwing them together, however, improves the situation quite a bit.  I have to admit, I like the energy of all these kids when they’re in the same room.  They undercut each other’s personality crutches before it gets too annoying, and together they genuinely project that restless, yet eager spirit that makes members of their age group so terribly annoying and exhilarating at the same time.  It’s fun to see them encounter conflicts adults would try to avoid, yet they actually egg on, like Miguel enthusing, “Fight!  Fight!” when he sees Tim and Bart arguing over a sweatshirt.

The smart guy and idiot dynamic between the two young men is exactly right, of course, but Lobdell introduces it with the most ridiculous point of contention ever, with Tim accusing Bart, “…is that one of my sweatshirts?!”  It’s a joke that may have rung true back in the nineties, but now seems petty and cliché.  Worse still is Tim’s overblown anger over the offense: “How is that any different from what N.O.W.H.E.R.E. is doing—stealing teenagers!”  Does he not realize he just answered his own question?

Teen Titans #2 – Review

By: Scott Lobdell (writer), Brett Booth (penciller), Norm Rapmund (inker), Andrew Dalhouse (colorist)

The Story: All that talk about sewer mutants and mole people are just rumors, I swear!

The Review: Just like in Justice League, this title has taken the strategy of introducing the cast in stages, which has a few downsides.  For one, it goes against the reader’s eagerness to see the entire team come together all at once.  The writer also has to ensure the few characters he puts in play manage to keep the story substantial and engaging.  You also have the danger of turning those characters into the “stars,” making all who come after accessories to the storyline.

Here we have a mix of all three problems.  We get yet another Wonder Girl and Robin-centric issue, with Kid Flash showing up in a couple pages and Superboy in just the one.  The opening with Kid Flash does nothing except establish his Emily Dickinson style of narration (“…and I’m locked in a cell / who knows where / by who knows who / or why.”), and the Superboy page is almost completely redundant if you read his solo title.  Not the best use of either character.

You also get intros to two future Titans, the mutated Skitter and the smoky Solstice.  Skitter actually gets a whole sequence to herself, but ultimately squanders it by doing little more than creep around like your typical sewer creature and hissing unintelligibly (“Kikt!  Kir kritik kih”).  So don’t expect her to add much personality to the issue.  Don’t expect Solstice to pick up the slack either, since she appears briefly and looks far from her formerly sunny self.

Granted, at this point, we still know close to nothing about Solstice or what direction Lobdell plans to take her, but just from the little we can see, it feels like Lobdell is utilizing the Grim Method of character development: when in doubt, just grim them up.  Though hardly thrilled with J.T. Krul’s version of Solstice, I at least appreciated the effort in making a character who was down-to-earth, positive, and had a loving, stable family life.  Lobdell starts on the opposite foot, turning Solstice into yet another teenaged basketcase.

Teen Titans #1 – Review

By: Scott Lobdell (writer), Brett Booth (penciller), Norm Rapmund (inker), Andrew Dalhouse (colorist)

The Story: All they want are some BFFs they can count on—to fight evil secret cabals with.

The Review: Of all the new DC titles, perhaps the one with the most controversy attached is Teen Titans.  The concern most people have, I suspect, is how a largely unknown writer will handle not only one of DC’s biggest properties, but also some of the most iconic characters in the DCU.  The Titans may be sidekicks, but they’re also incredibly popular in their own right.  No one wants to see them “reimagined” to the point where we can’t recognize them anymore.

On that point, Lobdell exercises considerably more restraint that you might have feared.  With Red Robin and Kid Flash, at least, he doesn’t make any radical changes to their characters.  Both come with fairly well-developed personalities and back-story, thanks to past ongoings, so there’s no real reason to mess with what already works, and Lobdell wisely doesn’t.

Superboy and Wonder Girl are different stories.  I’ve already talked about the inconsistency in Superboy’s portrayals, and Wonder Girl fares no better, especially since she’s never had a single ongoing dedicated to her name.  These two can definitely stand to use some tweaking in their conceptions, but it’s hard to say if Lobdell’s take truly gives them the lift they need.

You can’t tell at this point if turning Wonder Girl into a rough-talking felon will do much to reinvigorate her character, but at least it engages you more than the morose girl with a poorly hidden inferiority complex we used to get on J.T. Krul’s version of the Titans.  And anyway, Lobdell doesn’t take her over the top; her sullen attitude may run against your usual idea of her, but at least it makes sense given the explosive circumstances in which she appears.

Teen Titans #97 – Review

By: J.T. Krul (writer), Nicola Scott (penciller), Doug Hazlewood (inker), Jason Wright (colorist)

The Story: Who cares how many there are?  You’ve seen one demon, you’ve seen ‘em all.

The Review: If you’re going to dislike a certain writer’s style, it’s probably a good idea to be clear about what turns you off about their work, and an especially good idea if you’re reviewing their pieces for public view.  By now you’ve probably caught on to the fact that I don’t really care for Krul’s writing, and since we’re on the final chapter of his opening story arc on this title, now seems a good time as any for me to get into some specifics.

The man can’t let an issue go by without inserting at least one pontificating homily on whatever theme he has going on in the story.  Readers should be free to infer whatever theme they can get out of the writing, and certainly it doesn’t need to be shoved under our noses.  And can there be a less engaging opener than a preachy monologue?  Red Robin: “…confidence has a lot to do with being a good leader.  But that confidence is not about believing in your own ability.  It’s about believing in your team.”  No one likes a high-minded goody-goody, Tim.

Teen Titans #95 – Review

By: J.T. Krul (writer), Nicola Scott (penciller), Doug Hazlewood (inker), Jason Wright (colorist)

The Story: First rule of creepy-island exploring: don’t split up!  Geez, doesn’t anyone learn from movies?

The Review: Writing these reviews can get a little tricky.  A lot of the times, there’s so much to say even about one issue that parsing down the most pertinent points can be a challenge.  And it’s not just the good ones; even a terrible issue—dare I say, especially the terrible issues—can generate a lot of commentary.  I almost never run into a situation where I’ve got nothing to talk about.

But today’s dosage of Teen Titans proves it’s the mediocre material that offers the least interest.  Some decent action goes on, but rather than providing energy to the story, it just goes through the motions, as if Krul’s following the formula for the classic “group in a hostile environment” plot: steal away one, have the group follow, then pick them off one or two at a time, with some dashed hopes peppered in between.

Even not-Ravager’s turnaround feels a bit forced and predictable, since all of us knew from last issue she was a fake.  The whole sequence where she leads Superboy away from the group to backstab him feels very familiar, although you’ve got to enjoy how incredibly thickheaded he is to not see all the red flags: “This place.  It frightens me… Can you not feel the fear in my heart?  Please, you mustn’t let anything happen to me.”  Come on—she’s not even trying!

Most of the plot just feels stale, but there are a couple inescapably pointless moments.  It’s one thing for Kid Flash to fail in his rescue of Cassie and the others—that’s part of the formula.  It’s another to make him go through such a desperate final action, like setting a whole mountaintop on fire as a distress signal, only to have no one take note of it at any point.  They won’t need it to find the enemy anyway, since Rankor essential becomes the mountaintop at the end of the issue.

Teen Titans #94 – Review

By: J.T. Krul (writer), Nicola Scott (penciller), Doug Hazlewood (inker), Jason Wright (colorist)

The Story: If all you know about Hinduism is the Kama Sutra, let me tell you—there’s nastier where that came from.

The Review: In a lot of ways, this current round of Teen Titans has been around each other a pretty long time.  Kid Flash, Red Robin, and Superboy have worked together long before they even became Young Justice, when they were still known as Impulse, Robin, and…Superboy.  This crew has experienced Raven’s rebirth, Superboy’s clone rage, Kid Flash’s sudden age progression and death, and Superboy’s saving the universe—and death.

So it’s discouraging to see how tepid their interaction has been on this series so far.  A lot of what they have to say just goes through the motions of personality, but without any real life behind it: “Wonder Girl’s lasso.  She wouldn’t leave it behind.  Not ever.”  “No sign of her…but there’s a lot of dark cloud cover limiting visibility.”  There’s just something distant and kind of clinical about these lines, making it feel like they’re strangers talking to each other.

The scene where the Titans search through the demon forest and muse on which of them could be the modern-day Rama comes closest to getting an actual team dynamic.  Unfortunately, it’s mostly between Ravager, who we all know is Krul’s favorite, and his original character Solstice.  While the two girls supply most of the energy in this issue (“So this Ramen guy—”  “Rama.”  “Whatever.”), their teammates’ responses never fail to underwhelm (“Me?”  “Huh?”).

Certainly they get no help from Raven, who has lately become a major buzzkill to every issue, increasingly obsessed over her own dark nature.  She kind of has an excuse in this arc, as being in a demonic dimension likely brings out the worst (read: histrionics) in her.  That doesn’t make you stop wishing she’d just get her breakdown over with already.  Then maybe she can move on and go back to the eager-to-please girl trying to get her act together when this title first started.

Teen Titans #92 – Review

By: J.T. Krul (writer), Georges Jeanty (penciller), Rob Hunter (inker), Jason Wright (colorist)

The Story: These exploding Calculator robots are really harshing these Turkish clubbers’ buzz.

The Review: In crossovers, besides the stickiness of mixing up different characters (who may or may not be a good fit for each other), you’ve also got the issue of how the different styles of the writers will work together.  It’s usually best for them to co-write the story; you get a more cohesive product that way.  You also avoid the position of comparing one writer to another, which may be uncomfortable for the one who comes off weaker.

In this second half of a crossover with Red Robin, Krul shows with painful obviousness that his writing has a ways to go, quality-wise.  He’s simply not as deft or nuanced a writer as Fabien Nicieza, who wrote the first half of this story in Red Robin #20.

Their different approaches to dialogue say it all.  Nicieza’s takes for granted that these characters have history and know each other.  When Tim says, “We should—oh, sorry, Cass—you go,” he doesn’t have to explain what he’s sorry for; you get that from the context and what you know of them.  Krul feels the need to make everything explicit, resulting in chunky, in-your-face dialogue like: “Because you didn’t know [he was an android].  And killing him would have felt very real.  I couldn’t let you do that.”

The major weakness to Krul’s dialogue has always been that it doesn’t let the characters show distinctive personalities.  Most of the lines feel like babble: “If the circumstances were different, this looks like it’d be a fun place.”  Not only is this remark just silly (if there weren’t exploding robots around, everyplace would be more fun), but it’s lifeless as well—anybody could have said it.  It feels like filler, padding the time until something more meaningful happens.

Teen Titans #91 – Review

By: J.T. Krul (writer), Nicola Scott (penciller), Doug Hazlewood & Scott Kobush (inkers), Jason Wright (colorist)

The Story: Teens these days…if they’re not listening to terrible pop music, they’re creating black holes in their schools.

The Review: Each of the major teams in the DCU stands for something—the Justice League representing strength in numbers, while the Justice Society is for heroic legacy.  But the Teen Titans have always emphasized family among friends.  It’s not a coincidence that when those themes are kept in mind, the stories tend to work better.

That’s the case with this issue of Teen Titans, which shows some improvement over the previous ones.  J.T. Krul clearly loves writing damaged goods.  The exchange between Ravager and Robin as they try to one-up each other on who has the most screwy parents is fun to read, but also just feels natural.  Certainly that was one of my favorite topics when I was a teen.  And the fact they have this conversation while beating down a horde of psychotic teens just makes it that much more entertaining.

Krul wraps up the drama between Connor and Cassie, although whether for the better remains questionable.  After all, even prior to Krul’s run, the heroic lovebirds didn’t get that much time to explore their feelings.  Something always got in the way: Superboy getting sucked into the future, Superboy getting mind-controlled, Superboy dying—huh.  I sense a pattern here.  And the pattern continues as Connor lets his—I hate to say this—emo hang-ups over his self-identity get in the way of an otherwise healthy relationship, just when Wonder Girl gets over hers.

The character work on the other Titans is similarly mixed or downright uninspired.  It’s a nice touch that Bart is finally starting to confront his death (which most writers have seemingly tried to forget), but there’s so much angst in the team now that dampening one of the more upbeat characters seems like overkill.  The question of Raven’s evil nature is old material, so old it dates back to her first appearance in the eighties, for crying out loud.  And Beast Boy literally gets three lines in this issue.

Worst of all, for all the action you get, there’s no resolution to the storyline whatsoever.  Take Barney and his genetically modified “friends.”  Their motivating emotional insecurities don’t get addressed or solved by the Titans, who basically luck out in saving the day—by which I mean they leave the entire student body either beaten into submission or taken into STAR Labs custody.  As for the mastermind behind it all, you learn close to nothing about him.  He can be a good villain with more than your usual mad scientist routine, but as is, he’s just a useful tool to bring some conflict to the Titans.