Teen Titans #22 – Review

By: Scott Lobdell (writer), Jesus Merino (finished art), Eddy Barrows (thumbnails), Pete Pantazis (color)

The Story: It’s hard to say, but I assure you that the Superboy turning purple due to the magics of a giant red demon is the most logical part of this tale.

The Review: Scott Lobdell’s Teen Titans run had a fairly remarkable comeback at the beginning of the current War of Light and Darkness arc, unfortunately the arc has dragged on for months and the quality hasn’t really held up.

As has become tradition, Lobdell opens this issue with a terrible recap page that puts no effort into sounding natural. As Beast Boy rambles in the middle of a world-threatening event, I can’t help but notice that his characterization has completely changed, falling more in line with Teen Titans Go or Young Justice’s interpretations. Unfortunately this is all on the first page. By the time you reach the second, you’ll likely be aware of one of this issues greatest weaknesses, self-deprecating humor.

Don’t get me wrong, I love self-deprecation. You’ll probably catch me doing it in my reviews now and again, and it can be a wonderful attribute to give a character, however, there’s really no excuse for an entire comic to constantly apologize for itself. All too often, Lobdell falls into stilted outdated modes of comic writing that see characters announce their powers and feelings for no reason. Just because Chris Claremont can do it doesn’t mean that Lobdell can make it work and it seems like he’s kind of aware of that. Most of the time when a character winds up acting in this way, another one comments on how silly it is and then punishes them for it.  It might seem mildly clever for a moment, but once that moment has passed you realize that Lobdell has effectively acknowledged his own weak writing and, instead of changing it, has decided to blame his characters.

On the bright side, Lobdell continues to build his side plots, allowing us to slip into a new story quickly. It’s a good idea on a title with such a large cast, especially as it looks to be growing, but I admit to having some worries about how quickly we’ll see them resolved.

Kid Flash is clearly going to be the nest Titan to get the spotlight, so this issue spends a good amount of time laying track for his story. The climax of this issue might legitimately take you by surprise, and you might notice after the fact that it was actually hinted pretty hard, but in all his preparation for his next story, Lobdell seems to forget about the one he’s telling. Things are wrapped up swiftly and arbitrarily and the events of the last half a year are dismissed as if they had fully run their course. It feels almost disrespectful to the readers.

Lobdell and Eddy Barrows provide us with some interesting layouts that tend to sacrifice depth for dynamism; however it falls to Jesus Merino to actually realize those layouts. Merino’s art is a little up and down, but at his best, he brings a great look to the issue.

Red Robin, the clear focus of the arc and title, is a standout. His costume reads a little bit too much like Nightwing’s but seeing as he’s in a similar place of finding his own way to help the world as Dick was when he took on that outfit, it’s feels kind of right.

Other characters don’t fare as well. Raven has a number of wonky panels and, particularly towards the end, Kid Flash’s expressions get kind of extreme. Trigon has a palpable slimeyness about him that befits a deceitful tyrant, but he feels vaguely underwhelming, not enough of a step up from his children.

It’s sort of a shame that we have so many panels with minimal backgrounds, but with all that’s happening, I think it’s actually for the best.

Also, it seems that Tim has instituted a mandatory midriff rule for women on his yacht. What’s up with that?

The Conclusion: Teen Titans #22 is a deeply disappointing issue that squanders most of the buildup that Lobdell has spent so long giving us. The art is attractive and the layouts dynamic, but overall the book is only decent visually and writing like this demands better than decent. It’s a shame that it’s come to this, but this issue is not only weak on its own but undermines the best elements of the title’s last six months and that’s just unacceptable for a once proud franchise like the Titans.

Grade: D

-Noah Sharma

Superboy #6 – Review

By: Scott Lobdell & Tom DeFalco (writers), R.B. Silva (penciller), Rob Lean (inker), Richard & Tanya Horie (colorists)

The Story: When Superboy meets Supergirl.

The Review: Usually, I’m all for continuity respect across titles.  The sense of a shared universe feels a lot stronger when certain series make note or call attention to events happening in other books, sometimes even using them to springboard their own stories.  At a certain point, however, all that gets cumbersome, distracting, not a little bit annoying (see the constant reference captions in Suicide Squad #6).  Sometimes, you just want to focus on the story at hand, and no other.

Lobdell has the opportunity of not only writing two titles, but having those titles relate so closely to each other that he can weave one story through both.  In the hands of a craftier writer, this might produce some amazing material.  In the hands of a straightforward, middle-of-the-road writer, it feels like a lot of lost opportunities and sterile repetition.  For anyone who might follow both titles, the opening of this issue must make you feel like slamming your head against a table.  Not only does Lobdell reference the events of Teen Titans #5, he literally copies and pastes the last five pages of that issue into the first five of this one.  I’m not calling anyone lazy, but certainly I don’t think he exerted much creativity in writing that particularly scene.

Things get even more problematic when Lobdell starts bringing in continuity from other series.  Besides the fact that it feels far too soon for Superboy to be having a run-in with Supergirl, you have to question where in the context of her current story arc this scene fits in.  Not to mention the fact that the scene serves no other purpose except emphasizing Superboy’s misfortune with women and that his nature as a clone bodes ill for all, as if that hasn’t been made clear to us many, many times already.

Not really a problem, but disappointing nonetheless, is the fact that the two Super-teens part ways without much of a bond.  Both recognize correctly that they share a common loneliness in this world, and neither knows what to do with themselves from here on out.  It’s really a shame their fortuitous meeting doesn’t result in anything more than a wary connection between them.

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 #3 – Review

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

The Story: Presenting the fabulous entrance of Bunker!

The Review: It sure seems like Lobdell attracts more than the usual share of controversy on his titles.  After the whole outcry over Starfire and sexism on Red Hood and the Outlaws, he almost immediately had to answer for his creation of Bunker, an openly gay (“flamboyant” is the word used by Comic Book Resources) teen with all the superficial signs of flamboyance: hipster clothes, funky colors, preening hairdo.

Here I’d like to apply a point I made about strippers in Voodoo #1: the flamboyantly gay are facts of life; they don’t just exist as hilarious sidemen in sitcoms or reality TV.  So fiction shouldn’t have to be shy about portraying these people, so long as they stick to the principles of good writing and avoid clichés, flat characterization, or lazy research.

On that note, what can we make of Bunker?  He certainly has a cheerful, go-with-the-flow personality, even if the flow leads him to sparring with a silver-haired transient on a train car (“I don’t know how you’re going to [kick my ass] from—a—hospital bed.”).  But also proves that extreme narcissism, wherever your sexual preference may lie, is an highly irritating quality in a person: “Look at me!  You think something this exquisite—this perfect—happened by chance?”

While Bunker himself steers clear of campy stereotypes, there’s no shortage of camp in the issue, as the entire showdown between him and Red Robin is just full of it.  Let’s allow the dialogue to speak for itself, shall we?  Bunker: “Maybe my papi owns this railroad and I want to look firsthand at my inheritance.”  Red Robin: “That’s an awful lot of maybes.”  “Maybe I just like maybes.”  “Maybe so.  Maybe not.”

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 #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 #96 – Review

By: J.T. Krul (writer), José Luis (penciller), Sandro Ribeiro & Jonas Trinidade (inkers), Jason Wright (colorist)

The Story: Hasn’t anyone learned by now it’s not a good idea to anger a giant ape?

The Review: One key feature of weak writing is when the story makes its points a little too obvious.  In these cases, it almost feels like the writer is so uncertain in his ability to get his message across that he feels the need to shove it in your face and remind you of it over and over.  He tends to neglect the fact that if the characters and plot come off convincing and strong, his points will too, without all that irritating reiteration.

Take Krul’s opener of Solstice’s dad reading her the tale of Rama vanquishing Rankor.  On its own, the scene is sweet and relevant.  Had it started this story arc, and had Krul spent less time emphasizing his key words (“His light would endure…I believe he had faith…faith in the light overcoming the darkness.”), its impact would’ve been much stronger.  But since he’d already in previous issues explicitly made the parallels between the Titans’ adventure in the demon world and the original Hindu story, the scene just feels tiringly redundant.

It also makes the rest of the issue fairly predictable.  As soon as Krul mentions Rama’s light and his monkey king companion, you already know why Solstice and Beast Boy end up the last two teammates standing against the revived Rankor, and you know exactly how they’ll finish the boss demon off.  Krul clearly intended this issue as a character piece for Gar, playing up his role as veteran Titan, but since you saw that from page one, a lot of the sentiment gets lost.

This issue also offers some of the most senseless of Krul’s dialogue to date, with page eight showing the choicest samples. Beast Boy calls out the name of each trapped Titan like he’s announcing roll call: “Superboy!  Red Robin!  Wonder Girl!  Ravager!”  Wonder Girl: “Beast Boy?  Is that you?” (she knows some other green shapeshifters, I assume).  B-Boy: “I’m here, Cassie.”  (No you’re not—you’re there!”)  He immediately follows up by saying, “Wake up.  It’s time to go.” (she just spoke to you; I’m fairly sure she didn’t fall asleep directly afterwards).

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 #93 – Review

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

The Story: It’s getting dark, guys.  Hey Solstice–lend us a light?

The Review: There’s a very clear separation between what’s good, what’s bad, and what’s mediocre, but it can be difficult to explain what makes them such, especially when something falls in the big, fat binbox of “just okay.”  By nature, you’re not inclined to have much feeling about something middling in quality.  You just stick through it like you would the filler tracks on a club mix, hoping the hit single will pop up next.

Krul’s Teen Titans lands squarely in serviceable territory.  His plotting offers standard fare: kidnapping in exotic locale, possible demonic origins.  The characters don’t come off completely one-dimensional, but they don’t reveal many layers either.  The opening monologue is a good example of Krul’s limitations: it rambles, avoiding having to show anything worthwhile, and re-emphasizes “we’re…a family,” as if the more it’s said, the more it’ll convince you it’s true.

The recent page-count cut may have forced writers to drop scenes or gloss over things they might have otherwise gone into detail with, but this issue features Red Robin telling Superboy that at some point since he rejoined the team, Wonder Girl ceded leadership to him for vaguely personal reasons.  Since Krul chooses not to show this presumably significant conversation to us, we have to assume no one, not even the writer, takes Cassie’s role as leader seriously.

It’d be a relief too if the whole Connor/Cassie (Conassie?) relationship drama can be ignored from issue to issue, since it seems pointlessly angsty and frankly, agonizing over it does nothing for the characters or overall plot.  It seems clear there’s no real obstacle to their being together, and their breakup is likely forced by editorial or narrative necessity—much like the will-they-or-won’t-they plotlines that frequent almost every TV show nowadays.