Review: Teen Titans: The Hunt for Raven trade paperback (DC Comics)

Writer Felicia Henderson's efforts on Teen Titans: The Hunt for Raven have already been pretty widely panned (Titans Tower has a good collection of quotes); perhaps not unrelated, the writer was later scheduled to write a Static Shock series but was later dropped from the title.

I picked up Hunt for Raven because I'm a completist, like many comics fans. With the DC Relaunch in full swing, to skip Hunt and then pick up JT Krul's Teen Titans books to follow would leave me with all the collected volumes of this Titans series except one. Even despite the tepid reviews, I'm not inclined to have such a hole in my collection.

To that end, my goal with this review is not to tear apart Henderson or Hunt for Raven (you can find plenty of that elsewhere), but rather to mention a couple of things I found interesting about the book, as well as to cover a couple of its difficulties. I don't recommend this book, but I imagine there's a population out there who might own it for the same reasons I do, and therefore I think it's worth considering for discussion.

[Contains spoilers]

Henderson inherited a somewhat fractured Teen Titans team from writer Sean McKeever. I think the team became closer-knit or more confrontational depending on the needs of a couple of stories by McKeever, Bryan Q. Miller, and Henderson in the last few Titans books, but in whole the Titans that Henderson ended up with were not the buddies fresh from Young Justice that began this series under Geoff Johns. A large part of Hunt for Raven therefore involves building camaraderie amongst the team. It is heavy-handed in the same way that early episodes of a television series have these same "friend-building" episodes so that any character can share a scene with another later on. This transparency on Henderson's part, however, at least gives a sense of Henderson's intentions for the series, had her run lasted longer than this book.

Of note, for one, is a sequence in the book's third chapter in which the villain Holocaust has imprisoned Wonder Girl, Static, Aquagirl, and Bombshell. Bombshell has been the stereotypical "angry outsider" of the group, but when Wonder Girl and Aquagirl each accidentally collide with her trying to escape from plastic bubble prisons, the whole team shares a good laugh. It's the old "imprison a couple of warring characters and they'll bond as they escape" routine you've likely seen on a Star Trek episode or two, but it works here. Henderson is able to play plot against character in such a way that the characters do emerge changed when the scene is over.

Even after, Henderson preserves the animosity between Bombshell and Aqaugirl, which is somewhat amusing, actually, reminiscent of New Titans Pantha sniping at her teammates for a while. Not surprisingly then, when Henderson splits the Titans off into teams, it's Bombshell and Aquagirl who have to wait together at the bottom of the ocean, and ultimately bond. Such bonding unfortunately comes after the two have to escape the belly of a sea dragon (hard to say if the sea dragon's phallic stomach tentacles came from Henderson's script or José Luís's imagination), but the storyline is still cute in a Saved by the Bell kind of way (the bonding, that is, not the tentacles).

Wonder Girl remains a character that troubles a lot of writers (amazing, after Peter David wrote her so well), but I thought Henderson gave her characterization a good effort. From the beginning, Wonder Girl recognizes she has led the Titans poorly and takes charge in what I thought was a realistic way, to the point of overcompensating. The team of rather strong personalities starts to leave to help Static on a mission; Wonder Girl drags them back to the conference room to talk out the details before they go. In a similar meeting about rescuing the kidnapped Raven, Wonder Girl listens to all the contradictory viewpoints, thanks everyone for them, and then makes her ruling. Henderson's Wonder Girl comes off as shrill as she did under McKeever, but the way she leads seems like the way one would have to lead a group of super-powered teenagers, so I thought Henderson's approach was a little better than what came before.

No doubt readers might object to Henderson's portrayal of Wonder Girl and Superboy's relationship. After years of Wonder Girl moping over the deceased Superboy, and considerable confusion prior to this book as to when and whether Wonder Girl knew of Superboy's resurrection, it's surprising (if not inconceivable) that she would push him away in these pages. Further, Henderson's depiction of Wonder Girl rejecting Superboy early on and then accepting him later lacks finesse, such that the reader is as confused as Superboy, and Wonder Girl comes off the jerk. Henderson is trying here, however, to present the conflicts of a female leader (and one dating Superboy, no less) juggling a relationship with a man and also not wanting to seem "soft" before her team. This, too, is likely a bit of realism not often covered in comics; Henderson's intention is good even if the depiction is not.

Hunt for Raven, unfortunately, comes apart in the finer details. The two stories collected here involve searches for Static and Raven respectively, and it seems on almost every page a character repeats "Where's Static?" or "We have to find Raven!" If Henderson's scenes work as a whole, they have trouble moment to moment -- in the fourth chapter, Superboy and Kid Flash are distraught that Holocaust seems to have killed the other Titans, and then in the next panel they're strangely sanguine; when the Titans are revealed alive, the two have no reaction. Henderson introduces a couple of scientists who call each other pet names ad nauseum; if Henderson means them to be funny, the result is just annoying. Henderson goes back and forth between scenes sometimes only with a page inbetween, far too suddenly, and sometimes multiple scenes are repetitively introduced with the word "Meanwhile."

And this is aside from a number of technical errors, including Wonder Girl once referring to her group as the "Team Titans," and a couple of pages in the fifth chapter where Wonder Girl is colored as Miss Martian and vice versa.

Teen Titans: The Hunt for Raven ends with a viable concept -- the evil Wyld creature turns out to have been accidentally created by Raven and fashions itself as her son; Raven actually tries to defend the Wyld when the other Titans defeat it. The implications of such get swept under the rug when Felicia Henderson must quickly pare down the team for the purposes of J. T. Krul's run beginning in the next book. It's little sparks like these that bring me to say I didn't dislike Henderson's Titans run as much as I was lead to believe I would -- this is no great comfort, but I believe I disliked Sean McKeever's main Teen Titans work more. This is still, however, not where this book should be, and I'm hopeful Krul can turn things around before the series ends with the DC Relaunch.

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Review: Titans: Fractured trade paperback (DC Comics)

The latest incarnation of the Titans title had a difficult path. At times relatively good and insightful stories (I stand by Lockdown) were overshadowed by gratuitous violence, over-sexualized artwork, and crossovers that upset the book's natural flow. Titans: Fractured marked the end of what we might call "act one" for that title, before the creative team and nearly the book's entire cast changed toward the Villains for Hire era, and ultimately cancellation (if not out-and-out removal from continuity) with the DC Comics relaunch. Overall I liked Fractured better than I expected, but it is itself a mixed bag representative of what this title's troubles were.

[Contains spoilers]

Every couple of years the "writers' room" at DC Comics turns over; it wasn't so long ago that Geoff Johns and Greg Rucka were unknowns at DC, and now Johns is management and Rucka has moved on. Among DC's new writers are Final Crisis Aftermath: Ink's Eric Wallace, who continues as Titans' s regular writer; Chris Yost, late of Red Robin; Bryan Miller, who brought the laughs on Batgirl; and J. T. Krul, the once and future Green Arrow writer. With a few others, each takes a chapter of this book focusing on an individual Titan, and it's an interesting showcase of DC's "new blood" alongside the story itself.

For me, the most convincing of Fractured's one-shots were the first two: Cyborg by Wallace and Starfire by Yost. Though one would like to think that after almost thirty years as a character, Cyborg might see past his own half-machine status, it's true the character had been dealt a couple setbacks at the time of this story, not the least of which is the death of his own group of Titans (though I imagine his new status as a Justice League founder might brighten anyone's day).  I liked how Wallace tied the story into the recent Cyborg miniseries, and also this creative idea Wallace introduces of a "meta-dating" service. There's not much new in the Cyborg story, but it seemed to me cohesive with Cyborg stories of late.

Yost's Starfire story was the quietest but perhaps the most moving. Throughout the story, Starfire beats herself up for what she considers to have been a terrible sin, refusing to join the Justice League when asked. It's a decision ultimately so innocuous, but Starfire feels so badly about it -- about not supporting her friends and rather taking time for herself -- that the reader can't help to feel bad for her. Yost does well in using Darkseid's mind control during Final Crisis as an impetus for Starfire to have traumatic flashbacks to her childhood slavery, and her reluctance to disappoint the Titans family that took her in -- even if the disappointment is only in her own mind -- makes a lot of sense.

I was less impressed by Mike Johnson's Donna Troy issue (though I've enjoyed Johnson on Superman/Batman). There's a silly bit in Pat McCallum's Beast Boy issue where Donna's thong underwear sticks out ridiculously from her jeans; Beast Boy notices and Donna pitches a fit about wanting to feel young or not be the mother of the group or some such. This follows to Johnson's issue, where Donna dresses in an equally overly-sexualized red dress rendered by Sergio Arino and proceeds to have a miserable time taking pictures at a posh event except for flirting with a waiter.

This is a rendition of Donna Troy that I don't quite believe. Sure, maybe it's unfair of me to accept that Cyborg might be reconsidering his life choices and Donna Troy wouldn't be; I grant this is all rather subjective. But even despite Terry Long's mutton chops, I don't believe some writers' suggestion that Donna married Terry hastily, or that Donna's characterization as nurturing is something she might later rebel against. I believe Donna was intended as mature for her age and overly caring, and the idea that Donna wishes she might have partied more -- or that the sister to Wonder Woman, let's remember, cares about that kind of thing -- rang hollow for me.  It makes me all the less unhappy that Donna might not survive into the new post-Flashpoint DC Universe, given that a majority of the time writers just don't seem to know what to do with her.

Similarly, in as much as I'm a fan of Beast Boy and Raven's relationship, McCallum and Miller's issues make me glad Teen Titans writer Krul had something definitive planned for the pair. In the Beast Boy story, Raven is out-and-out cruel to Beast Boy, in a way that makes the reader wonder why he likes her, and why we should like her either. The two reconcile in the Raven issue, but the end is so uncertain -- Raven, standing in a doorway, wondering what she's going to do with her life -- as to feel unsatisfying. I'm glad to see in previews that Krul gave their relationship more nuance; very much the last thing these two characters needed was more bickering.

Krul's two-part conclusion to Fractured is a study in contrasts. On one hand, as Starfire and Cyborg face their fears at the hands of the villain Phobia, we find Cyborg regaining his confidence as a leader and Starfire accepting it might be OK not to belong to a team. On the other hand, Cyborg makes it his business to try to end the Titans team here, pushing Starfire toward the Justice League, and Starfire -- rather than go off on her own -- allows herself to be pulled back into the Titans stratosphere by taking care of Donna (after the events of Justice League: Cry for Justice).

The inconsistency here is, I imagine, unintentional -- Krul is mostly putting these characters in a place where they can be used by James Robinson in his Justice League run -- but fascinating nonetheless. In a way, none of these Titans win nor lose; they gain some insight, but ultimately repeat the same patterns that gave them difficulty before, and I find that fascinating. Either by their own characterizations or through writerly fiat, the Titans characters represent the ultimate "failure to launch"; destructively co-dependent, they'll never escape one another and grow up no matter what insights they achieve, because truthfully they're most interesting only when they're together.

It's a failure of our own suspension of disbelief, in figuring these old friends can't possibly still want to hang out with one another, that keeps this team breaking up and then re-forming. The Outsiders, for instance, have an easier time in that they're already adults -- have had their own adulthoods not shown "on screen" -- and so their joining together to fight a common cause makes sense to the reader; for the adult Titans, not so much.

What I take from Titans: Fractured are a group of nice, emotion-based character stories, reminiscent (and I mean this complimentarily) of Chuck Austen's JLA: Pain of the Gods. And yet, what I think Fractured shows to an extent is how the Titans characters-as-Titans don't work. I'm disappointed that the Marv Wolfman/George Perez New Teen Titans is apparently out of continuity as of the DC relaunch, but I'm not sorry to see the adult Titans relegated to limbo for a while, or at least separated from one another. Much as we'd like to see them together, the result never seems to live up to what we want.

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Judas Contract in hardcover with New Teen Titans Omnibus Vol. 2 solicitation

We've seen DC Comics 2012 trade solicitations for the Flashpoint hardcovers, for a pseudo-Batman by Grant Morrison Omnibus, a bunch of massive Wildstorm collections, and the second volume of the Flash by Geoff Johns Omnibus.

What comes next is the second volume of the New Teen Titans Omnibus, notable because it could be the first hardcover release of one of DC Comics's most famous storylines, "The Judas Contract."

The first New Teen Titans Omnibus collected issues #1-16 of the New Teen Titans series, plus their debut in DC Comics Presents #26 -- that is, most of the previously released DC Archives: New Teen Titans volumes one and two (see Death of the DC Archives?").

It stands to reason that the next volume would collect issues #17-32 -- more than DC Archives: New Teen Titans volumes three and four, but not quite through the "Judas Contract" storyline, which had its prologue in New Teen Titans #28-34 (the storyline later dubbed "Terra Incognito") but is most specifically in New Teen Titans #39-44 and their third annual.

However, DC's initial solicitation for the New Teen Titans Omnibus volume two reads:

The New Teen Titans -- consisting of the sidekicks to heroes from across the DCU, including Robin, Kid Flash, Donna Troy and more--battle threats large and small and from outside and in. Betrayal comes from one of their own when it's revealed that their teammate Terra is secretly working the Titans' deadly enemy Deathstroke. [Unfortunate typo there, but no less true.]

Two possibilities:

One, that the New Teen Titans Omnibus volume two is massive, collecting issues #17-40 of New Teen Titans, over twenty issues, plus an annual. That's pretty darn well unheard of, but not impossible -- note that the Starman Omnibus volume six itself collects twenty issues.

Two, given that "Terra Incognito" has only of late been added to the "Judas Contract" canon, it might be that DC has decided to split this storyline up in the omnibus editions. Not terribly controversial, I don't think, but notable -- whereas "Judas Contract" has historically been New Teen Titans #39-44, now it's #28-44, just as DC recently expanded Legion of Super-Heroes: The Great Darkness Saga to include earlier issues in their new deluxe collection. Alternatively, maybe the distinction of the "Judas Contract" storyline falls away completely now in our new post-trade, omnibus edition, DC Relaunch reality, and "Judas Contract" is just another aspect of the overall collected New Teen Titans story.

Either way, "Judas Contract" is certainly deserving of hardcover treatment, and it's been a long time coming from DC. Whatever form the second New Teen Titans Omnibus volume takes, the fans win.

And more ...
* Batman: Venom

Still working those movie tie-ins, we see a re-release of Dennis O'Neil's Venom storyline that later factored into Bane and Knightfall.

* Superman: The Secrets of the Fortress of Solitude

This strikes me as a weird release, what seems to be a collection of Golden Age Fortress of Solitude back-up stories, given that the Superman and Fortress features here doesn't exist any more after September. Given that some stories here are written by Jerry Siegel, maybe this is DC flexing its post-court case muscles (or otherwise paying restitution!).

* Showcase Presents: All-Star Squadron Vol. 1

I'll need a little help with this one, but I believe All-Star Squadron dovetails somewhat with Infinity Inc., making this a companion to the new line of Infinity Inc. hardcovers.

* Teen Titans: Prime of Life

My guess is this will go up to issue #100 of the series, making it the final Teen Titans collection before the DC Relaunch.

* Legion of Super-Heroes: When Evil Calls

Initial solicitations have this in paperback, and I'd say I'm disappointed; I'd rather this be in hardcover to sit beside The Choice. Chances are the next DC Relaunch volume will be in hardcover.

* Batman: No Man's Land Vol. 2

The current solicitation for this is wild, and wildly inaccurate. Take a look:

After suffering a cataclysmic earthquake, the U.S. government has deemed Gotham City uninhabitable and ordered all citizens to leave. It is now months later and those that have refused to vacate "No Man's Land" live amidst a citywide turf war in which the strongest prey on the weak.

Batman and his allies continue their fight to save Gotham during its darkest hour. Taking on a new costume and persona as Batgirl, the Huntress joins forces with Barbara Gordon, the former Batgirl, while Nightwing, the former Robin, tries to help the city's remaining citizens in any way he can. But as Batman begins to realize that he is fighting a fight he can't win, he collapses into a state of despair from which he may never recover.

A state of despair? I don't remember that from No Man's Land ...

Again, three cheers for "Judas Contract" in hardcover! What'll you be picking up?

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Uncollected Editions #7: Deathstroke: Nuclear Winter #13-20 (DC Comics)

[Our latest installment of our "Uncollected Editions" series by Paul Hicks]

There’s nothing cohesive about Deathstroke #13–20, but it certainly has its moments. These issues came out in 1992 and reflect the movement of the day, when there was nothing cooler than making an established villain an anti-hero. If it was good enough for the Punisher and Venom, then it was certainly good enough for Slade Wilson, aka Deathstroke the Terminator.

Deathstroke had been a shades-of-grey villain introduced to great acclaim in New Teen Titans #2 back in 1982 at the start of the ground-breaking Wolfman/Perez series. Ten years later Marv Wolfman was again writing the character on a regular basis in his own series. The series had a single trade paperback, Full Circle, collecting issues #1–5, but for my money, the best of this run came in the second year and it was typically neglected by the DC collections department. The art ranges from adequate to great and is mostly by Steve Erwin and Will Blyberg. The great covers are by Mike Zeck.

At the start of “Terminator Hunt,” Deathstroke has been set up, his healing factor is on the fritz, he’s been on the run, and he’s had the misfortune of being involved in a Metropolis shoot-out that leaves “flight stewardess” (their words, not mine) Lucy Lane shot (as seen in Superman #68). Superman drops off Slade with the authorities, where he promptly escapes. The “Hunt” comes in because the mysterious skull-ring-wearing Agent Smith has some nefarious plan for Slade, and it’s obviously much easier to send wave after wave of assassins to capture him, and also frame him and involve the superhero community in his apprehension, than it is to, say, just hire him.

The word is out that Slade’s on the lam, and he’s now hunted by everyone from the odd Justice Leaguer to lame early Image wannabes: Hemp, Bear, Ninjato, Shuriken and Kitty Kat, to name a few. Deathstroke takes out the nobodies and in a very cool sequence outwits Hal Jordan and a very tough pre-hook Aquaman. A quick sidebar here -- Wolfman actually shows a lot of respect for Aquaman, making me wonder if he ever had a pitch in mind for the King of the Seas, particularly given that this was around two years before the Peter David series began. In a much less cool sequence, Slade also trips Wally West and makes his escape into issue #14.

Could things get any crazier? Why yes, they could, because part two of “Terminator Hunt” is also part one of the New Teen Titans/Team Titans crossover “Total Chaos.” Never was a crossover more aptly named. Issues #14 and #15 are mostly padding set amongst the events of the crossover; for some reason Wolfman decides to introduce a bewildering number of new teams: the mob from issue #13, sewer dudes, and finally a teen bag snatching crew. Slade is caught and escapes about three times in those issues. In the midst of it all, Slade tells his manservent Wintergreen about a mission in Cambodia that led him to meet a madam called Sweet Lili. This is aptly timely as he seeks shelter with her in her new base in New York. Notable in the long-term here is that this issue introduces Lili’s mysterious white-haired daughter Rose, who’ll one day become Ravager of the current Teen Titans. It’s done in a very “blink or you’ll miss it” fashion: Rose has no dialogue and she and Slade don’t even meet.

Issue #16 seems to get back on track, with “Total Chaos” hardly intruding in any obvious way. Slade’s escapes custody once again, steals a chopper and crashes on Titan’s Island. Wave after wave of armoured soldiers attack him and in a desperate burst of strength and a war cry of “I’m a goddamn killing machine!!!!” he guns down all his foes and succumbs to a heart attack. This is observed from a nearby submarine by a familiar face from the Titans rogues’ gallery, Mammoth of the Fearsome Five. So concludes “Terminator Hunt.”

Issues #17-20 tell the four-part story “The Nuclear Winter,” seemingly a homage to the late 1960s and ‘70s James Bond films. Slade’s body is delivered to an all-female submarine by the evil Agent Smith. We can tell how evil he is not only by his indiscriminate murder of military personnel, but by his sexist comments to female submariners. The submarine enters a massive hidden base in the Antarctic. What could be more James Bond than a hidden base? How about killing underlings for failing their mission! Agent Smith is immediately and brutally dispatched by Mammoth. Fellow Fearsome Fiver Shimmer shows up. Slade, we learn, isn’t really dead, but in a deep coma ready to be electrically revived by the organization’s leader, Cheshire!

Slade is soon up and running again, sporting a new costume, the way less fun blue and grey number sans the full face mask. After his brush with death, he’s come back better than ever and Cheshire intends to have him as a general in her organisation. No time for talk though, the base is under attack by mysterious white-clad soldiers. They appear to have the upper hand, when one of their own, carrying a crossbow, turns on them. And so Speedy aka Roy Harper joins the story. Cheshire has been allied with The Brain and Monsieur Mallah in forming a new Brotherhood of Evil, but having decided to keep her own franchise, she’s now their number one target. Good thing Roy still has an arrow in his quiver for her, and was happy to infiltrate the invading faction. The Brain has a plan to make his brotherhood a nuclear superpower, but Cheshire has plans of her own. [Fearsome Five? Cheshire? Deathstroke? This is a weird pastiche of New Titans supporting characters, sans the Titans; I bet Wolfman had fun writing it. -- ed]

The Cheshirehood of Evil are soon raiding Russian Nuclear silos and fighting Checkmate. Former Speedy (and not-yet-Arsenal) Roy Harper reveals himself as an agent of Checkmate, but he can’t stop Cheshire getting away with a few nukes. Cheshire plans to blackmail the world with the threat of the nuclear devices, and proves her intentions with the act that makes this hodge-podge of a story so memorable. The DC atlas loses its long-time Middle Eastern stand-in country Qurac, heavily featured in Suicide Squad, Checkmate and earlier issues of Deathstroke, It’s no understatement to say that this act has become a cornerstone for all characterizations of Cheshire since that point. [Further, I’d venture we haven’t seen such a dramatic change to the DC Comics physical landscape before or since, at least until the Cyborg Superman blew Coast City off the map. -- ed]

The story has dated pretty badly, but it still has a rigor to it that appeals to me. The hardest parts to cope with are the intruding crossover and a plot that gets more and more ridiculous when examined across several issues, but both of those traits are very much a symptom of 1990s storytelling that was all the rage. There’s a goofy emulation of early Image books (perhaps editorially mandated) in some of the one-off mercinaries, but when that gives way to the James Bondian hijinks the book becomes more comfortable in its own skin.

The milestones that this story delivered are the debut of Rose Wilson and the elevation of Cheshire from assassin to genocidal nutcase. Another minor point is you can see Roy Harper as a hero in transition from Speedy to becoming Arsenal, emphasized by his willingness to kill his enemies [as would Green Arrow on occasion, all conveniently forgotten now. -- ed]. Slade’s new costume introduced here lasted for a few years too, even featuring in other titles like the mega obscure Chain Gang War (a possible “Uncollected Edition” of the future). I can see why “Nuclear Winter” resists collection, because it has few logical points to break the story up neatly. Even this ending I’ve chosen has the dangling plot point of Wintergreen’s incarceration.

Thanks for coming along for the ride!

New reviews later this week. See you then!

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Review: Titans: Villains for Hire trade paperback (DC Comics)

Arsenal Roy Harper appears next in Eric Wallace's Titans: Villains for Hire after Justice League: Rise and Fall; in short, if you didn't like the earlier volume, you're not going to like this one either. But moreover, I actually thought Rise and Fall had some redeeming moments, and I still didn't much care for this Titans relaunch. I think I know what DC Comics attempted here, but it didn't succeed.

[Contains spoilers]

There's nothing new about teams of antiheroes; just after Crisis on Infinite Earths, DC had success with John Ostrander's Suicide Squad, and more recently there's Marvel's Thunderbolts and Gail Simone's villain-focused Secret Six. I'd even venture that Judd Winick's Outsiders, though heroes, were the groundwork of a team just a little bit over what the law allows (not to mention that the book itself offered some overly edgy material), that lead the way for the ongoing Secret Six series.

I can't quite see Titans as more than DC trying another series to capitalize on the popularity of Secret Six. It's another villain team; there's a mild undercurrent of morality among them; they do lots of bad things, but yet we're supposed to be sympathetic to them. Unfortunately, it's a lot harder than that to catch lightning in a bottle a second time.

For me, Villains for Hire went wrong immediately with the villains' murder of Atom Ryan Choi. Letting alone the poor political implications (I'm not in favor of DC killing nor creating a character based on ethnicity alone, but they had to know this wasn't going to play well with the fans), this early murder of an essentially defenseless hero makes the new Titans seem mean-spirited, and this never goes away. Early on the Secret Six proves their "toughness" fighting a bunch of other villains; the Titans swoop in and murder a hero. This worked for Max Lord in Countdown to Infinite Crisis because we were supposed to dislike Max; here, we're supposed to want to follow Deathstroke, but I never found myself wanting to.

Second, the conflicts the Titans face in this book are wholly unremarkable. We believe they're trying to assassinate Lex Luthor (too similar, again, to the first Winick Outsiders trade), but really they're trying to protect him; their enemy is a generic shapeshifter named Facade. Later, they battle an equally generic drug kingpin Elijah and his super-team The Dominators, made up of villains with names like Spike, Brute, and DJ Molecule (no kidding). These are throwaway characters, there just for the purpose of the Titans' conflict, but pages upon pages of the Titans fighting someone the reader doesn't care about, by my estimation, ends up with the reader just not caring at all.

I believe what's actually supposed to draw the reader further into the book is not the characters themselves, but the puzzle of Deathstroke's mysterious final goal. I don't discount this -- it may be, ultimately, what gets me to flip through the next trade -- but neither do I think the mystery serves as quite enough. Deathstroke collects various artifacts, but his purpose is too vague, and the book fails to offer even a mildly satisfying conclusion; it just ends. We get, for instance, a cut scene where a child the Titans just rescued is ignored by his father -- and that's it; no tie to the greater story. Is this something that will factor in later? Is Wallace simply making a statement on parents and children? Possibly the book needed to be a few issues longer; here again, it's just not clear to the reader what's important, or for whom we're supposed to feel emotion, and so it just leaves Titans seeming flat.

All of this is even more a shame because I can see where Titans might otherwise have potential. I should mention again that I enjoyed Eric Wallace's Final Crisis Aftermath: Ink, specifically how it examined race through the lens of superheroics and villainy; unfortunately Titans lacks any such nuance so far. The characters included in Titans are both more recognizable than those in Secret Six, and delightfully weird -- Cheshire teamed with Tattooed Man teamed with Osiris? -- and the book has the potential to go in a hundred different directions (spy thriller, urban mystery, supernatural -- it even ties in to Brightest Day) but remains in the end just a shoot 'em up. More's the pity; "just a shoot 'em up" is the last thing DC Comics needs right now.

It's easy for us to look back and comment on the excesses of 1990s superhero comics from today's vantage -- there was an overemphasis on rebellion, perhaps, and on legacy heroes like Green Arrow Connor Hawke and Manhunter Chase Lawler that were "cool" without much substance. What, I wonder, will we say about the 2000s? There's a return to purity and traditionalism, of course, as in the resurrections of Green Arrow Oliver Queen, Green Lantern Hal Jordan, and Flash Barry Allen, but then in contrast an almost cartoonish amount of violence. Identity Crisis and Infinite Crisis, in my opinion, put excessive violence to good use, but to me Titans: Villains for Hire seems to follow the trend without getting the point. Bloody murder of a superhero? Check. Villains acting as antiheroes? Check. Leader has a secret plan that the writer keeps from the reader? Check.

All of these elements have worked to great effect in various recent titles -- but that doesn't mean they'll always work, and that doesn't mean you can just drop these elements into a book and expect success. Ultimately, that's how I see Villains for Hire; it attempts to take its place in the DC Universe next to Secret Six and others, but wanting such unfortunately doesn't make it so.

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Review: Teen Titans: Ravager: Fresh Hell trade paperback (DC Comics)

I've said before I wasn't too keen on Sean McKeever's Teen Titans work, but I would definitely read a Ravager series based on his work in Teen Titans: Ravager: Fresh Hell. McKeever's is a pitch-perfect morally-gray action/adventure story in the vein of Deathstroke the Terminator and Manhunter before it; it's assisted mightily by it's role as a co-feature, demonstrating some of the value of that format.

[Contains spoilers]

From Fresh Hell's very first flashback of Rose Wilson being drugged by her father Deathstroke to become the assassin Ravager, McKeever offers us a wonderfully complicated take on the title character. Rose Wilson holds much of the appeal to me that Robin Damian Wayne does -- raised by bad guys, the character's only identity is as a fighter, and now she has to find a way to bend her skills for good.

McKeever does well tying everything -- including Ravager's quest to save enslaved women -- back to Ravager's dual goals of being as tough as her father without actually becoming him. Along the way, Ravager perhaps fails at being a hero more than she succeeds, leaving a trail of bodies behind her, and that's OK; the sheer joy of this book is in watching the character fail and then struggle to succeed nonetheless.

The book starts with the Faces of Evil: Deathstroke special by David Hine, and then one issue of McKeever's Teen Titans that appears in Child's Play before the "Fresh Hell" co-feature stories begin. After the prologue, McKeever moves Ravager swiftly, almost mysteriously, from San Francisco to remote Alaska, where she stumbles into a strange, remote town. The "stranger rides in" approach is straight out of the Westerns, and the fact that neither Ravager nor the reader knows how she arrived to Alaska gives the story a dreamlike quality -- to the end, the reader is never sure if Ravager is actually committing all the heroism and mayhem that she does, or if it's just another of her drug-induced illusions.

Fresh Hell was absolutely the right story for DC to release as a 10-page co-feature. McKeever seems to have no problem packing just the right amount of content into each chapter, neither omitting details nor ever seeming rushes; the single-page flashbacks are a good example of just the right amount of storytelling. Indeed, a cliffhanger every ten pages makes Fresh Hell seem peppier, with Ravager always moving and always in danger; I think it benefited this as an action story overall. As I mentioned in my review of Blue Beetle: Black and Blue, it's a shame DC Comics can't "draw the line at $2.99" and continue with these co-features, as I think they open ways of storytelling we don't normally see in the DC Universe.

I've been on the fence whether the Faces of Evil: Deathstroke issue ought have been collected here or in Outsiders: The Deep. I still say the latter, because Deathstroke's actions have a more direct effect on the Outsiders (and collecting DC Universe: Last Will and Testament there wouldn't have been such a bad idea either), but I see the reasoning behind having it here, too. The Faces of Evil special includes a prominent appearance by Ravager, though frankly it ties in more with the two-part Blackest Night crossover that also includes Ravager at the end of Teen Titans: Child's Play than it does with Fresh Hell; the present book could have been just as easily understood (if not be as thick) without the Deathstroke special.

Overall, however, I think Sean McKeever has a victory here with Teen Titans: Ravager: Fresh Hell. The scene where Ravager spares a villain's life, and then returns later to kill him, is remarkably powerful, reminiscent of Greg Rucka's work on Batman/Huntress: Cry for Blood, too. I hadn't seen much art by Yildiray Cinar before now, but it's exactly right for this story, clear and level like Joe Bennett or Dan Jurgens; Georges Jeanty brings a lot of emotion to the Deathstroke special, too.

Perhaps the only drawback is that this marks the seeming end of McKeever's work on Ravager, and not the beginning of something more; it's up in the air whether new Teen Titans writer J. T. Krul will ever do something more with Ravager's adventures here. If not, some may want to pass over this book as "non-essential," but I enjoyed it very much.

[Contains covers of the two full issues, new collection cover by Yildiray Cinar. Printed on glossy paper.]

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Trade Perspectives: Aalok Joshi remembers The Judas Contract

[Indian Collected Editions reader Aalok Joshi sent these reminisces from Mumbai before the announcement of the New Teen Titans Omnibus editions]

After reading of The New Teen Titans Archives Vol 1 I felt that I needed another does of that Marv Wolfman/George Perez goodness from the 1980s.  When I discovered that the remaining Archive editions are out of print and the Showcase Presents volumes haven't caught up yet, I decided to start where New Teen Titans Archives Vol 4 ends and the paperbacks begin, with New Teen Titans: Terra Incognito. Just as I was about to buy Terra Incognito, however, I chanced upon a copy of New Teen Titans: The Judas Contract, and I just knew I had to pick this up. Terra Incognito may come first, but I had such distinct memories of reading just parts of Judas Contract in single issues that I couldn't pass up an opportunity to read the whole story.

The oldest Teen Titans issue I remember buying is issue 54 of Tales of the Teen Titans, which had a Deathstroke on the front testifying in court with the words "The Trial of the Terminator" on the cover. The story title was "Blind Justice" where Slade is on trial for the murder of Tara Markov or the kidnapping of the Titans or something ... I was a kid then, and I forget easily.

What was odder is that it began with a simple courtroom trial, and ended with an attempt by the Changeling to prove that Slade is innocent of a crime committed while there's another Terminator on the prowl. Changeling goes so as to use Steve Dayton's Mento helmet to prove Slade's innocence, all so Slade doesn't go to jail so Changeling can kill Slade himself to avenge Terra. Twisted? You bet!

The issue that follows, "Shades of Grey," is probably the best coming of age stories I've ever read, and to a reader who had missed previous issues, made the past comparatively clearer. When I chanced upon a single issue with the words "The Judas Contract Part 1," I realized, "This is it." But that was the end of it. I couldn't find any more single issues, and trade collections weren't available, at least in India.

Nowadays, however, I was lucky enough to find Judas Contract just waiting in my local comics shop. The book collects New Teen Titans #39 and 40, and Tales of the Teen Titans #41-44 and Annual #3.

When I began reading these issues in order I was shocked. I had assumed that the fact that Tara Markov or Terra, whom the Titans brought into their midst recently, would be revealed as the traitor in the final issue of the arc. This is revealed to the Titans later in the arc but to the readers in the very first issue.

The first issue sees Kid Flash resigning, while Robin stepping out of the Batman's shadow and taking the first steps to becoming his own man. The following issues have little to do with the overall storyline, featuring the villain Brother Blood, but I'm glad they're collected here. As Wolfman and Perez didn't create this story necessarily intending it for a trade collection, much of it reads as an ongoing should, with plot threads dangling from every issue. Some get resolved over a period of time, while some do not, as was the fashion then.

Here are some other things I noticed while reading the volume:

- The story remains very compelling, despite that the reader knows about Terra's treachery from the beginning.

- No covers are included, and the chapter breaks are montage images. These days I think what we would see would be the covers.

- Part of me feels that they could have included a few issues more in Judas Contract, as I don't think they're going to publish a separate trade of "The Trial of The Terminator" [but with the Omnibus editions, you might get your wish. -- ed.]. They are charging $19.99 for newsprint paperback containing eight issues worth . . . come to think of it that's not as bad a price point as The Question or 52 Aftermath.

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Review: Teen Titans: Child's Play trade paperback (DC Comics)

It takes four writers to complete Teen Titans: Child's Play. Of their stories, by far the best is J. T. Krul's Blackest Night two-part crossover that includes no regular Titans, only Deathstroke and Ravager -- but it more serves to continue to entice me to want to read Eric Wallace's "Villains for Hire" Deathstroke story in Titans (and also to miss the late, lamented Deathstroke, the Terminator series) than to want to continue following Teen Titans.

[Contains spoilers]

I have said before that instances where I think the Blackest Night crossover works best is when the focus is not on the Black Lantern zombies, but on the emotions that the zombies make the heroes face. J. T. Krul's two-part story is a fantastic ripping open of Deathstroke Slade Wilson's family's emotional wounds; Wilson's daughter Ravager arrives to kill her father just as all of Slade's dead loved ones show up to take revenge, dredging up all the guilt Slade carries over all the bad things he's done in his life.

What follows are both a number of great mercenary-versus-zombie action sequences, but also an emotional story where, as Ravager and Deathstroke fight side-by-side, Krul makes clear how much Ravager's feelings of hate stem from actually wanting her father's love. I don't necessarily buy Geoff Johns's explanation, forwarded here by Krul, that Slade fights the Titans solely to cause the Titans to protect his children from the threats that surround Slade, but I did like Krul's more even-toned Slade. This is not the cackling madman Deathstroke that we saw in Judd Winick's Green Arrow and elsewhere, but one with a more classic "does what he has to" moral code. If that's the Slade in Eric Wallace's Titans, I'm in.

Bryan Q. Miller contributes a three-part story prior to Krul's where, rather unfortunately, a Titan dies. Now, there's actual some precedent the death of Titans functioning effectively in major stories, whether it's Terra in Judas Contract, Aquaqirl in Crisis on Infinite Earths, or Golden Eagle, Jericho (for a time), and more in "Titans Hunt." But, given that writer Sean McKeever bumped off Titan Marvin Harris rather gruesomely a handful of issues ago, and this follows closely on the resurrected Jericho having his eyes gouged out by Vigilante in Teen Titans: Deathtrap, there's an extent to which Teen Titans deaths begin to seem like a gimmick -- especially when the victims are essentially (fictional) children.

I thought Miller's Batgirl Rising was both creative and funny, and indeed Miller's sequence of Blue Beetle's serial spit-takes is worth a laugh. But even as the now de-powered Red Devil had become the Teen Titans' third wheel (and indeed he had), blowing up the kid, even in a heroic bit of self-sacrifice, seems rather harsh. I don't fault guest-writer Miller for this -- his Titans story must necessarily be heavily editorially influences -- but I regret at times it seems that DC has lost the concept of limbo; that characters must necessarily die these days to leave a title, rather than, you know, just moving away or joining another team or something.

Miller, Sean McKeever, and Felicia Henderson's stories in this book all suffer from the same problem, in that above all these Teen Titans just don't seem to like one another, or be all that likable. Wonder Girl is shrill, mopey, and full of self-doubt, a far cry from Young Justice's de facto leader so many years ago. McKeever gives Bombshell a nice scene where -- at the end of Ravager's sword -- she admits her affection for the Titans, but Miller and Henderson's stories have Bombshell and Aquagirl bickering and teasing new member Beast Boy, and the effect is more annoying than entertaining. Marv Wolfman and Geoff Johns's Titans fought, but they all liked each other, especially Johns's; I'm eager to see a Titans where the conflict is exterior, and not necessarily between the teammates.

As well -- though to some extent I don't want to harp on the difficulties with Henderson's Titans, given how the negative fan reaction to Henderson's now-ended run has been well-covered elsewhere -- I must at least mention that I just didn't get what was going on. I like that Henderson pits Raven up against a villain who isn't Trigon, but in a quick panel Raven shows her soul self and the demon Wylde either steals it or runs away from it, I'm not certain, and then that's the end; I know it's "to be continued," but the storytelling felt rather flimsy.

Also, while Beast Boy/Raven 'shippers will like their interplay here, it's also unclear why Beast Boy joins the Teen Titans in the first place -- did Cyborg send him? Why is Cyborg telling Red Arrow as if Arrow is the Titans' leader? What does Cyborg think will come of this slight of hand with Beast Boy? Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but I wondered if this vagueness was an indication of Henderson still getting a grasp of the Titans characters.

Still, for us long-time Deathstroke, the Terminator fans, Teen Titans: Child's Play has a zombie Wintergreen -- yes, the only DC Universe butler cooler than Alfred, now a zombie, alongside zombie Ravagers Wade DeFarge and Grant Wilson, plus Adeline Kane, all a treat to see. It's a great Blackest Night crossover by J. T. Krul, but not such a great Teen Titans book in a string of such, and I regret that that's the case.

[Contains full and variant cover. Printed on glossy paper.]

We follow some Titans Blackest Night action now into Outsiders, coming up next. Don't miss it!

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Review: Teen Titans: Deathtrap trade paperback (DC Comics)

What might've been the start of a new era for Teen Titans and its associated titles has unfortunately ended in tragedy. Whereas the Titans: Lockdown that leads in to this book had some high points, Teen Titans: Deathtrap, by writers Sean McKeever and Marv Wolfman, is overly-violent, irreverent, and as a comic book crossover, at times just plain sloppy. Once upon a time, Teen Titans was on the top of my to-read list; I know there's a new team coming up, but I feel about ready to drop this title.

[Contains spoilers for Teen Titans: Deathtrap]

At least one difficulty with Deathtrap is that the idea of bringing together the Titans family of titles -- Teen Titans, Titans, and Vigilante -- is stronger than the crossover itself. Deathtrap roots around a long time for a plot; the climax of the story is passable, but beforehand the Titans simply travel from one location to another fighting antagonists Jericho and Vigilante, having the two escape, moving to a second location, and repeating. Beast Boy, recovering from his breakup with Raven, is the only one with any passably interesting emotion; otherwise it's a mostly low-rate superhero slugfest.

A big selling point for this book ought be the contribution of New Teen Titans creator Marv Wolfman, but I hate to say even Wolfman didn't seem on his game in this book. The crossover starts right in the middle of Wolfman's Vigilante title's ongoing story and Wolfman makes no effort to clue the reader in on who's who; I might otherwise have found Vigilante interesting, but instead I was just confused. And then there's instances like Wolfman writing Jericho lecturing Wonder Girl, of all characters, about the mythological gods -- facts the reader knows Wonder Girl's already aware of, but it seems Wolfman or his editor was not.

And the continuity errors don't occur just in the writing. The character Red Devil's costume appears and disappears from chapter to chapter (and changing artist to changing artist); one cliffhanger ends with Cyborg's head nearly shot off, only to have him fairly whole the next time he appears. The story turns on following Jericho as he travels though different bodies, but the depictions of these characters are so different that sometimes I didn't realize it was the same person, or that it was Jericho in the scene.

When I reviewed Titans: Lockdown, I was of mixed opinion how being a villain suited Jericho; now, I'm firmly against it. The presence of Marv Wolfman reminds me that once, Joe "Jericho" Wilson was unique in comics as a pacifist superhero, and a deaf and mute one at that; unmistakable in his mutton-chop sideburns, Jericho was a symbol of something. I didn't much mind when Jericho acted as the villain of "Titans Hunt," corrupted by Raven's soul self, because that at least had some resonance to Titans history; this new Jericho, neither deaf nor mute, but rather spouting hackneyed dialogue like Ming the Merciless, is a travesty. I wasn't offended when Max Lord shot Blue Beetle Ted Kord, sullying years of Justice League International, because I understood the necessity; that Jericho has come to this, and written by Marv Wolfman, for me puts a bit of shame on old classics like The Judas Contract where Joey first appeared.

Teen Titans: The Future is Now was another story that featured the old and new Titans, and I think at least one difference is that story came off as an adventure, while Deathtrap is something darker. More than a few innocent bystanders beg for their lives before being brutally shot here (including one on a gratuitous, entirely unrealistic news report), and that's not to mention the gruesome way Vigilante finishes Jericho. I don't mind my comics serious, but usually when things are bad for our heroes, something's at stake; I had trouble finding that here.

One bright spot amidst the trouble I had with this book is a late-story appearance by Ravager, Jericho's half-sister. Ravager's put-downs of the Teens Titans have long seemed to me to reflect McKeever's own feelings, and it was amazing how much more I enjoyed his Ravager-centric Terror Titans miniseries than his Teen Titans work. Ravager returns here (along with Terror Titans artist Joe Bennett) and it immediately wakes up the story, including a harrowing scene between Ravager and a Jericho-possessed Raven. This book crosses over with McKeever's Ravager co-feature story, and even as I was displeased with this book, I'm very likely to give that collection a shot.

I can't help but wax a little nostalgic these days. Not that long ago, in DC Comics' "One Year Later" endeavor after Infinite Crisis, we had Checkmate, we had Outsiders, we had a Legion title that I liked and the original iteration of Birds of Prey, too. REBELS is a new series I enjoyed, and I'm interested to try some of the Red Circle books -- but thinking about how much I used to like Teen Titans, a book like Deathtrap makes me kind of sad.

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Review: Titans: Lockdown trade paperback (DC Comics)

Amazingly enough, Judd Winick -- whose Titans: Old Friends showed promise, but left much to be desired -- and Sean McKeever -- whose Teen Titans has so far failed to impress -- join together in Titans: Lockdown for story that's simply fantastic. Titans fans, do not miss this one; Winick loads the bases a story that successfully demonstrates all that's good and bad about the Titans "family," and then McKeever hits a home-run with a single "Day in the Life" issue that well upholds the longstanding Titans tradition.

In his introduction to Outsiders: Looking for Trouble, Judd Winick described wanting to create a super-team with such rich characterization that an entire issue could be spent with the heroes sitting around in a bar talking, and it wouldn't get boring. Winick never did achieve such an issue, but the closest he came was Outsiders #23, not coincidentally also called "Lockdown," and the four-part story found in this Titans collection. Both this and that are great stories, both deal with the team confined to a small space as they seek out a traitor in their midst, and both highly revealing of the characters involved (the similarities, too, to Winick's own Real World experience aren't probably accidental).

Winick sets the tone in the second chapter, where the Titans, to prove none of them have been possessed by former teammate Jericho, privately speak a secret to a lone camera (enter, again, Real World comparisons here). The page literally gave me chills. Beast Boy admits his parents didn't die in a boating accident, Cyborg says "he's not my son" (emphasis mine), Red Arrow admits that [the Green Lantern/Green Arrow issue, presumably] wasn't the last time he used heroin, and Starfire says that "they" weren't all dead when she arrived.

Now, these are blind statements that -- especially with Winick no longer writing Titans -- I don't expect ever to be followed up upon, but the sheer depth it shows, which carries through the story, is astounding. Of course it wasn't the last time Roy Harper used heroin, as it often takes recovering addicts many tries, but nowhere else has another writer been brave enough to confront this. And while I'm not thrilled with the idea of giving Cyborg an illegitimate (or not illegitimate) son, again, a fascinating suggestion.

Just as Titans: Old Friends examined the old sawhorse that family is who you choose and not who you're born with, Lockdown looks at the importance of trust in a family, and what a family is like without it. Winick is wise in noticing former Titan Jericho as the complete antithesis of the new Titans group; a team that's all about trust breaks down completely when Jericho, someone who could be hiding within someone else and therefore betraying that trust, enters the picture. The center can't hold -- as soon as the "Jericho question" abounds, the team very nearly disbands, because it negates the Titans' only reason for being together.

I questioned Winick's use of Jericho as a villain -- after he wasn't, then was, then wasn't again, making Jericho a bad guy again seems rather obvious. It didn't help that, for a large part of the story, Jericho's motivations are mysteriously unclear (and even in the end, he's just "doing bad" for doing bad's sake). But in the middle, Jericho demonstrates how the use of his powers -- often at the Titans' behest -- has driven him crazy, and this makes him the perfect villain for this Titans series. These Titans, at least together, are never going to stop bank robberies; they're going to sit down to breakfast, chat a bit, and then Brother Blood will pop out of the French press and make mayhem. Titans stories should be all about the personal, and the guilt that Nightwing feels in the end for Jericho's trouble is perfect for this series.

Temporary Titans writer Sean McKeever (he departs after the Deathtrap crossover) pens the epilogue to Winick's story, written in the vein of Marv Wolfman's old "Day in the Life" Titans issues. The scenes of Roy Harper reverting to his playboy ways after breaking up with Hawkgirl are wonderfully sad; it's never been clear enough to me that the relationship was so steady that Roy would take it this hard, but his self-destruction is fascinating nonetheless. McKeever also breaks up Raven and Beast Boy, which is great if it's a bump along the road or terrible if it's permanent, but either way made for great reading. McKeever's Teen Titans have never felt this rich to me, and I was pleasantly surprised at his take on the older group.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that no doubt part of what makes Titans: Lockdown better than Old Friends is stellar art by Howard Porter. I remember fondly Porter's JLA days, and while I wasn't much for his side-step into painting, Lockdown is Porter at his best. It's a little thing, but I loved how Porter drew Superman's S-shield slightly raised, as is the current post-One Year Later style; Porter's lines are clean and his figures heroic, and his contribution to this volume is significant.

Maybe nothing gold can stay; I liked this volume of Titans, but it's all set to change in a book or two. I still hold out hope that the "villains for hire" Titans idea will ultimately end with this classic group coming back together; if not now, perhaps some day.

[Contains full covers]

On now to follow the Titans into Deathtrap ... come join me!

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Review: Titans: Old Friends hardcover/paperback (DC Comics)

I'm in the vocal minority, I know, when I say there's a lot of Judd Winick's work that I've really liked. And I firmly believe Judd Winick can write the Titans; after all, he did it for almost five years on what I'd suggest was essentially a Titans title that I liked quite a bit: Outsiders. But there's no question that the first book of Winick's Titans-proper relaunch, Titans: Old Friends, has some problems. So, if Winick can do it, and we've seen him do it before, where does this volume not work?

Earlier this week, I took issue with Andrew Kreisberg's writing on Green Arrow/Black Canary, following a run by Winick himself; in that case, Kreisberg's plot didn't move me, but I had no problem with Mike Norton's realistic art. Titans: Old Friends suffers from the opposite: I'd venture the writing in the first five of Winick's seven chapters of Old Friends might stand a lot better if not for the ridiculously sexualized art of Ian Churchill and Joe Benitez.

Maybe, one could argue, Winick called in his script for nearly every Titan to be nude in the first chapter, but Winick's Outsiders was sexual too, without seeming childish. Churchill draws in a perhaps-excusable overly-muscled style a la Rob Liefield, but Benitez positions the characters like models in a photo shoot even when they're just standing around talking. In addition, Benitez's figures are so stylized as to look gruesome (consider Nightwing's scrawny chicken legs while having sex with Starfire) such that they come off neither attractive nor pornographic -- just kind of juvenile.

I'm sure Benitez's art has its place somewhere, but frankly I'm surprised at this choice by long-time DC Comics editor Eddie Berganza; it seemed to me entirely the wrong foot for Titans to start on. Winick is not totally without fault; his Kevin Smith/Edward Norton/Aaron Sorkin-inspired dialogue choices here -- lots of short sentences, lots of characters repeating one another -- very quickly becomes annoying, but again, I have to turn to Churchill and Benitez; the choppy dialogue is much more obvious with only two fairly-static panels a page, and less so toward the end of the book when artist Julian Lopez takes over.

Now, some might take issue with my laying the silliness and choppiness of Titans' first few issues at the feet of the artists, but consider that the rather lovely final two issues, drawn by Lopez, still have Winick as their writer. Here, after the Titans fight off the first wave of an attack related to Raven's past, Winick puts quiet focus on the burgeoning relationship between Raven and Beast Boy, and the long history between Nightwing and Starfire. In a couple of pages, Winick offers a mature, cogent take on the latter two characters and their recent on-again-off-again relationship; it demonstrated to me that Winick is a writer wise enough to take love and sex more seriously than the initial art on this book would suggest.

As well, I'm quite convinced that Winick gets the voices of these characters as handed down from New Teen Titans writer Marv Wolfman and beyond. Winick's Beast Boy Gar Logan has a joke a minute on every page, but it's with the understanding that Beast Boy's jokes hide his insecurity over his depth of feeling (the scene where Red Arrow, cracking wise, notes he's taking over the funny-but-cares role from Beast Boy is a self-referential classic). At the same time, in perhaps the fruition of Wolfman's original vision for Beast Boy, Logan is in essence the leading man in the story, as his Titans cartoon-inspired love for Raven is the most interesting and moving part of the story. Winick gets Logan and Cyborg's friendship, too -- frankly, if Tom Grummett had drawn this book in total, I think it might've received a far different reaction.

Old Friends believably takes the Titans from their disparate lives to rejoining as a team mostly, as one Titan notes, to spend more time with their "family." It's a ridiculous, but at the same time perfectly fitting, reason for these characters to come together -- if the Titans just hang out together, then inevitably because of who they are, they'll find crime to fight. This is something with which other comics team writers have struggled -- just as difficult as the "proactive team" seems to write, the "team that is not a formal team" is right up there. If any group of characters could fit that bill, it's these Titans, and by the end, I think Winick's taking the title in the right direction. I'll be curious to see if that keeps up in the next volume, before a different creative team ultimately takes over.

(See some contrary opinions, which I respect, from FanBoy Wonder and IGN.)

[Contains full and variant covers]

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Review: New Teen Titans Archives Vol. 4 hardcover (DC Comics)

Of the four volumes of the modern New Teen Titans Archives, this fourth volume is by far my favorite. I have been impressed with Marv Wolfman and George Perez's use of "years" in these volumes -- every twelve issues have had something of a common tone and a beginning and ending climax. In this fourth volume, Wolfman and Perez close out the second year with the advent of Brother Blood and an attack by Starfire's sister Blackfire; the third year brings with it the start of Robin and Starfire's relationship, and appearances by a mysterious girl later known as ... Terra. There's such fantastic pacing in this book, and such a sense of coming possibility, I was riveted the whole way through.

Throughout the volumes, the writers have visited and re-visited the question of whether heroes should kill, and I'm remiss not to have mentioned it before now. Here, Brother Blood kills Cyborg's childhood girlfriend, and he and Starfire seek vengeance over Changeling's protests when they think the other Titans have been murdered; in space, the Titans fight a war against the Citadel alongside the Omega Men, and it's suggested the Titans do kill, if unwittingly, in a number of hectic battles.

I appreciated here how Wolfman and Perez challenge cultural relativism. Sure, killing your enemies is forbidden in Gotham City, but that's not necessarily the case on Starfire's warrior planet of Tamaran. Similarly, what stands in the course of catching super-villains isn't necessarily the case for soldiers drafted into a full-fledged war. The writers contract the Titans' attempt to hold on to their morality with the increasing violence of the district attorney Adrian Chase, just one of many intricate plotlines being weaved together in these pages.

Another storyline that comes to fruition is Robin admitting his affection for Starfire. Perhaps Nightwing and Starfire have been such a constant in the DC Universe since I've been reading comics that the start of their relationship never occurred to me. Over the first two years of New Teen Titans, without too much melodrama, Wolfman and Perez portrayed a Starfire who might love Robin if not for her own naivete, and a Robin who might love Starfire if not for his inherit distrustfulness, and very slowly brought the two characters together.

We see now the importance even of Starfire's relationship with Franklin Crandell way back in volume two, turning the Robin/Starfire romance "off" for an issue without making a big deal of it having been "on." The page of Cyborg and Kid Flash discussing Robin and Starfire's relationship as the team returns from space reinforces how important this change is to the team. Once again, this fourth volume suggests so much to come in the future; it must have been terribly, terribly exciting to read these issues as published.

I noted in this volume a shift in the public's perception of the Titans, caused mainly by Brother Blood's machinations. I remarked in an earlier review how amazing it was that no one distrusted these Teen Titans solely because of their age, as would be standard with any current teen group; here, that very mistrust begins to come to light. It suggests the end of a more innocent era for the "new" Teen Titans, carrying over from when they were just the Teen Titans proper; surely, once Terra comes on the scene, the innocence of teen groups will be ruined but good.

This fourth volume of the New Teen Titans Archives is the last volume, perhaps, because the story continues in paperback in New Teen Titans: Terra Incognita. Unfortunately, there's three uncollected issues between Terra Incognita and The Judas Contract (#35-37; #38 appears in New Teen Titans: Who is Donna Troy), so an uninterrupted reading of New Teen Titans ends right after. Still, what we have here are stories which are not only captivating, but still hold up as paragons of storytelling thirty years later.

[Contains full covers, introduction by Marv Wolfman]

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Review: New Teen Titans Archives Vol. 3 hardcover (DC Comics)

This is the third part in our series on the New Teen Titans Archives:

Volume three of the New Teen Titans Archives is essentially a collection of short stories. I understand from Marv Wolfman's introduction in volume two why he felt a string of done-in-one issues was necessary, breaking up the flow of a number of epic Titans adventures; it also helps return to the root of the series -- that is, the characterization of these heroes before their wild heroics. Reading the archive collection, I admit to feeling impatient with these four issues and the four-part, character-focused Tales of the New Teen Titans miniseries -- in following the early history of the Titans, I'd rather read about the rise of Brother Blood than in a one-off team-up with Hawkman -- though certainly there's much to like in this volume.

I'm a Red Star fan from way back -- but by way back I mean "Titans Hunt," and not the earlier story collected here, when Red Star was still called Starfire. Despite that "A Pretty Girl Is Like a -- Maladi" telegraphs the end all the way from the beginning, what's gripping and endearing here is Red Star's stoic self-sacrifice in the face of tragedy; it's impossible not to like this character. Wolfman and George Perez use Kid Flash to offer a healthy dose of 1980s Cold War paranoia in opposition to Red Star, and it's fascinating to watch this buttoned-up, conservative Wally West as compared to the hero we know today (as is true for the later Wally story, "Dear Mom and Dad").

The Tales of the New Teen Titans miniseries collected here serves two purposes -- to offer backstory on the "new" Titans introduced at that time, and to tease some future Titans stories (also introduces the Titans campout, referenced time and again especially in later Titans series). Most notable is the introduction of Starfire Koriand'r's sister Komand'r, who I believe appears in the next volume and has been a reoccurring DC Universe baddie ever since. I also found interesting Raven's revelation that the denizens of Azarath actually created Trigon, something I don't think I knew; one of these days I'll have to go back and re-read "Titans Hunt" up through Nightwing and Starfire's wedding, and try to pin down who exactly possessed whom and why in that whole thing.

The Cyborg spotlight stood as the favorite of the miniseries issues. I felt so touched by Cyborg Victor Stone and his father Silas's reconciliation in the first volume that this second look at the origins of their estrangement was all the more moving. We find here that it was not just that Silas couldn't accept Victor's lack of interest in science, but also that Victor fell into a bad crowd that caused him to rebel against his parents. The writers spin a tale of peer pressure that spans both Victor Stone's early life and the unexplored time after he became Cyborg but before he joined the Titans; this story too, though mildly cliched, offers an interesting look at the person behind the hero.

I've enjoyed George Perez's art, with inking by Romeo Tanghal, throughout the books so far, though I admit it leaves me hungry for Perez's later, wider-screen art in Crisis on Infinite Earths or Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds. In the Tales of the Teen Titans miniseries, Perez pairs with one of my all-time favorite inkers, Brett Breeding, and also Pablo Marcos, and the art on the Cyborg and Raven issues reflected some of the bold life I've been waiting to see in Perez's pages.

There's nothing wrong with smaller stories, but these have left me hungry for an epic -- I'm eager to see if the fourth volume delivers.

[Contains full covers, introduction by Len Wein, pin-up pages (also reprinted in volume one)]

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Review: New Teen Titans Archives Vol. 2 hardcover (DC Comics)

This is part two in our series on the New Teen Titans Archives:

And then there were the Greek gods.

I have a confession to make -- I don't really like DC Comics stories about the Greek gods. Bringing the Greek gods on the scene has always seemed an excuse for writers to use overly flowery language and make esoteric references to myths I've never read -- indeed what kept me out of Wonder Woman for a long time was the incessant use of the gods, and I loved when they got a makeover in Greg Rucka's Wonder Woman run.

Marv Wolfman and George Perez introduce the Greek gods to the New Titans for the first time in volume two of the New Teen Titans Archives. While I enjoyed very much the multi-part story that gives the women of the New Teen Titans a chance to shine on their own, I couldn't help but see "Clash of the Titans" as the launching point for not only a slew of Greek god-focused Titans adventures, but also the launching point for the modern age Greek god stories by Perez, Phil Jimenez, and others in Wonder Woman, which never enticed me as much as, say, watching Deathstroke throw down with the Titans.

To be sure, Wolfman uses aspects of the Greek gods and the Amazon mileu to great ends. The parent/child conflict of the Greek gods is a perfect foil for the Titans' own struggles; Wolfman also offers an excellent page where Raven and Starfire debate which is more like the Amazonian peace-loving warriors, well illustrating the dichotomies inherit in the Wonder Woman mythos.

The second major story in this volume, which teams the Titans with the remnants of the Doom Patrol, might rank as one of my favorite Changeling stories. Nowhere the is the multi-faceted nature of Wolfman and Perez's Titans better present than when Garfield Logan, who for twelve issues has been little more than annoying comic relief, finally gets truly angry and risks his life to try to save his missing stepfather. The writers provide a turn for this character that is both surprising and completely natural, and it demonstrates the strength of the series even more than how well-rounded the main characters always are.

For modern Teen Titans fans, there's an interesting short story at the end of this book where the eventual Tempest and Red Arrow, Aqualad and Speedy, team with the New Teen Titans. The story itself is a rather simplistic "Say No to Drugs" tale, but it's fascinating especially to see Speedy -- not yet his current Cheshire-loving, Huntress-dating self -- in a rather staid role. I should mention here too that fans of the current Wally West will barely recognize his pre-Crisis incarnation throughout these books; he's conservative, reserved, and not at all the outgoing Wally we know now, and I'm learning a lot about the character that I hadn't realized before.

[Contains full covers, introduction by Marv Wolfman, bonus story]

So those are some off-the-cuff thoughts about New Teen Titans Archive volume two. I'm curious to hear from some readers who also read these volumes, or who recall reading the original series, and how these stories struck you now and then. I'll be back soon with thoughts on volume three.

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Review: New Teen Titans Archives Vol. 1 hardcover (DC Comics)

As it comes time to the end of the year, I've been looking to my shelf to see what I might've meant to read this year and never got around to. One such set of books is the four-volume New Teen Titans Archives, the only DC Comics archives from the "modern age" of comics.

If any comic can be considered above reproach, these ground-breaking stories by Marv Wolfman and George Perez certainly fall into that category. Rather than a formal review, what will follow here and in the next few posts will be some more off-the-cuff thoughts and observations in reading this series, which is likely a must-read for anyone wanting full exposure to DC Comics history.

[This review well spoils the New Teen Titans Archive volume 1]

One of the first things that struck me in reading these stories (New Teen Titans #1-8) is how the writers set up these characters as near perfect superheroes. Of course, you and I know the exploits of the original New Teen Titans as the stuff of legends, but back then no one had heard of Cyborg, Starfire, or Raven -- and yet by the end of the volume, Wolfman calls them "the best of the best." Though the Titans do face some growing pains in learning to work together, they are all for the most part natural superheroes, even those like Cyborg who had been "normal" until just before the start of the book. Superheroing for them is the easy part; it's the emotional journey of finding themselves that proves more challenging.

Contrast this with the modern incarnation of the Teen Titans. Whereas the New Titans needed no adult supervision nor anyone to train them to use their powers, the Teen Titans under Geoff Johns warranted a chaperone. I chalk this up in part to needing to give the original Titans something to do in the current era, but also a strange shift in our sensibilities -- in the wake of any number of school shootings, I wonder if this reflects a "children are dangerous" ethos in the mid-2000s that wasn't present in the early 1980s.

I recognize, of course, that there's something of a purported age difference between the Wolfman/Perez and Johns-era Titans. At the same time, we could argue, a story is what its creative team makes it: Johns' Titans no more needed a chaperone than the writer wanted them to have one -- that is, chaperones could have been written out of the series and subsequently have been.

In fact, the most recent Sean McKeever Teen Titans team functions without adult supervision, but that team highlights the other difference from the Wolfman/Perez era -- those heroes are not the best at what they do. Sure, the Wolfman/Perez era Titans bicker and some don't get along with others, but not on the scale of McKeever's Titans, nor do they suffer the kinds of humiliating failures that McKeever's do (Red Devil throwing essentially a frat party, and Wonder Girl alienating a whole room of potential recruits, to name a couple of examples). The Wolfman/Perez stories highlight to me how it's possible to have interpersonal drama on a team book without outlandish or overly melodramatic storylines (and this is a difficulty of many modern team books, not just McKeever's Teen Titans).

In reading the first volume of the New Teen Titans Archive, I tried to approach it as if I knew nothing about the characters, and I found the mysteries inherit in the series quite compelling. At the center of it, of course, is Raven and her reason for bringing the Titans together -- more than the slow revelation of Trigon or that Wolfman and Perez keep Raven's features hidden until the emotional scene with her mother Arella, what always gets me is the scene just after the Titans fight the Justice League, after they find out that not only might Raven have brainwashed Kid Flash to think he loved her so he's stay in with the Titans, but also that Raven approached the Justice League before the Titans and the Justice League rebuffed her because they could sense Trigon's evil within her -- when the Titans walk away and the team seems disbanded, that's just a perfect dramatic moment.

My second favorite is the mystery surrounding Cyborg's origins. I think everyone can tell from the start that Cyborg is a little too mad at his father, Silas Stone -- mad enough that we can tell that probably Silas isn't the villain that Cyborg makes him out to be. Then the Titans Tower comes along and it seems its creator might have nefarious purposes, and then we find out Silas created it (a fact unfortunately never referenced these days) and that he's dying, and that it was Cyborg's mother who caused the accident all along, when Cyborg blamed Silas for his mother's death. So many twists and turns, wrapped up in such a wonderful, bittersweet ending -- Wolfman says they really hit their groove on the book in the third volume, but the stories in this first book are really quite remarkable.

Finally, I remained impressed through this reading how Wolfman and Perez managed to tie every story back to the theme of family. Most notable are not just Raven's issues with Trigon and Cyborg's with his father and Robin's with Batman, but how the Titans' very first enemy, the Ravager Grant Wilson, unknowingly competes with his father, Deathstroke the Terminator. I also appreciated that even seemingly silly villains like the Fearsome Five contain the siblings Mammoth and Shimmer -- in the same vein as we now see in Geoff Johns' material, there are no throwaway characters here, but rather everyone has some sort of roundedness that makes them pop off the page.

[Contains full covers, introduction by Marv Wolfman, preview story and pin-up pages]

That's my take on the first volume of the Teen Titans Archives, in which the Titans come together, get a headquarters, and fight Deathstroke, the HIVE, the Fearsome Five, and Trigon. Thoughts on volume two coming soon.

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