Overview: The Titans bicker their way through their first mission as they are covered in brain tissue.
Synopsis (spoilers ahead): A young man approaches a clerk at a convenience store with outstretched arms as electricity pulses through his body, “Help me. I need to save the world. Right now.”
The Titans get an alert that an event is taking place in New York, so they head that way. They use Steel’s tech to teleport right to the city and begin their search. Plant life has grown out of control. Miss Martian offers to help out, but Nightwing commands her to stay in the ship, observe, and keep their minds linked. Beast Boy is attacked by a bunch of mutated rats, but Donna Troy jumps in the fight and kills them all.
They find a group of people who have been in hiding. The wave of energy caused by the destruction of the Source Wall is causing every living thing in this area to mutate. Why this specific location, has yet to be explained. The clerk sees the young man who tried to hurt him in the beginning, and he tries to do the same here. He comes across as being possessed, as he doesn’t always have control over what he says or does. Steel jumps in the way and takes the hit. With help from Raven, Beast Boy is able to talk the kid down by relating his experience to his own. Everyone is happy until they realize why the kid was trying to attack the store clerk. It is because he’s a level 10 metahuman and not such a good guy. In fact, he resembles what we come to know as a demon. His abilities are able to counteract everything the entire team throws at him, until the young man shoots him in the head with an energy blast, blowing his head off. Miss Martian considers this a “fortunate outcome” and moves on. Nightwing is very angry about her leaving her post and following that up with her nonchalant attitude towards life. “We don’t kill and we don’t let others kill… My team. My rules.”
Analysis: Dan Abnett continues his Titans run, but also begins a new starting point. He does that successfully, but the execution of this book leaves me wanting. I feel like where some of the characters could end up by the end of this run has the potential to be more interesting than the journey we will take to get there – and that is dependent on a lot of “what if’s”. Beast Boy MAY come to resemble a character I once knew. Steel COULD become someone I remember five years from now (probably not). Miss Martian MIGHT start to look like a hero. And Dick “freaking” Grayson will PROBABLY be likable in the future, but right now, he comes off as a pretentious douchebag. When he’s not berating a fellow teammate, he’s rushing toward their side, crying out their name after they’ve taken a hit.
He’s annoying and hard to respect if this is your introduction to the character.
I don’t know how Miss Martian is a respected and trusted liaison of the Justice League seeing she doesn’t share her uncle’s values. Of course, Manhunter also seemed like a jerk in the special, so maybe this is just how Abnett is viewing the Martian family. The way they are written in this book, they wouldn’t be members of the League, let alone placed in a leadership role. The only characters that seem to resemble themselves (who I know) are Donna Troy and Raven. Even Raven seems a little more talkative here. Beast Boy is annoying, but it seems at least he will have a story arc here. The plot is basic and the overall story the book is telling us is weak. My synopsis was brief, but I was pretty thorough. There’s just not much happening. Lots of bickering. Lots of yelling. Lots of capable crimefighters not being capable in crimefighting. And in this particular issue, the twist was seen coming a mile away. I’m not saying that the writing here is lazy. Abnett is a good writer. I’m saying he’s not writing with the characters in mind. He’s forcing the characters into the archetypes he needs to write this story. It just happens that the story isn’t very interesting.
Brandon Peterson’s style is inconsistent in this. Sometimes it resembles Paul Pelletier and then in the next panel, something more like John Romita Jr. Both great artists, but the clashing of styles needs to be addressed. It looks as though multiple artists drew this book, but there’s only one. I’ve said that in a positive connotation before, but the style change was intentional and it served the story (see J. H. Williams on Batwoman). Here, it makes it looked rushed. Ivan Plascencia colors here and does a fine job. I appreciate his vibrant color palette without washing out the page. Dave Sharpe does a fine job lettering here. His collaboration with Brandon Peterson on the mind link was well done. It was very much less confusing to know who was talking, unlike how they did the action in Justice League.
Final Thoughts: We aren’t seeing anything new here in terms of story or plot, and the characters are unrecognizable. If you were to ask me, I would be spending my money elsewhere.
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