4 issue test #39 - Teen Titans (DC Rebirth)

Yes, I know it's another cheat but they use the same logo and this review's late already

It’s DC Rebirth Time again!

I’d previously reviewed a Teen Titans book, it was one of my earliest reviews of this format. It… wasn’t great really, I did drop the book after the 4^th issue and even though a couple of ideas tossed did gain my attention, it was never really enough to bring me back in.

But DC Rebirth has shone a new light on the Titans with a new creative team and a new roster. In the writer’s chair is Ben Percy, who is also tackling the Green Arrow books and with artists… well, there are quite a few of them. The roster, I’ll cover in the description since the first issue is primarily about getting everyone together. Speaking of which, let’s get to it.

We begin in Los Angeles, Garfield Logan aka Beast Boy has thrown a massive party, he thinks about how Tim said he was eager for attention and it was his weakness, he was probably right but he’s gone now and Garfield wants to drink away his sorrows. He gets a girl in the pool with them and turns into a shark, prompting the girl to run away. The water is electrocuted by a mysterious man and he’s knocked out. One down, 3 to go.

The next scene takes place in Florida, Koriand’r aka Starfire is helping form a taskforce to take down slavery rings. She asked Nightwing to help, thinking he wanted some distance but he ultimately wanted to stay in Gotham, which is weird when you consider no DC Rebirth Nightwing issue has really taken place in Gotham. A stranger grabs a boy right under her nose, he angrily blasts him down. He cries, begging for mercy, saying ‘he’ said it would just be a joke. Starfire is electrocuted and knocked out.

In New York City Raven teleports into a museum, using her telepathy so that guard lets her through. She thinks about her fears of turning into her father but is knocked out by a drug dart.

In Central City Wally West, aka Kid Flash (the black one) stops a mugger but because both of them were wearing a hood, the victim thought he was the mugger. He races off, into the subway and finds someone passed out on the tracks, he soon finds out that it’s a robot which sprays knock out gas, knocking him out as well.

The 4 wake up, restrained and unable to use their powers, as Beast Boy finds out to his cost. Their kidnapper is none other than Damian Wayne, Robin, the bratty one who weirdly hasn’t been around Batman for a while.

#1 opens at Wayne Manor. Damian has just turned 13 but Justice League business has kept Bruce from being around to celebrate with him. He compliments Alfred on the cake before retiring to bed.

Back in the not Bat-cave, Damian berates each of them on their weaknesses that he exploited. They all try to counter but he’s clearly getting in their heads. Starfire uses her strength to break through the bonds, allowing the others to escape too. Goliath protects Damian, slapping away an attack from beast boy and tossing him into Kid Flash. Raven puts the beast to sleep and they soon have Robin cornered

He’s made his point, they may be vulnerable but they’re much stronger together. This is the new Teen Titans. He admits that despite their differences, Tim Drake was a great man. But he’s never had much success with the Teen Titans as they’ve been branded criminals, untrustworthy, essentially a joke. They can do better. When they ask why they should agree to this, he tells them that if they don’t, they’re all dead, they’ve all been targeted by Ra’s al Ghul’s league of assassins.

Back at the Manor, Damian enters his room and finds a dead bird with a message, come home or die. On infinity Island, Ra’s prepares his attack squad, the Demon’s fist, students of the Black Citadel and soon to be graduates, once their mission is complete.

#2 opens in Gotham City. Talia al Ghul, Damian’s mother and wearing a cloak that makes her look eerily similar to Raven offers Damian a chance to go back to infinity island before the Demon’s fist set out on their hunt. When he refuses, she gives him a drive with the fist’s other targets, find them and he’ll be safer.

Back in the Not Batcave, which we find out here is in San Francisco. Damian introduces them to the members of the Demon fist. Blank, a shape-shifter that intends to target Beast Boy, Stone, an earth mover who’s targeting Starfire, Plague, the woman with a diseased touch is targeting Raven, Nightstorm, who can control the weather targets Kid Flash and Mara, a swords-woman and martial artist who’s targeting Robin.

Raven senses there’s more to his story, especially as Starfire asks how he knows all this. Starfire tells Damian what Dick told her about him. Impossibly arrogant but destined for great things, it’s a surprise she was never told about his heritage. Unfortunately, the time for preparation, the Demon Fist have arrived. They all go after their respective targets with Blank turning into Tim to shake Beast Boy off his game. Mara tells Damian she worked out what he was doing and put a tracer on Kid Flash, and also reveals that Damian was set to lead the Demon’s Fist, shocking the others. He absconds but appears later with a ship and flies them all out. They have only earned a short respite; the Demons Fist won’t stop.

#3 opens with Damian and Mara duking it out. He ultimately wins but as he does to his father she tries to strike him down. He easily evades and throws the blade back, scarring her face.

In the present, Damian says he stole the ship from Batman. After putting the craft on auto-pilot he goes to deal with Kid Flash’s tracking device, you don’t want to know where it was. With the device removed they put some distance between them and the Demon’s fist. They land in a forest but Starfire says they can’t work as a team with Damian still keeping them in the dark. Raven sets up a camp fire and leaves Robin to do the rest.

Robin tells them who he is and how he was destined to the lead the Demon’s Fist but chose to do otherwise. He explains he didn’t come to them one at a time because there was little time, it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission and that he’s still trying to work out how to do good. All the team share their own issues. Starfire’s sister, Blackfire is black-hearted and wicked, Kid Flash’s uncle was the Reverse Flash, Raven’s father is Trigon and Beast Boy, well most of his family are dead, but he’s still running from his past.

The team begin to sleep as Robin heads away on Goliath. He realises he’s been treating them as tools the same way his father was with the Demon’s Fist. He lands on Infinity Island, submitting himself to Ra’s al Ghul to spare them.

#4 opens with Ra’s laughing off his submission, it’s not going to be that easy. Beast Boy was watching in fly form and flies away to alert the others. Ra’s is taken inside the base. If he wants the Demon’s Fist called off, he has to do it himself. The Demon’s Fist are there and he challenges Mara to a duel. If he wins, the Titans are spares if he loses, he dies and she gets to feel worthy of heiring the group. The rest of the team object but she ultimately accepts the challenge.

Beast Boy reports to the rest of the team. Starfire is impressed, it shows he does have goodness in him. Raven comments it’s probably the first time he’s really opened up to anyone, that in some strange way, he considers them friends. Beast Boy is distraught, he’s lost 1 Robin, and he’s not prepared to let another die. They all raise their fists into the air, ready to mount a rescue.

The fight between Mara and Damian begins. They seem to be equally matched but ultimately wins, until he refuses to kill and she strikes him in the back. Her victory assured, Robin’s taken away to the cells by the rest of the Demon’s. They’re not happy with Mara, she gets to graduate before they do. Damian was willing to die for his team, perhaps he would’ve been better as their leader.

The Teen Titans infiltrate Infinity Island and bust open Damian’s cell. His friends have come to help him.

OK, let me start with really the only negative I have with regards to the writing. Please, please stop retconning cr*p into Damian’s origin. It’s actually kinda distracting and focuses on the cr*ppy condensed Timelines and Damian’s relationship with his father has completely changed.

With that out of the way. I don’t know if this was intentional but this team carries an almost identical to the Justice League vs Teen Titans movie that came out this summer. Whilst far from perfect, especially when it comes down to voice acting it’s my personal favourite of the New-52-verse films, certainly substantially better than Bad Blood. The only difference is Blue Beetle been subbed for Kid Flash, which considering what’s going on in Blue’s own title makes sense. I’ve heard they plan to add Jackson Hyde aka Aqualad onto the team and that is something I profoundly support. The character has been largely in limbo since his introduction and given that he was featured in the Rebirth special, it’s nice to finally have him gain a role.

With regards to character work, I do like the dynamics here. Starfire is the den mother of the group. Given previous interactions with humans back in her own title, it’s certainly exactly as you’d expect from here. Whilst like many, I wish she was in the main Titans book, I think she’s fine here.

Beast Boy is probably the most hurt from the loss on Tim Drake. He still carries his jokey attitude, taken a bit to an extreme in the first issue but you can tell he’s really hurting from the loss. It’s nice that for all of Robin’s trying. It’s him that really binds them together as a team, determined not to lose another Robin.

Kid Flash is currently the outsider of the group. He’s not really fully in control of his powers yet and has not really been part of any superhero team aside from teaming up with the Flash every so often. I just hope that once they resolve the outsider issue they don’t make him too much like Beast Boy as both of them were joking around a lot.

Raven is perhaps the least well-developed of the 4, her telepathic abilities allow us to gain information from Damian that he isn’t sharing immediately. She’s the most content to be a part of the team, giving Damian the opportunity to explain his actions, but there’s little indication as to why. We need something outside of ‘I’m scared of being my father’ which is ground trodden so often that the ground has worn to the Earth’s core at this point.

Damian is the central character of this arc and it makes sense, given the villains of the piece. His development is front and centre of the comic but it feels less at the expense at everyone else. Partly it’s down to how much conversation they have with each other, that and the Rebirth issue didn’t really feature him that much. My thoughts about his origin aside, I do like the character work done here, it’ll be interesting to see how he grows he becomes more a part of the team. One other issue is his feelings about Bruce not being there on his birthday. He can feel sad but he knows Bruce is on a JL mission, but then maybe Bruce should’ve left something for him too.

The villains also get a little bit of development and you can see the seeds of their defeat being planted after their first issue. I didn’t mention this in the summary but Stone held plague to get her out of the cave and his hands were infected, that and they all show discontent towards their leader. The portrayal of Ra’s al Ghul is the only thing that struck me as off. I never really thought of him as the type that would laugh during a fight to the death, it was a little over-the-top

Strong writing is one thing but the artwork is also reasonably strong. Despite a fair number of artists tackling these issues the artwork remained reasonably consistent. I’m not huge fan of the designs for the Demon’s fist, I wish they’d been a little more creative with them. That and I mentioned Talia looking way too much like Raven.

But overall, it’s a strong showing, showcasing that while there’s room to grow, these are the Teen Titans

#Rebirth – 7/10

#1 – 7/10

#2 – 7/10

#3 – 8/10

#4 – 7.5/10

Overall – 7.3/10

Recommendation: I’m happy to continue reading this title and I would recommend you do the same if you like these characters.