You guys are probably not going to believe me, but the newest issue of Teen Titans is actually good! Really good! Delightfully good! Teen Titans finally does what I’ve been suggesting this entire time: it slows down, nixes all that frantic action and actually spends some time treating its characters like real people instead of ‘x-treme’ cartoons. Even as an issue filled with narration and flashback, it’s still fun to read. Wonder Girl spends almost the entire issue telling her New 52 origin story, with Red Robin and Superboy providing witty commentary. And I do mean ‘witty’. I had some actual smiles and chuckles reading this comic.

Teen Titans #13

What’s that? There’s almost an entirely new creative team on Teen Titans #13? Ooooooh, that would probably explain a lot.

Comic rating: 4/5: Good!

The overwritten sledgehammer of Scott Lobdell is gone! While he still provides the overall story, fellow longtime comics scribe Fabian Nicieza steps in with the actual script, and the difference is extraordinary. I’ve always liked Nicieza’s work, but here it sings. The trio of Titans are charming, funny and sound like real teenagers bickering and bantering. Even Wonder Girl’s origin story is fun to read, since it’s an entirely new tale, with absolutely no connection to the Greek Gods or Wonder Woman. That might annoy some longtime Cassie Sandsmark fans, but I’m not one of them, so I wasn’t bothered. My favorite character, Tim Drake, got a new origin with the reboot. So it’s the same with Cassie. But trust me, hers is pretty cool.

The brightly called and frantically kinetic pencils of Brett Booth are also gone, replaced by Ale Garza, who brings a more simple innocence to the team. Don’t get me wrong, I liked Booth, but seeing this issue, it’s clear that he was only contributing to the insane feeling of the previous Teen Titans issues.  I said it in almost all of my reviews, but the New 52 Teen Titans was written and drawn as if they didn’t think the audience had any sort of attention span. The art and the writing were wild and wacky, full of motion and movement and everything one might think a teenager likes. But it made for a bad series that never took the time to get to know its characters.

Teen Titans #13 is exactly what I’ve wanted from this series. It doesn’t solve every problem, but it’s a step in the right direction. It definitely helps to flesh out Cassie’s character a lot more. I only wish the rest of the team were in the book, but sometimes it’s better to focus on just a few characters. You can get a lot done that way, as Nicieza and Garza have now proven.

Join me after the jump for a full synopsis and more review!

Longtime Cassie Sandsmark fans might want to check out now, or at least keep your anger under control, because right away things are new and different. For those who don’t know, in the pre-reboot continuity, Cassie was still Wonder Girl, a supporting character in Wonder Woman’s comic and a mainstay in the teen-oriented superhero comics. She was created in 1996, the daughter of noted archaeologist Helena Sandsmark. Back then, the Sandsmarks worked alongside Wonder Woman on some Ancient Greece archaeological sites. When Wonder Woman had to fight some troubling super-villains, Cassie grabbed some ancient godly artifacts and used their powers to lend a hand, even though she was still just a kid. Then after the heroes won, Cassie met Zeus and asked him for real super powers, gladly becoming Wonder Woman’s new teenage partner.

Later it would be revealed that Cassie was actually the daughter of Zeus, because Greek myths were full of stories of Zeus taking mortal form and knocking up human women. That’s how Hercules was born.

In the New 52 continuity, DC has taken that origin and instead given it to Wonder Woman, who was newly revealed to be the daughter of Zeus.

So what’s Cassie’s new origin? Well for starters, she’s a master thief!

Kids these days, smoking cigarettes and stealing ancient amulets

Cassie is still the daughter of archaeologist Helena Sandsmark, only when they travel from dig site to dig site, Cassie takes it upon herself to steal valuable artifacts from whatever new city they visit. It doesn’t sound like she steals from her mom’s dig sites. In fact, Cassie seems really into the archaeology. But she’s definitely now a thief, and already a teenager. She mentions how she never acquired any friends her own age, what with all the moving around, and that’s the same reason her father left when she was younger.

On this one particular night, Cassie is being chased by the local police in China after having stolen some kind of amulet. Seems like a pretty insane little thing to steal, but Cassie knows a good relic when she sees one. She manages to lose most of the cops along the rooftops, but it suddenly confronted by an officer with a gun, who tells her to surrender.

Fortunately, that’s exactly when a young, handsome, athletic-looking stud named Diesel comes along and saves her. Cassie is quite smitten.

50 Shades of Gray? This comic is totally hip now!

I like how they don’t shy away from Cassie’s sexuality. They don’t get graphic or anything, but it’s pretty clear reading between the lines that she and Diesel quickly and vivaciously started making sweet hot love. It shows Cassie as more grown up, treating the hook up with respect and maturity. In fact, Diesel is presented as a pretty upstanding guy. There’s no sign that he’s taking advantage of her or controlling her, no attempts at rape or any of the other disgusting short cuts that deplorable comic book writers sometimes use. Cute girl meets cute guy and they start hooking up. It happens, it’s normal, and I’m grateful that Nicieza treats it as normal. Granted, Diesel is also a thief, but he doesn’t appear to be trying to con Cassie out of her stolen goods or anything nefarious. In fact, they seem to be working together on thievery.

Of course, considering Red Robin’s crush on Wonder Girl, and Superboy’s general attitude, neither boy likes this part of the story.

I love Red Robin’s pouty face

See what I said about funny? That’s some quality teenage banter right there, if I do say so myself. It flows nicely, bouncing back and forth, with some actual wit and cleverness behind it. And just look at the art. Cassie, in particular, is drawn quite well. She’s young and beautiful, but with an innocence about her. Her beauty is almost gentle, kind of like a Disney princess. The boys, likewise, look handsome and normal. Nothing too wild or crazy.

Boys aside, Cassie continues with her story. She says that she and Diesel spent a lot of time together, since her mom was busy with work, and Cassie often had the freedom to go wherever she wanted. Diesel was all manner of dreamy, and he even had his own classic Indian motorcycle. Red Robin points out that he has four of those, but Cassie tells him it’s not a contest.

Cassie and Diesel were having the time of their lives, so much so that when it came time for Cassie and her mom to move on to the next job, Diesel decided to go with them. This part is a little weird. I’m not entirely sure if Cassie’s mom is aware of Diesel at this point. They don’t mention it. In fact, it sounds like Diesel secretly followed Cassie to whatever new country or city she and her mom ventured to next. That’s a little weird. If he was doing it legitimately, it might be OK. But it sounds like this guy’s living his life in secret, following this girl around so that he can have secret sex. Seems like a stretch, but it’s not so bad. Cassie seemed to enjoy it. The pair of them even spent a weekend in New Orleans, where Diesel introduced her to one of his fences, though nothing comes of that brief, one-panel scene.

As Tara Reid will tell you, the right glasses will turn even a blonde beauty queen into a scientist!

Finally, the whirlwind life of an archaeologist’s daughter takes Cassie to Cambodia, where she joins her mom in uncovering some sort of ancient temple. Cassie has begun to feel that Diesel is getting bored with their relationship and might break it off, or that he might try to steal something from the ruins. While her mother is off working on some other part of the ruins, Cassie sneaks in at night to a closed off section, where she manages to find a secret chamber. Diesel found it first, and she’s just following his tracks. Though it’s never explained why Diesel has decided to explore this section of the ruins. The inside is huge, with what appears to be a bunch of golden statues and even a golden waterfall. Very impressive place.

Diesel suddenly appears, crawling up from a ledge and crying for help. He’s wearing that blue armor we saw him with two issues ago, and his voice is altered. He’s crying out to Cassie for help, and she tries to pry the helmet off. When that doesn’t work, she looks around and finds a pair of arm bracers on the ground, which she hopes she can use to pry the helmet off. Putting on the bracers transforms Cassie into a superhero, and we get a look at the costume she’ll probably be wearing once this is all over.

It’s growing on me

I like it. I still think there’s too much red on the Teen Titans to begin with, but I still like it. Though that may be because I really like Garza’s work on Cassie. But this origin clearly states that the evil part of the armor is a separate entity from the armor itself, so she’ll probably get her armor back, only without the evil inside.

With her newfound armor, Cassie goes back to try and pull the helmet off Diesel. But while she’s doing so, her armor starts communicating with Diesel’s armor, and it’s revealed that there’s actually some kind of force possessing the armor, that it’s not the armor itself that went nuts a few issues ago. Cassie somehow convinces this malevolent force to abandon Diesel and choose her, which it gladly does. We see Cassie struggle to contain this force, and she knew in her mind that she probably wasn’t strong enough. Still, she ended up with the armor, for better or for worse.

Once Diesel is recovered enough, he turns angry and lunges at Cassie, demanding that she return his armor. Cassie struggles, and soon the whole room starts collapsing inward. Cassie manages to escape, using her lasso to climb out. But Diesel is lost, crushed beneath the rocks. She thought he was dead – only for him to show up a few issues ago.

The origin story comes to an end as the Titans arrive at the dig site where Cassie originally found the armor. They think Diesel has gone there, and they took a plane, since Cassie can’t fly anymore. There are a few funny scenes with the random Fed-Ex pilots too. The Titans don’t bother to have them land the plane when they reach their destination.

Red Robin is a master of jealous faces!

Once they land at the old ruins, Superboy uses his strength to start digging out some of the rubble after the cave in. The process takes about two hours before they start making their way inside. But before they get far, Red Robin stops them to point out some of the symbols on the wall. It’s not the ancient language that Cassie’s mother thought it would be. Instead, the symbols denote this place as bearing the “Mark of Trigon”!

Now that’s a pretty cool twist! I’m kind of excited to see a New 52 take on Raven, and how that’s connected to Wonder Girl.

But the issue isn’t over yet. We get a one page epilogue where the skinny Amanda Waller sends some random mercenary after the Teen Titans. We’re only told that his name is Lance, and that he dresses like a generic hitman. He’s got a gun and sounds all badass, but Waller tells him to bring the Titans in alive. Yawn, I can’t work up any reason to care about this guy or this plot. So thankfully it only took up a one-page epilogue at the very end.

Like I said, I really enjoy Cassie’s new origin. I like the idea that she has nothing to do with Wonder Woman, but because of the similarities between them, the media and other people just started calling her Wonder Girl. I like the idea that not all of the heroes have sidekicks, making Batman and Robin more unique in the superhero world. If longtime Cassie fans are upset with the changes, I feel your pain. They did the same thing to Red Robin last issue, and Superboy, likewise, has a new origin. We just have to accept that we’re living in a New 52 world.

The best part of the issue, of course, was the dialogue between the three teens. It felt natural, it felt meaningful and it was actually funny in a lot of places. This is what a good Teen Titans issue can be! This is proof that such a thing can exist! Teenagers and modern comic book readers have attention spans, we can handle reading a comic that isn’t all flashy action all the time. Nicieza did more for Wonder Girl in this one issue than Lobdell has done for the entire series so far. I know and understand her as a character now, and I actually like her. She’s remarkably human, just like Red Robin and Superboy. I hope more issues are like this in the future.

Consider this the start of my campaign to make Nicieza the new permanent Teen Titans writer!