Teen Titans attempts to break up the crumminess of the recent storyline by giving us an issue devoted to Raven’s origin. That’s all well and good, I suppose, and now is probably as good a time as any to let us know what the heck Raven is doing in this series, but it doesn’t raise the quality of the comic, and it kind of makes Raven worse than she was before. I’m fairly certain this origin sticks closely to Raven’s pre-reboot origin, but honestly? She has one messed up origin.

Teen Titans #20

The cover is a total lie. Evil Red Robin doesn’t even show up in this issue (thank God). Instead, it’s just Trigon narrating the long, complicated origin of Raven.

Comic Rating: 2.5/5 – Pretty Bad.

To an extent, I realize that my dislike of Teen Titans stems almost completely from  the comic diverging from what I want to see, or what I think could be done better. Trigon is definitely one of those things, and now we can add Raven to that list as well. I’ve pretty much disliked everything we’ve seen from Trigon so far, and this issue adds even more garbage to his story. However, I’ve rather liked what we’ve seen of Raven. I like her new costume, and I kind of liked the life being built for her. But after this issue, she’s a complicated, pointless mess of a character. Oh well. She was fun while she lasted.

Pretty much nothing else happens in the rest of the issue. The origin is book-ended by short scenes with the Titans, and they don’t do much of anything. Definitely nothing about Red Robin being ‘reborn’ as the cover would indicate. This story can’t end fast enough.

We open in the destruction leftover from last issue. Trigon has disappeared and Psimon killed all those first-responders, for which the Titans are appropriately freaked out. They call him a monster, but Psimon insists he did it to save all of them from Trigon. And if they’re going to now come after him, he’ll just kill them too! But Kid Flash slams Psimon’s face into the pavement before he can kill Solstice.

Then everybody once again acts like they know all about Raven, even though they’ve never met her before and have no reason to understand that she is Trigon’s daughter. Seriously, did I miss the scene where Raven gave the Titans her full biography?

Maybe they picked up the latest issue of Secret Origins

Speaking of Raven’s full biography, we jump to Trigon, who has retreated to his realm and watches the Titans interact with his daughter on some kind of blood-spell viewing pool. Trigon has three sons: Belial, Raskoff and Suge. He’s strung Belial up in some sort of torture device in order to use his blood in the viewing pool, an act that makes Belial very angry (though he might simply be jealous of all the attention Trigon pays to Raven).

And so, Trigon explains why Raven is the key to ruling the 7th Kingdom, which I’m pretty sure is Earth.

This is where I have a problem, and it’s kind of a weird problem. Trigon says that he is the ruler of a dozen dark kingdoms, and the flashback shows him sitting on a big throne while endless hordes of demons bow to him. The problem I have is: is this really how DC wants to define their mystical domain? I don’t know if I can really explain my complaint, so let’s try Marvel Comics as a comparison. In the Thor mythos, there exist the 9 Realms, and Marvel kind of sticks by that when it comes to defining the cosmos. But all of a sudden here in a random issue of Teen Titans, we have a dozen dark dimensions, and Trigon is the ruler of all of them.

Boring is the crown

What kind of precedence is this setting for DC’s mystical realms?

But like I said, it’s just a weird personal complaint. We’re supposed to believe that Trigon is this evil demonic ruler, but there is no context as to what he rules. Some random dark dimensions? Dimensions that have no weight or bearing on the rest of the DC Universe? So why should we care? Maybe this was Trigon’s backstory before the reboot, but this reboot gives DC a chance to rebuild everything in whatever way they want. So why not try a little harder with Trigon?

I’ll come back to this idea later.

So back to the story. Trigon was bored as king, so he went on a slaughter spree to make himself feel better. Then he turned from death and destruction to deception and seduction, hooking up with a woman on Earth so that she’d give birth to a daughter. Then Trigon had the genius idea of letting the woman raise Raven on her own, so that she could teach Raven how to love, something Trigon could not do. That idea bit him in the ass, since the woman took Raven to the Hallowed Spires of Azarath, a dimension dedicated to the notion of Universal Peace. And there, Raven learned all about the notions of good and decency.

Kids love book learning

At some point, Raven fled to Earth to try and hide from Trigon and keep the disciples of Azarath safe. But Trigon found her eventually, and apparently the Phantom Stranger randomly showed up, grabbed her and took her to Trigon. There’s a little editorial note that this apparently happened in the pages of Phantom Stranger #1. Is anybody in the world reading Phantom Stranger? Of all the comics published by DC, Phantom Stranger is definitely the one that should not randomly interact with Teen Titans.

Anyway, so Trigon took control of Raven and turned her into his badass warrior princess. Together, they slaughtered their way through all of the dark dimensions, and eventually Trigon sat her on the throne of power – but it was not to Raven’s liking.

She’s got Tweeting to do

Trigon could see that Raven was actually kind of depressed. This wasn’t the life she wanted to live. She knew she was destined to rule the Earth, but she was also a teenage girl, and she wanted some friends. So she used her blood magic to spy on the Teen Titans…and Beast Boy. I guess he’s joining the team after Ravagers failed. So I guess that’s why she’s so interested in the Teen Titans. She wants some friends.

And that’s the end of the origin story. And once again, I’m bothered by the weirdness and complexity of her origin. Azarath? Princess of the Underrealms? The Phantom Stranger? It’s twisted up into this big, incomprehensible knot, and even though it may have been part of her pre-reboot origin, I would have preferred something less complex. Or something connected to the DC Universe as a whole. Instead, Raven and Trigon exist only in a world unto themselves, and I think that’s an incredible waste of potential.

Anyway, we cut back to Trigon and his sons. Balial attacks his father, claiming that all of the denizens of the dark realms think Trigon has grown weak. But Trigon simply blasts Belial away and tells all three of his sons that they know what they must do.

Back on Earth, Wonder Girl doesn’t like Raven’s answers, accusing her of knowing more than she lets on about Trigon. But at least Raven uses her powers to keep the news cameras from catching the Titans. Wonder Girl keeps pushing her buttons though, and Raven goes a little demonic.

Women! Amiright, fellas? Hahahaha…yeah

But Wonder Girl just punches her out.

Raven apologizes, and says she does not know what came over her. Red Robin agrees that he hasn’t felt quite like himself lately. I’m grateful that Evil Red Robin didn’t show up this issue. I hate that guy. But finally getting some explanation about him would be nice. Anyway, the issue ends with Trigon’s sons teleporting to the scene to start another fight. So I guess next issue is going to be the one with all the action.

Your enjoyment of this issue probably depends entirely on your feelings about Raven. Are you a big fan? And love her origin? Then you’d probably enjoy this issue more than me. I don’t have any opinion about Raven one way or another. She was never one of my favorite Titans, and I never openly disliked her in any way. I just don’t care about Raven. So in my mind, this was Scott Lobdell’s chance to make me care. He could have created a new, unique, awesome Raven. He could have come up with something fresh and stream-lined, or come up with some great new twist on her classic origin. But instead, he just redoes the old thing and crams it all into a single complicated issue.

Tim Drake, Wonder Girl and Superboy all got new origins, why not Raven?