Maddening! This series is maddening! Sometimes Teen Titans can be pretty damn good, with solid characterization and the hint that something interesting and entertaining will happen. Then Teen Titans will shoot itself in the foot and run around bleeding everywhere because it just loves pointless cutaways and ridiculous character motivations. Evil Tim Drake continues to be a ridiculously stupid idea. Seriously, if Evil Tim Drake wasn’t in this issue, this would have been one of the best issues of Teen Titans to date. But he just ruins everything!

Teen Titans #18

But he’s not alone. If you were hoping Trigon might amount to something cool…nope! Or what about the two stupid new villains that were randomly and awkwardly inserted last issue? They show up again and are even more pointless than before.

And then there’s Lance. Fuck Lance.

Comic Rating: 2/5: Bad.

Sorry for the cursing. But seriously, to hell with that guy. Lance is the worst character in the New 52. Even worse than Rush! He makes absolutely no god damned sense! Scott Lobdell introduces him in Teen Titans as one of Amanda Waller’s agents. Fine. Even though he’s got a ridiculously generic costume and name, that’s still fine. Then Lance shows up and promises he can cure Solstice. Also fine. But then in that same issue, he’s pulled away by unseen forces to go off and appear in Birds of Prey. What!? Why!? I didn’t read about Lance’s adventures in Birds of Prey, but they were apparently important enough to warrant a one-panel cameo in the Teen Titans Joker issue, and then he’s mentioned again in this issue as having disappeared. What the Hell!?

Why bother bringing the character into Teen Titans in the first place if he’s not going to stick around or do anything, and instead is going to have a big story in Birds of Prey?

And Lance is just the tip of the stupid character iceberg. Teen Titans is full of them, and I’ll gladly point them out as we go through the synopsis. Sadly, it pains me to say that the stupidest character of them all is Evil Tim Drake. Even his haircut is stupid. But what makes it even worse is that for the first half of the book, he’s actually pretty awesome.

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

Evil Tim Drake is stupid from page one. How can I tell? Because Lobdell is forced to immediately abandon the idea so that Tim can properly react to Damian’s death. There’s a brief segment where Tim mourns the fallen Robin in the Batcave, and it’s actually a pretty good scene. It’s got solid narration and a nice scene with Alfred. Lobdell actually kind of nails how Tim might feel about Damian’s death, considering the two of them never got along.

Tim is mourning alone in the Batcave, conversing with a ghostly figment of Damian. And he uses this time to contemplate his place in the superhero world. Where do the Titans fit on a scale from the Justice League to the Suicide Squad? It’s actually a very compelling question for this comic. We’re 18 issues in, and Tim is finally figuring out just why he’s keeping the Teen Titans together. Heck, ghost Damian even points out that with him dead, Tim can start calling himself just ‘Robin’.

These are actually compelling topics, real questions and issues that Tim should address. Why couldn’t Teen Titans actually address them?

Instead we get Tim giving air hugs to ghost Damian.

He left enough room for the Holy Spirit

Alfred finds Tim and the two have a small chat. Alfred recommends Tim opening up more to the Teen Titans, and Tim would seem to take his advice to heart. But the scene is brief and the Tim that appears with Alfred doesn’t seem to appear for…wait a second. I just thought of something.

Perhaps this is the real Tim, mourning Damian’s death in the Batcave, while the Titans are dealing with some kind of imposter duplicate?  That sounds insane, but the Tim in the opening segment is a very different person than in the rest of the issue.

Speaking of which, we move on to the Titans’ new yacht headquarters and the return of Superboy. Remember when Superboy suddenly dropped out of Teen Titans off-panel in the middle of an issue? He had to go take part in some horrendous Superman crossover. I guess that’s over and he’s allowed to return to Teen Titans as unceremoniously as when he left. Rather than some cool scene or epic rescue, he just sort of shows up hovering over their yacht, and everybody yells at him to get down.

Because apparently there’s a rule aboard the yacht about not drawing attention to themselves.

You don’t get to make that ‘Cassie’ joke until you actually introduce us to Cassie’s character

Wasn’t there a major story point earlier in the series that said Kid Flash had to always wear his costume to keep his powers in check? Why is he wearing civilian clothes?

Some sort of omnipresent narrator shows up to state that the Titans formed to fight NOWHERE, and somewhere along the line they became friends. Again, it’s taken 18 issues to finally state that.

Anyway, the Titans explain the new rules to Superboy, and he tells them all about his crossover. We also get little editorial notes about how Tim and Solstice ‘kissed’ last issue, and that Tim and Cassie ‘hooked up’. Did they have sex? Doesn’t say, but the note does clarify that Tim and Solstice only kissed. So…your guess is as good as mine about Tim and Cassie.

Tim shows up and tells Superboy he’s welcome to join the team. Kid Flash asks if they get to vote, but Tim says it’s his ship, his rules. And he needs to see them all in costume in five minutes. It’s time to finally figure out their mission statement.

Bunker’s face looks like an arrow

This is what I meant by the issue getting good.

Red Robin is taking charge and laying down the groundwork for the future of the Teen Titans. They need to work together to help other young superheroes like themselves. It feels like a strong moment for the character and the team. Though he is kind of being n asshole about it. But then I guess he is evil now…

Anyway, the yacht sets sail and Red Robin explains their mission: they’re going to break into Belle Reve prison to rescue a teenage metahuman named Tabitha Munse, whom several government agencies are trying to figure out how to weaponize. Tim shows them a picture of the girl, and we get a slight breakdown in art and words. The picture is of the girl in some kind of combat pose with a blank yellow background, yet it prompts Solstice to worriedly ask who she’s fighting. We don’t see her fighting anyone. However, Red Robin switches to a picture of her opponent, whom he doesn’t know – but Solstice recognizes as Lance.

Like I said, it’s an odd exchange. See for yourself.

I am more interested in this Tabitha chick than most every other character in this issue

Then begins the Stupid Parade, and the issue goes off the tracks.

We start at the United Nations, where some guy in a suit who we don’t know is talking to a secretary who we don’t know. He’s talking about some girl who could be his client’s last hope, and the receptionist tells him it’s classified…yet somehow there’s some strange man in a coat already going through the files in the room directly behind them.

Subterfuge!

Brother? And what subterfuge? Is the man in the suit just making up some BS story to distract the receptionist from turning her head? How did the one guy get into that back room in the first place? Was the BS story so compelling that he was able to just sneak behind the receptionist? These guys are master thieves. Too bad we don’t know who they are!

The mysterious man in the back pulls out a file photo of Solstice before she got her powers. The mysterious man says he wants to ‘sup’ upon her, a being made completely of light, then the whole world will bow down before the Light and the Way. This makes absolutely no sense. Is this guy the mad scientist who was stealing powers from last issue? When did he get a brother all of a sudden? And since when is Solstice made completely of light? Didn’t Lobdell establish last issue that she’s as hard as real onyx? So she’s partially made out of onyx. And who are the Light and the Way? Are those words even supposed to be capitalized? Or did I get that wrong?

At least there’s one small hint of something interesting: attached to Kiran’s picture is a note saying she’s a ‘suspect in the Kingdom Rue Massacre’. Now that sounds like compelling backstory to me.

Buuuuut let’s instead jump to Belle Reve and Amanda Waller, who is pining over the missing Lance. We’re not even told what happened to him, only that Waller is missing him. Apparently Waller runs Belle Reve…but doesn’t she also run ARGUS over in the pages of Justice League of America? So which is it?

The alarms go off and Waller mobilizes the Suicide Squad: Deadshot, Harley Quinn and Killer Shark. They race off to confront the intruders, and we get another awkward mix up between art and words. The Squad react to seeing the Titans…but we don’t get to see the Titans, so we have no idea what they’re reacting to.

The poor man’s Secret Six

Are the Teen Titans just standing around waiting for the Squad to come to them?

Apparently so, because a fight scene erupts. The Teen Titans vs. the Suicide Squad actually sounds like a pretty cool idea. And I suppose the fight is actually kind of awesome. Especially the part where Red Robin secretly confronts Amanda Waller, because that’s exactly how it would go down. Red Robin is rather badass…until Evil Tim Drake comes out and messes everything up.

I hate that face sooooo much

And again, his hair looks ridiculous. Red Robin’s costume is ‘extreme’, he needs an ‘extreme’ haircut to match.  That’s the haircut of a boy in Sunday School. Brett Booth drew his hair great.

We cut back to the Titans vs. Squad fight, which, again, is pretty entertaining. The Squad don’t know anything about the girl the Titans are looking for, and sure enough, she probably doesn’t exist. Red Robin and Waller show up and tell everyone to stop fighting, that they’ve reached an agreement. Waller acts tough towards him, but I think it’s a feint and part of their ‘deal’.

“I played you all for saps, we’ll talk about it in the car.”

That Tim Drake sure is evil. Anyway, the Titans part of the book abruptly ends right there with them walking off.

We immediately cut to that guy from the coffee shop last issue, who can kill people with his brain, or something. He’s wandering through Times Square seemingly unrepentant for killing all those people. He even kills a taxi driver who honks at him. But he also seems annoyed that he’s outside interacting with people in the first place. Suddenly the people around him start screaming and pointing upwards at the arrival of…

Trigon!

And his pony!

That’s it? That’s Trigon’s big arrival on Earth? The Trigon? He just shows up alone on a flying horse in the middle of Times Square? Did he learn nothing from Darkseid? Ugh. Trigon has been utterly wasted in Teen Titans so far. He started out so well, with mysterious cave drawings pointing towards a mysterious being named ‘Trigon’. But then Lobdell just blows it early by showing Trigon in all his full demon glory. And that was only a few issues ago, yet already he’s invading Earth? And what does that have to do with the Teen Titans? They don’t know he’s coming. They don’t have anything to do with Trigon or Raven at this point…unless you count Evil Tim Drake.

But what about the mysterious man digging through Solstice’s file? And what about Lance? Or what about that guy made out of a junk yard back in the second issue? Or this guy who kills people with his brain powers? Is he just going to zap Trigon dead and that’ll be the end of it?

The problem with Teen Titans is that it lacks discipline, just like all the young whippersnappers in the movies who try out for karate. Lobdell has so many plots and characters brewing that he doesn’t know what to do with them all, and most of them never have anything to do with the story being told. Lobdell loves to drop in a cutaway scene apropos of absolutely nothing and I guess we’re just supposed to vainly hope that it’ll come up again down the line? Maybe I’d actually care if these cutaways were at all interesting. It should come as no surprise that they are not.

This comic needs to focus on its main characters. There are a few kernels of good ideas here. Red Robin using Damian’s death to give the Teen Titans an agenda is a great idea. Let them become the team that helps out teenage metahumans, protecting them from bad guys and government agencies alike. That sounds to me like a great comic. I would have enjoyed Red Robin leading his team against Belle Reve in order to rescue that metahuman girl he mentioned. But we don’t get that story. Instead we get Evil Tim Drake arranging some kind of secret sinister deal with Amanda Waller, and a pointless cameo by the Suicide Squad. Now the team is probably going to start hating on Tim just when they should be looking up to him as leader.

Teen Titans doesn’t know what it wants to do with itself, and we all suffer for it. Also, whoever decided to put Eddie Barrows on art was just plain wrong. The guy is a fine artist, but on serious books. He can’t draw Kid Flash, Bunker or Solstice for crap, and his Red Robin just has terrible, terrible hair.