Abandon hope, all ye who enter here. Whatever vestiges of quality that Teen Titans still possessed have been culled from the comic. Reading Teen Titans #27, it’s easy to see why DC Comics is canceling the series straight out instead of giving it a new creative team. The only chance these characters or this team have in the New 52 going forward is to slash and burn everything Scott Lobdell cast his gaze upon. DC must rip the black, shriveled heart from this beast and burn it in the fires of effigy.

Teen Titans #27

Teen Titans is an embarrassment. It’s a comic book for idiots. Teen Titans is for readers who don’t care about characters, consistency or common sense, and love it when writers poke fun at their audience.

Comic Rating: 2/10 – Very Bad.

I am not a comic book purist by any means. I am a curmudgeon in many ways, but I am very open to change, and embraced the possibilities when the New 52 launched. I may not be happy with the disastrous alterations s to Tim Drake’s origin, but I’m open to the idea of altering it. And I was never a diehard Teen Titans fan, unwilling to accept any changes to a favorite comic. By all means, DC, try something new. But every change Lobdell has brought upon this team and these characters seems personally designed to ruin everything anybody ever loved about them.

If you had any love for Bart Allen or Kid Flash in any of their forms, then your only hope is to look to the past. The New 52 does not care about your love for the character.

But that’s not the worst thing about Teen Titans #27. The problem with this issue is the same problem that has plagues this series from the beginning: bad writing. I don’t have enough experience with comic history to know if the tropes and styles Lobdell has applied to Teen Titans were more prominent in the 90s, when he was a bigger deal. All I know is that they don’t work in the 21st century comic book industry. These characters do not have heart. These characters do not have consistency from one issue to the next. These are colorful, vaguely familiar blobs who float along in an ether of bad storytelling.

What should have been a series about real teenagers coming together to care about one another and fight side-by-side is instead a series about a bunch of meaningless, interchangeable action figures dancing to a plot that seems to be made up as it goes along.

Join me after the jump to revel in this abomination.

If you will recall, in the last issue of Teen Titans, we learned the secret origin of Kid Flash. Bart Allen is actually Bar Torr, a freedom fighter from the 31st century who led a rebellion against the Functionary government using his super speed powers, which he randomly received by hanging out on an asteroid that magically grants people super speed (or maybe just grants him super speed; he had to get the super speed somehow). The issue ended with an imprisoned Bar begging the Titans to forgive him, and promising them that he was a changed man.

Yeah, you can just forget that last part. Because apparently Scott Lobdell did. You’ll see why in a moment, I just wanted to get everybody up to speed a little bit before we begin.

We start off with Solstice’s origin story. She’s perched on the edge of the outside of one of the spaceships, talking to the stars, and, I think, to Red Robin. But as you’ll see in a moment, he’s standing so far back that I kind of think she’s just talking to herself.

Solstice says that her family was once in a plane crash, stranded alone for several days. Then one day, she just happened to get her super-powers. They just appeared. That’s it. And she felt blessed to wield the power of the sun, because after 27 issues, we finally learn that Solstice’s powers have something to do with the sun? Really? Where’d that come from? She doesn’t say that she then rescued her family, so I’m just cruelly going to assume she didn’t.

Anyway, now she regrets ever getting super-powers. And for the first time in Teen Titans history, Lobdell actually seems to mock himself.

“What’s that? I can’t hear you from all the way back here, and because sound doesn’t travel in space.”

To say that Teen Titans has ‘lost the plot’ is an understatement. How long have we been stuck on this weird time-traveling adventure?

Red Robin comes to sit next to Solstice to try and convince her that the Teen Titans still stand for something good. And, most hilariously of all, it seems that everybody might have forgotten that Tim Drake can’t breathe in space (though Solstice apparently can), because he has some random, unexplained green aura drawn around him!

Can Robin breathe in space?

What the hell is that thing!? Clearly it’s so he can breathe in space, but no thought whatsoever went into putting it around him. Why even have this conversation outside? Solstice couldn’t just be sitting in a room with a lot of big windows? She had to walk out onto the edge of a spaceship to have this existential crisis of self? And Red Robin had to risk his life in this flimsy green afterthought to go and talk to her?

Anyway, the central thesis of my hatred for Lobdell’s Teen Titans is that little to no time has been spent building up the relationships between the characters. They are nothing to each other. They are teammates because this was the agreed upon roster, but Lobdell has done nothing to bring any of them together as anything more meaningful. Some of them have made out a little bit, but mostly that was the work of Trigon, because he got his master plan to destroy the Titans from reading trashy young adult novels. Other than that, the Titans have spent almost every single issue engaged in some kind of action or superheroics, with no time whatsoever to just be teenagers hanging out and getting to know one another. That would have gone a long way to making me care about any of them.

So the two of them talk about Bart a little bit, and how they hope this upcoming trial goes well for him. Then Red Robin says a few more stupid things that make no sense in context.

Why can’t the artist handle Red Robin’s chest logo?

Need I remind everyone that this story is set “in a remote corner of the universe, in the latter part of the 30th century.” That is verbatim what it said on the previous page. The Titans are as far away from their home and their civilization as one could get.

So first of all, there is no way Red Robin can promise Solstice that Bar will get a “fair trial”. He’s lucky that the concept of a trial even exists, let alone that he has any control over it being a fair one. And who says that Robin’s definition of ‘fair’ is in any way congruent with the Functionary’s definition of ‘fair’? It’s their trial, their government, he’s just tagging along through the time stream. They don’t owe Red Robin or the Teen Titans anything. So why would Robin even say something like that?

Second, how does Robin have any concept of ‘every politician in the galaxy’? How does he even know that those spaceships are carrying politicians? It makes no sense. There is no logic in this place.

Moving on, we come to a scene between an imprisoned Bar and Wonder Girl, who has come to visit him. And it’s here that the issue begins to really lose me. The scene opens with Bar angrily demanding, “What the HELL are you looking at?” The emphasis is theirs. As you’ll recall, we ended last issue with Bar begging the Titans to forgive him, saying that he was a change man. Now he’s angrily snapping at Wonder Girl for coming to visit him. Where did this change in attitude come from? Did it happen in some other, unrelated comic? We all know how much Teen Titans loved shuffling characters, stories and major plot points into other comics. Was I supposed to have read Birds of Prey #26 to understand what happened to Bar?

Cassie tries to talk to Bar to understand just who he really is, and Bar reveals to her that he really is an asshole.

Him saying ‘keed’ like that makes my skin crawl

Again, where did this attitude change come from? Why does Cassie think Bar is playing when he asks her to help him get out of there? The Bart Allen of the previous 26 issues of Teen Titans would have said what he did in that first panel. Who is this new assholish Bart in the third panel?

Speaking of abrupt character changes, we next move on to Jon Lane Kent, staring out a window complaining to himself how he can’t just kill the Teen Titans.

You horrible waste of space

This is exactly what I mean when I say Teen Titans has always lacked in characterization and having important plot points play out within the series itself. Killing Superboy and replacing him with his homicidal doppelganger should have been a big deal. It should have been huge! But it’s been largely ignored in Teen Titans. I guess it’s playing out over in Superboy, but the least Lobdell could have done was give us a single line, sentence or paragraph explaining why Jon Kent is still posing as Superboy. And why can’t he just kill the Teen Titans and get out of there? Why is he sticking around?

Because, sorry DC Comics, but expecting me to go read Superboy is asking too damn much!

The other Titans join him, and Superboy insists they should just break Bar out of jail and go home, but Red Robin tells him that they are guests, and they must respect the laws of these people. Breaking their friends out of jail is just not how the Teen Titans do things, even though they clearly have a problem with this whole judicial system. They arrive at the trial and again comment on how it looks like “everyone who is anyone is here to watch this public hanging.” So they consider this trial to be a ‘public hanging’, and believe the room is ripe with “corruption and viciousness”, but they still refuse to just break Bar free. And again, how would Cassie have any concept of “everyone who is anyone” in the far future like this? Maybe these are all nobodies. Or maybe this is how trials are conducted, and these important politicians show up to every trial.

Red Robin again makes an idiot of himself when he asks if there are any juries or lawyers involved. This is not Earth circa 2014, Robin, you can’t expect things like juries and lawyers!

When Brainiac does explain how their judicial system works, Lobdell takes a potshot at guys like me on the Internet who hate his comic.

Stupid message boards, giving everyone a chance to be heard!

Who is ‘they’? How does that term apply to the Internet? I’m not going to dwell.

But I am going to nitpick at the whole concept of this trial. Brainiac explains to the Titans that “Bar Torr turned himself into the authorities and agreed to turn state’s evidence against his fellow rebels”. Wouldn’t this mean that his fellow rebels should be on trial and Bar should be a witness? Why is he on trial? But I might be making the same mistake as Robin. This is the future, their judicial system doesn’t have to make any sense to a mind like my own. It doesn’t have to make any sense at all.

So the three judges and the Lawsayer begin the trial, and most people in the audience hate Bar. The trial is being simulcast down to the prisons so that all of Bar’s rebel friends can watch him betray them. The various judges and lawsayers goes through a whole spiel about Bar, and how he even tried to help people as Bart Allen, but basically that lay out the charges against him before they begin testimony. Though if I may ask, what was the point of last issue if not to lay out the testimony? Did they hook Bar into that machine and play back his memories for the Titans’ benefit? I thought that was the testimony. Why did the Titans get such a luxury?

Anyway, before my ranting gets too obnoxious. Bar gets to make a statement.

At least someone hates this trial as much as I do

That’s about as generic as one could get from a freedom fight. And fine, Bar’s still a freedom fighter. Good for him. At least that explains where his new attitude has come from. After reliving the memories last issue, he’s reverted to his old self.

Then the place blows up.

Apparently Bar has been playing everyone from the very beginning. He surrendered to the authorities and allowed them to send him into the past to be Bart Allen because his rebellion was just that important. I don’t know if he expected them to erase his memory, but that happened, so I guess he only recently remembered that he’d set up this trap way back before the time travel. His rebels attack the courthouse, because he knew they’d put him on a big, public trial. The guards are also on his side, and they free and arm all the prisoners in the lower levels. Solstice gasps that this is slaughter, but Bar tells her that it’s victory. He tells the Titans to get out of his way, but Robin says they will not stand by while Bar and his rebels kill all these people.

Bar says he’s barely sorry to hear that.

Oh yes, please

And there we go. The final nail in the coffin of Bart Allen and Kid Flash. Neither character is recognizable to any fans from before the reboot. Why do this? I understand that DC wanted some change, but this much change? They killed Superboy. Now they’ve essentially killed Bart Allen and Kid Flash. Do you think when they bring back Wally West, he’ll just take on the Kid Flash name? This evil bastard freedom fighter has dragged it through the mud. And why is he an evil bastard? He’s a freedom fighter battling a corrupt government? Why is he the monster? I do appreciate the twist on the old concept, but it still doesn’t make for a good story.

So basically, the Teen Titans are about to fight in favor of the oppressive government just because they don’t like killing. It’s a war, you morons! People die in war! Blood is often the price of freedom. This isn’t your war. This isn’t your fight. Stay the hell out of it and let Bar and his rebels do their damn thing. Morons.

Also, why is Superboy siding with the Teen Titans? Why not join Bar’s rebellion? Then he could kill the Titans!

I’ve ranted way too much about this issue. There was something to hate on every single page. The characters were complete idiots, unable to adapt to their new surroundings. The trial itself made little sense. The new evil Superboy is a throbbing bunion of a plot that isn’t being addressed. And Kid Flash’s change in attitude not only comes out of nowhere, but forever ruins both the character and the name ‘Kid Flash’.

Teen Titans has been on a downward spiral for a long time now. Thankfully, it will soon be put out of its misery.