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Review: Teen Titans #27
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.
Holy Cow, Teen Titans has Been Cancelled!
The worst (best?) has happened as it seems that Scott Lobdell has driven Teen Titans into the ground. Announced by Lobdell himself on ComicVine today, Teen Titans will be cancelled at issue #30 in April!
Wow. This is fascinating news. It’s sad that I won’t be able to continue my popular Teen Titans reviews (ravagings?), but man oh man, how great would it be if DC Comics found something better to do with the title and the characters?
Lobdell explained that the last regular issue will be #30, followed by an Annual a week later, which will wrap up the series with a final battle against N.O.W.H.E.R.E., because Lobdell insists they’re the Titans’ arch-enemies. Groan.
I’m thrilled the DC is letting me wrap up the story on a high note as the TEEN TITANS square off against the N.O.W.H.E.R.E. in a final battle — bringing to conclusion the conflict that began in the first issue! I’m certainly going to miss writing the adventures of Red Robin, Wonder Girl, Bunker and the rest of the gang. But as a huge, life long fan of the title I’m very excited about the whispered rumors I’m hearing race back and forth between New York and Burbank. (Trust me when I say we haven’t seen the last of everyone’s favorite teen team adventurers.)
Let’s read between the lines for a moment. You’ll see that Teen Titans is being cancelled instead of just being handed off to a new creative team. With a title as marquee as ‘Teen Titans’, why wouldn’t DC just let somebody take over from Lobdell?
I think the answer is because Lobdell so greatly screwed up the team that DC has no choice but to burn it down and start fresh somewhere down the line. That is exactly what I think has happened. Ugh. Teen Titans is so bad. The characters have been all but ruined.
If only DC could completely erase everything Lobdell did to the Titans. But at the very least, now there is hope for something better. Hope with me, my friends. Hope.
Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 4/13/13
We’ve got some good and we’ve got some bad this week, sometimes down to the very franchise. I’ve already ranted a lot about my disappointment with Batman and Red Robin, so at least the regular Batman book is good enough. On the Marvel side of things, the Avengers have a mediocre to strong output, whether it’s Age of Ultron, Avengers or Uncanny Avengers. You might even be surprised to learn that some kind of plot finally develops in Age of Ultron! I didn’t see that coming!
But speaking of Avengers, the star this week is Thor, as his series, Thor: God of Thunder, easily hammer-smashes the competition to win Comic Book of the Week! I was disappointed last issue with the weak origin for Gorr. But when Jason Aaron focuses on his various Thors, the comic is gold! It’s also the funniest comic you’ll read all week. Perhaps even the sexiest.
Sounds like my kind of woman!
Comic Reviews: Age of Ultron #5, Avengers #9, Batman #19, Batman and Red Robin #19, Hawkeye #9, Thor: God of Thunder #7, Uncanny Avengers #6, Uncanny X-Men #4.
Watch Out, Tim Drake Fans! DC is Still a Den of Liars!
Do not buy this week’s issue of Batman and Red Robin #19! Well, I mean, you can buy it if you want to. But if you, like me, were looking for any examination of the Bruce/Tim dynamic in the New 52, you will be grossly disappointed. The two barely have anything to do with one another, and when they do interact, it’s just a circumstance of the plot.
This is almost as bad as when we were teased about Red Robin getting an issue of Night of the Owls. Seriously, if you were planning on buying this comic just for the Tim Drake appearance, save your money.
I guess you could buy it for Carrie Kelley, maybe
I’ll post some spoilers after the jump. Just know that this issue is not a team up between Bruce and Tim. DC Comics is a Den of Liars and Thieves!
Review: Teen Titans #18
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.
Henchman-4-Hire 