Blog Archives
Justice League vs. Teen Titans Teaser!
I haven’t watched the DC Comics animated movies in awhile, even though they’ve currently taken up a strong continuity telling the story of Damian Wayne. Well in the next one, he’s going to join the Teen Titans! And it’s going to be Justice League vs. Teen Titans!
Part of me wants to watch these movies, but another part of me already has seen a few, and knows they’re just not very good anymore. But hey, more power to everyone involved!
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Review: Teen Titans #15
Well hot diggity dog! Somebody break out the fine wine and party hats, we’ve got a pretty decent issue of Teen Titans on our hands! Nothing in this new issue really grinds my gears. We’ve got some good art from one of my favorites, Ian Churchill. The villain is pretty dastardly, and while he does come out of left field, he does so in a normal, comic book sort of way. And Bunker is this close to having the lead role this issue. I honestly hope this is the start of bigger and better things for Bunker.
Teen Titans #15
Don’t let the cover fool you, though. This is a pretty crappy crossover with Robin War, but it’s a pretty nice issue of Teen Titans.
Comic Rating: 6/10 – Pretty Good.
I know what you’re thinking: I usually hate Teen Titans. And it’s true, I do. But I don’t hate Teen Titans out of some ingrown desire to hate it, it’s just not my comics cup of tea, despite the creative teams’ best efforts. Teen Titans has a lot of problems. But those problems have a lot of easy solutions, and writers Will Pfeifer and Scott Lobdell do a lot of things almost right in this new issue. The madness has died down. We’re free of whatever the heck DC wanted done with Superboy. Now it’s just the Teen Titans being superheroes. There’s also almost a scene of them being ordinary teenagers, but it’s gone in a (Kid) flash. But that aside, this is a solid issue. It doesn’t make Teen Titans a worthwhile comic, but considering Teen Titans as a whole, this is sort of a pleasant experience.
Look, if you’re like me and would like to read a consistently enjoyable and entertaining Teen Titans comic, this isn’t it. But if you’re also like me, and you’re still buying this series and hoping for the best, then today is your lucky day! With Red Robin off playing War, the rest of the Titans are left to find and fight bad guys all on their own. And while Pfeifer and Lobdell don’t go nearly far enough to flesh out the other Titans, at least the issue is a good read.
Join me after the jump for the full synopsis and more review!
Review: Teen Titans #14
You know what, I had a really good day yesterday, so I’m going to take Teen Titans #14 as the beginning of something better. It’s not a good comic, mind you. In fact, it suffers mercilessly from one of Teen Titans‘ worst ongoing problems. But there’s an effort being made for a clean break, and possibly the promise of some more focused storytelling. And parts of it are pretty good even. I say that with a straight face. If the writing duo of Scott Lobdell and Will Pfeifer can keep this going, Teen Titans may actually be…eh…serviceable?
Teen Titans #14
Teen Titans #14 has some good parts for the team, but pits them against possibly the most ludicrous adversaries in the title’s history. So you’ve got to take the good with the bad on this one.
Comic Rating: 4/10 – Pretty Bad.
One of the major problems with Teen Titans in the New 52 has been their insane policy with villains. They’ve fought some classics, like Trigon, and Harvest was at least positioned as a major villain with a major stake in the team. But more often then not, the Teen Titans fought against villains who came out of nowhere and had nothing to do with anything. It was like DC was haphazardly throwing darts at a big book of DC characters. There were the drugged-out prep school kids only a few issues ago, there was Detritus way back at the start of the series, there were The Light and The Way, and who can forget Grymm?
All of you. Every single one of you forgot Grymm. Nobody remembers Grymm. But he made two appearances in Teen Titans! Two!
Anyway, for reasons that will never make any sense to me, the Teen Titans fight against no less than five random, strange adversaries in this issue. That’s the weird, bad part. The good part of the issue is that they actually act like a team! Red Robin actually leads the Teen Titans in battle, issuing commands and utilizing their powers and fighting styles to the battle’s benefit. It’s kind of awesome. And it’s something that I really hope continues…except that the ending just throws everything out of whack all over again. So whatever.
Join me after the jump for the full synopsis and review!
Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 11/21/15
This is the week. There are a lot of good comics out this week, and I wish I’d found the time to get to even more of them, but this week is special because of the return of two of my favorite comics: Ms. Marvel and The Mighty Thor! These are some of the best in the industry right now, and their returns are most welcome!
But surprisingly, Comic Book of the Week goes to Astonishing Ant-Man #2! Another one of Marvel’s gems, the new issue of Ant-Man delivers a wonderfully entertaining issue that edges out the two more hotly anticipated comics because of the return of a recent favorite character of mine!
Let’s welcome back Miss Thing!
Many happy returns!
And as a special bonus later today, tune in to the Geekamole Youtube channel this afternoon as I join frequent Henchman commenter Maus Merryjest for his weekly pop culture podcast! We talk about Teen Titans, Iceman and much more! If you’ve ever wanted to listen to me talk about comics instead of reading them, now is your chance.
Doubly also, we’ve got some big Gamer Girl & Vixen news coming soon! And if you helped out my Kickstarter last summer, then your comics should be arriving very soon!
Comic Reviews: Astonishing Ant-Man #2, Huck #1, Mighty Thor #1, Ms. Marvel #1, Spider-Woman #1, Titans Hunt #2 and Vader Down #1.
Review: Teen Titans #13
In my last review of Teen Titans, I said the immortal phrase, ‘We’re through the looking glass here, people’, partly because it’s one of my favorite phrases, and partly because it’s so, so true. Teen Titans went off the rails in the last issue, with a sudden, seemingly random cutaway involving Harvest, probably my least favorite DC super-villain. Fortunately, no less than Scott Lobdell himself showed up in the comments of the last review to explain that DC higher ups wanted Superboy out of the comic, and he and Harvest were their way of doing just that. Makes sense, and I appreciated the helpful explanation. When the bosses say, ‘let’s do something else with Superboy’, you say, ‘how insane can we get in removing him?’
Teen Titans #13
Though I don’t know to what extent writer Will Pfeifer can blame editorial for the continuing insanity in Teen Titans #13.
Comic Rating: 3/10 – Bad.
I’m going to keep the phrase ‘We’re through the looking glass here, people’ in effect for this new issue, because everything is just kind of wibbly wobbly in this issue. Continuity is a little thin, characters move randomly through the issue, and once again, a big hand-waving explanation seems to come out of nowhere to reverse the entire flow of the story. But considering all the shake-ups recently, I can’t be sure if the reverse was always planned, or if Pfeifer is just scrambling to fix his story. I assume he’d planned to end things properly with Superboy and is now being forced to come up with a whole new ending to his prison story on the fly. Very weird, but that’s editorial interference for you.
Speaking of which, we’ve got three different artists this issue, and all of them are pretty bad. The art is maddeningly wild and doesn’t do the issue any favors. Nothing does this issue any favors. I can only hope that Teen Titans comes out of this mess in one piece, and maybe we’ll get some kind of renewed focus going forward. Because if nothing else, I remain eternally hopeful that things will actually get better someday.
Someday…
Henchman-4-Hire 