Thursday, September 29, 2011

Teen Titans #1

Ahhh. Now here's a series that I've been VERY interested in reading... The series that got me into DC comics was Young Justice. No, not the one based on that sucky cartoon, the REAL Young Justice. That series turned me into the DC fan I am today, so many of the characters in this series(Red Robin, Superboy, Impulse/Kid Flash, Wonder Girl) hold a special place in my heart. Needless to say, that means I'm gonna be pretty critical of how these characters are depicted, so if you're expecting a fluff piece, look elsewhere...

Teen Titans #1:

What Happened: The first scene we get here is of Kid Flash screwing up, so that sets things off on the right foot for me... Anyway, the main story here is that NOWHERE is hunting down teenage heroes, and target Red Robin in his civilian guise. Red Robin manages to escape the NOWHERE goons and decides that he'd better try to contact other young heroes before NOWHERE gets their mitts on them. To that end he manages to recruit Wonder Girl, while NOWHERE counters by releasing their Superboy creation with the hopes that SB would infiltrate and take down Red Robin's team before it got started.

The Good: I really like the story here. An evil, shadowy group is hunting down teenage heroes, so Red Robin decides to fight back. Nice, simple and clean. I like the idea of NOWHERE trying to infiltrate and destroy the Titans from within. Um, the art was good?

The Bad: Where do I begin... Kid Flash was more Beast Boy than Bart Allen. The NOWHERE goons came after Red Robin AS Tim Drake, and Tim didn't seem alarmed in the least by that. Cassie is a criminal? I don't know how I feel about that. To be determined I guess... It's a small thing, but I can't say I liked any of the costumes the three heroes in this issue were wearing.

The Verdict: While the negatives may seem to outnumber the positives in this post, the most important thing about any comic to me is the story, and the story WAS good. So while there were a lot of things I wasn't exactly fond of, the story kept me involved. I guess if I had to bottom line this issue, I'd say it was solid but unspectacular.

Score: 7 out of 10.Of course Bart was a screw up in this issue... Why wouldn't he be? *sigh*

11 comments:

  1. hmmm...I do not share your positive thoughts on this one. I'm coming from a 'Never read much of any DC' perspective. I liked the TT cartoon. This is all new to me, and I'm taking it at face value. The art was a big turn off for me. I posted about it already. I was less subtle with my thoughts as I am in my comment.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I kind of wonder. In Red Hood Starfire was the ex-girlfriend of Dick Grayson but in this comic the Teen Titans seem like a new idea. So, when did Starfire and Dick hook up? I don't read much DC except the Batman books but this is where it starts to hit me that yes, they did wipe out all of their past history.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Well I AM a sucker for some of the characters in this one, Lebeau, so I may be trying hard to grasp at any positive. I mean the NOWHERE stuff is new, but I think it has some legs. Shadowy Gov't group vs teen heroes is a simple enough premise for me. And the art didn't bug me at all, although as I've stated before, I don't notice the artwork in a comic unless it's really good, or really bad!

    I was thinking the same thing, Jermox! It's weird because Roy mentions other names of former Teen Titans to Starfire after mentioning Dick, which would lead me to believe that there WAS a Teen Titans team prior to this series, and that at the least Starfire was a member. But then again, Tim was acting like it was Bruce who had started the teen sidekick thing, during the scene with the picture, which would make me think there WASN'T a prior Teen Titans team. If anything this is another reason to think that this reboot was more spur of the moment then you'd expect/hope, as there are a whole lot of contradictory things I've picked up on already and it's not like I've read ALL 52 titles, only half! :D

    ReplyDelete
  4. mmin some interview Lobdell says that there had been some other teams Called Teen Titans previous this team. But the weird for me is Roy mentioning Vic (Ciborg) when he is one of the Justice league founders..

    a and this is awesome!!!
    Huntres preview http://www.newsarama.com/php/multimedia/album.php?aid=44402

    ReplyDelete
  5. This is why DC needed to put out some sort of comic book prior to their reboot detailing EXACTLY what was different... Or hell, just drop a summary page in the front of every DC #1 telling us what we as fans should know about the story/characters we were about to read... No, instead the fans, and apparently the creative teams have NO idea what happened and didn't happen in the DCU... Annoying...

    I am SO torn about that Huntress mini, Alien... On the one hand, I really shouldn't pick it up since I already pick up like 1,000,000 comics every month. On the other hand, knowing myself? I'll probably pick it up... :P

    ReplyDelete
  6. Aww I really, really liked this issue. I've tried giving TT a chance pre-reboot and I just couldn't get into it, thanks to Cassie. But this time around, I actually like her this round. Maybe it's because she's not trying so hard to be "Wonder Girl", on the level of Wonder Woman.

    And it's always a pleasure to see Tim Drake, I miss the lil birdy. And as for Kid Flash, lol, love him already. He screwed up soooo much, lol. But it's like you KNOW that's what he;s going to do.

    And come on X, look past the costumes!!! Lol. I was laughing at my mom the other day. There was an article about Superman and his new costume and she used to read comics growing up and she was UPSET they changed Supes costume. Even more upset when WW costume was changed. Lol. I'm like mom you don't even read comics and she's like So what, you can't change a classic costume, lol.

    Okay enough of my ranting, this is something I'll be looking forward to reading next month.

    And to chime in, you should get Huntress!! Lol. I'll be picking it up.

    ReplyDelete
  7. This comic was really interesting to me... I mean here's the thing... We ALL know how much I loved Young Justice. Like I said, it was what got me into DC to begin with. So the characters from that series are important to me, and seeing them changed up is kind of painful. With that said, I liked the story here, which is the most important thing. If I can get a good 6 issues full of good stories and good character development, I'll start getting behind THIS version of the Teen Titans. Right now though I'm in that funny in between spot. I enjoyed the story, but I miss the old characters...

    I'm all for changing a costume, I don't care whose it is, but Lisha, these costumes were just ugly to me! :P I mean Bart's costume sucked, and I really don't like the wings Timmy was sporting. What's the matter with a good old cape? And as for Supes, I've gotta agree with your mom there. His new costume is just awful... Why is he wearing metal? It just doesn't make sense! I'm not a stickler for old school outfits and feel they SHOULD change with the times, I think Tim Drake's Robin outfit is WAAAAAAAY better than Dick Grayson's Robin outfit, and I also liked the change to Tim's outfit after Infinite Crisis. But if you're gonna change a characters outfit, don't make it worse than it was before! I mean I like the fact that Tim isn't wearing the cowl anymore, I never liked that look, but those wings... They've got to go! Give him his current costume with a cape in the place of the wings and I'd be all for that costume.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I also like how it tied seamlessly into the ending of the Superboy issue. I'll be curious to see how they intertwine those two comics through this storyline.

    ReplyDelete
  9. With Lobdell writing both series, I'm hoping we get a lot of crossover stuff between the two series, Vancelot23. If done right we could get some pretty deep stories between these two series. Events that happen in SB exploding into the Titans and vice-versa.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Are you still reading this one? Issue #3 was, um, disappointing.

    ReplyDelete
  11. My comic shop JUST got issue #2 in stock for me(they missed it on my pull list when it came out), and had issue #3, but I wasn't going to buy issue #3 until I got issue #2. Now that I have both issues(finally), I plan on reading and reviewing them both for Sunday or Monday, so look for it then. To be honest though, I totally trust your opinion of that one(I mean we're on the same page like 94% of the time), so now I'm looking forward to reading those issues even less! And I'll definitely be looking forward to reading what you thought of it.

    ReplyDelete