Art By: Tyler Kirkham
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: April 23, 2014
Callbacks And Tying Up Loose Ends
Is it weird that I'm bummed this is the last issue? I know the we still have an Annual, and that the Titans will return in July starting fresh, but I have a certain sadness about this final standard issue. I don't know I'm a sad sack, but I'll try not to let that bring me down here. When we last left the Teen Titans they said goodbye to their friends Solstice and Kid Flash, and left them to the fate they decided. No grand rescues or prison breaks, just a goodbye as the two lovers choose to serve out the punishment for their crimes. The remaining team go back to their own time, where we meet up Bunker and Beast Boy fighting for their lives against two villains calling themselves The Light and The Way. So it's out of the frying pan and into the fire and some more metaphors that apply to this situation. Let's see the trouble that's in store for our young heroes this month.
Explain It!:
We're back in the present time, and do you remember all the scheming and backstabbing that Raven's been up to in the future? Come on she's even been working with the psychotic Superboy; Jon Lane Kent, you gotta remember that. Well she's been Trigon's daughter all right, but now that we're back it seems that Trigon's connection to her has been severed somehow, and it's time for all the shit that she's been up to to be swept under the rug and forgotten forever. Raven's a good guy now, so no reason to ever bring up what she's been up to again. WTF!? So our team is doing their best to fight off The Light and The Way's shadow constructs, and light projectiles, but it doesn't look good for the Titans. How shitty would that be to go through all that future nonsense just to come back and get killed by these chuckle heads? Pretty shitty, so it's a good thing that long missing Skitter turns up to take the bad guys down. On top of all that it turns out that Skitter's mother shows up. You remember her from when Trigon showed up don't you? She's the mysterious Amanda Waller lookalike from issue #22 that leads a MIB type government group. Yeah it still sounds and looks like Amanda Waller to me too, and I guess for no reason at all she's also Skitter's mother.
So let's have a Skitter origin story. She was a smart kid who built a device to talk to beings from other dimensions, when one of the beings used her transmission to send itself through and then use her body to exist here, luckily Skitter was able to overcome it's consciousness and take control of her body. Then she did her Culling thing for awhile, and eventually her mother found her and brought her back. Okay she's Skitter's mother so what are the Teen Titans and her going to do now? Nothing she leaves, Skitter stays, and it's over. Okay that was thrilling, let's move the team back to their yacht home, oh damn it's a callback to issue #6 with the villain Grymm! Oh wait wait, he overheard that the Teen Titans might disband, so now he doesn't want to fight anymore and is willing to tell them where the bomb is he planted on the yacht. Well he would've if over zealous Beast Boy hadn't knocked him out. Raven reads Grymm's mind and finds out that there isn't enough time to disarm the bomb, and boom! The end I guess until the Annual. This story seems really thrown together just to see familiar faces, and to get it done without any real storytelling. But the one plus is I love Beast Boy's humorous nature, it takes the drab dialogue and brightens it up. Okay let's get weird and jump ahead to the 31st century to check in our heroes who were left behind.
Kiran is running for her life on the prison planet she was sentenced to. A monster of an alien is chasing her because he's hungry, and I guess anything goes here. But Kid Flash isn't letting his main squeeze go that easy, he super speeds his way around the big ugly stabbing as he goes, and in the end the two hold each other, and promise that this wilderness will be tamed by them and they'll be happy and together. While this flash to the future is really odd, and serves little point than to pull our heart strings for characters that will be gone for awhile or maybe forever. I really would of preferred the goodbye from last issue instead of the self defense killing that we get here. Stab stab, it'll be okay baby. No it's not for me, even the pseudo backup we get this issue really didn't feel needed. We get to see Beast Boy and Bunker's time in Mexico when they went to see Bunker's boyfriend after he awoke from his coma. So the lovers are happy, the town is happy, everyone is happy. Except for killjoy Beast Boy who's jealous about how happy Bunker is. But don't worry we won't have to feel feelings for very long because the heroes have to make there way back to New York once the TVs start reporting the death of the Justice League.
So there you have it, a very strange issue that is only made decent by the art of Tyler Kirkham. I really don't understand what Lobdell was thinking with this story. Probably just "well I'm off this book fuck it, here's some shit I talked about earlier wrapped up with a crooked bow." See you next week for the Annual finale, which I still have high hopes for.
Bits and Pieces:
Well at least we have an Annual to look forward to, to sum this issue up in a single phrase I'd have to go with "Fuck it". We have a bunch of character callbacks that show up for no reason, and pseudo backups that don't do anything for the story, or the characters involved except make you wish their last appearance had actually been there last. But I get to continue my man crush on Tyler Kirkham, and his amazing take on our teen heroes, I just can't get enough of his artwork, and am going to miss him when this title returns in July. Really underwhelming issue if you're planning on getting this the highlights are the artwork, and Beast Boy's sense of humor.
4.5/10
For me the best part of this whole issue, aside from the simple fact that beast boy and bunker are back, was the 4 pages of Bart and Kiran. I think that it was because it pulled at the heart strings when almost nothing else did. And I actually don't like beast boy's humor because I felt like this was the very first issue that we saw it, and it is such a stark contrast to how his character has been during the rest of the New 52. If they had introduced him as funny it would be fine, but it's that they pretty much retconned his personality that kills me. But at least he is still Red.
ReplyDeleteI would of liked Kiran and Bart's tenderness to be shown a little differently, you know not after a brutal kill and all. That's why I wish Lobdell just would of left them alone for this issue. We already know the two love each other from the last issue. As for noting on Beast Boy's humor, I only noted on it and enjoyed it because for the most part this entire series has been devoid of all emotion with the exception of Bunker. Maybe the guys time together really brought out something in Beast Boy.
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