Titans Hunt #1 Review and *SPOILERS*

The Titans That Never Were

Written By: Dan Abnett

Art By: Paulo Siqueira, Geraldo Borges, Hi-Fi, Carlos M. Mangual
Cover Price: $3.99

Release Date: October 21, 2015

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

For everyone who was upset that the Titans of the New 52 weren't the Titans that they grew up with, or just upset that Tim Drake's incarnation of the team was the first to make an appearance in that Universe, it seems that Convergence of all things is your savior.  For as much as I wasn't a fan of the Convergence event, I have to admit that ideas like this one and Superman: Lois and Clark are something that I can really get behind and making characters that we're very familiar with in this Universe confront a past that they don't recall is a really cool concept.  So let's check out our Titans and see how they'll cope when dealing with a history that was never their own.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our story begins in a really cool fashion.  We see Roy Harper being emotionally shaken by a water tower as if he's seen it before, but for some reason this deja vu feeling is actually scaring him a bit and he doesn't know why.  That's not the cool part though, the cool part is the setting.  While Roy stares like an idiot at a water tower, a tornado siren sounds in the distance and coupled with the ominous feeling that Roy has, this is awesome foreshadowing to the storm that is about to hit our characters.  I love it, but what I don't love is this feeling leading Roy to fall off the wagon......... another notable addition to this story is Gnarrk working at the convenience store where Roy buys his hooch, but since I'm not familiar with Gnarrk, this doesn't really mean much to me, but I'm sure all those Gnarrk fans are all RC Cola and Pinatas about it........... Gnarrk. 

We then head over to Grayson doing his Spiral thing by attempting to thwart a black market organ selling ring, that murders enhanced humans and sells their super powered insides to the highest bidder.  Everything was going good for Dick on his mission until we find out that the lungs that this ring called Harvest acquired belonged to an Atlantean and as we all know, Atlanteans don't take things like stealing organs lightly.  That leads us to Garth showing up and killing everyone involved and almost killing Grayson for trying to stop him from all the death and destruction.  Like Roy, Dick has himself a moment of....... let's call it clarity when he watches Garth jump into the East River and form a whirlpool.  

After the misadventure, Dick checks into a hotel to catch some rest and that's when he's visited by a psychic projection of Lilith.......... sadly, like Gnarrk, I'm not really familiar with Lilith except for a passing knowledge of her having mental abilities...... and really, you'll get all that here when you see her psychically projecting herself to Dick.  Anyway, not much here except for Lilith whetting your appetite with a little bit of intrigue, when she simply tells Dick that he should have talked to Garth and that he needs to find them because time is running out.  

In the end, we see Lilith sitting in an office, where apparently she works as an addiction counselor and after getting a strange close up of kids playing twister........ which I'm not quite sure what it was trying to convey to me, we see that Lilith has files on all the people that were once Titans with her in another timeline and that she's worried that someone is watching her and the rest of the once Titans.  Apparently, she believes that whatever this mysterious thing is, it wants them.  

That's it for this issue of Titans Hunt and for as much as I was looking forward to this title, it didn't really do much to grab a hold of me, shake me a bit and make sure that I was excited for the upcoming issues.  I'm sure some of this is do to my own ignorance of characters like Lilith, Mal Duncan and Gnarrk, but even with me leaving that aspect out, the majority of the issue was really bland after the initial stuff with Roy and what seemed like some awesome foreshadowing and the interaction between Dick and Garth.  I know we're only setting the stage here, but with no clear idea of what's going on or what the threat might be against our heroes, this issue was just a series of random happenings with some deja vu willies thrown in.  I enjoyed the art and colors in this book though and really hope that the next issue gives me something to sink my teeth into.

Bits and Pieces:

Sadly, there isn't much to really grab readers to make sure that they return for more in this book.  While I love the concept of our current timeline heroes having to face a past that never was, there wasn't enough of the "whys and hows" to really give you a clear idea of what exactly is going down in this series and besides for a case of the willies that our heroes felt throughout this issue when confronted with things from an alternate timeline, this was just another day in the life of our heroes. 

6/10