Titans Hunt #7 Review and *SPOILERS*

Experimental Combat-Chassis Strike Droids in Disguise

Written By: Dan Abnett
Art By: Paulo Siqueira, Hi-Fi, Carlos M. Mangual
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: April 20, 2016

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

Our mystery of the Teen Titans continues and man do I hope that we get some serious exposition in this issue because while I'm following along the best I can, I can't say that I follow this story completely yet......... and boy I hope that I'm not the only one because pulling the dummy card isn't the best for my self esteem.   In the previous issue we had our Titans heroes coming together and fighting their asses off, but not against the mysterious Mister Twister, instead we got his lackey Mammoth against Nightwing, Donna Troy and Aqualad, while Gnarrk, Arsenal, Lilith, Hawk and Dove were met by two agents from Diablo, who apparently want to kill the Titans before Mister Twister can use them.  Even poor Bumble Bee, who doesn't seem to have a real role in this story had a gun pointed at her.  Let's see if our heroes can overcome not only Diablo, but Mister Twister as we jump into the penultimate issue of Titans Hunt before Rebirth comes and smacks us in the face.  Let's check it out..

Explain It!:

Our issue begins with our heroes at Lilith's addiction center just getting the holy hell beat out of them by Honey Bun and who I can only assume is Ding Dong Daddy because he's only referred to as "Daddy" in this issue.  While I was thinking that these characters were just people thrown in from the Teen Titans of old's past, it seems that it's a little more complicated than that........ or less depending on your point of view.  The way these characters look is supposedly the look of actual agents of this Diablo, which is an organization of specialist troubleshooters, but from what we find out in this issue, the ones we're dealing with here are actually experimental combat-chassis strike droids with a camouflage to make them look like the Diablo agents.  It's very odd to have all of this thrown at us when it doesn't really do anything for this story.  We've got this big bad mystery going on about the Titans taking on a threat five years ago with them having no memory of it and this threat coming back for them now............ and all of a sudden we're dealing with an organization I've never heard of before and finding out that they're robots in disguise....... and that's what we get for the majority of this issue.  The piece of information that seems to be a part of our story during this section is that Lilith apparently called Diablo in to help her deal with the Mister Twister situation, but after doing all their special troubleshooting, I guess that they decided the best course of action was taking out the pawns of this threat that are giving him his power....... i.e. The Titans.  We also get a bit of this with Bumble Bee and Neil Richards, who we found out in the previous issue is a Diablo agent himself, but it really goes nowhere as well because out of nowhere Bumble Bee pulls powers out of her ass to save herself and that's all we get.

In the end, our heroes overcome the Diablo robots with what seems like just brute force instead of actual teamwork and we come to Nightwing, Donna Troy and Garth as they climb the spiral stairwell up Mister Twister's dark tower.  There isn't a lot to this section either, but our heroes do finally reach the top and see Mal and Mister Twister's bone organ....... and I don't know what Twister's been doing to Herald because he looks pretty damn rough.  Our story closes with Mal telling our heroes, who he now seems to remember that they should get out of there and Mister Twister comes out of the shadows to welcome these former Teen Titans. 

That's it for this issue of Titans Hunt and while we've been strung along issue to issue with only getting a small piece of information to this story here and there, this issue seems to offer less and decides that we haven't had enough action........ and then just throws it at us all willy nilly, which is weird since we only have one issue left.  This definitely feels like a filler issue, but if you only care about what Diablo is about, then maybe this is for you.  As for me, I'm disappointed that our mystery was put on hold to deal with some robot battles that don't seem to do anything for this story except extend it a bit.  The art though was fantastic as it always is and the colors were vibrant as hell and really made this issue pop.  I love seeing these characters together and it makes it so much more worthwhile when they look as great as they do here.  I just hope that everything can be explained well in the next issue because as much as I want to like this story, it just keeps throwing things at me that turn me off.  

Bits and Pieces:

If your biggest complaint about this book is that it doesn't have enough action, well then maybe this is the issue you were waiting for....... because that's all it seems to offer besides for amazing artwork.  Our mystery is put on hold so we can find out about characters who were just introduced in the previous issue and I was just left wondering how we're going to wrap everything up nicely in just one more issue.  This really comes off as filler and I hope it doesn't take away from this series' ending.

5/10