Titans #11 Review and *SPOILERS*

Wally West...... The Time Machine

Written By: Christopher Priest, Ben Percy, Dan Abnett

Art By: Brett Booth, Norm Rapmund, Andrew Dalhouse, Carrie Strachan, Josh Reed

Cover Price: $3.99

Release Date: May 10, 2017

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

Oh boy, if you haven't been reading the Deathstroke book, you're in a real need for a catch up..... Well, maybe not, but it's kind of messed up that Deathstroke's book continues in Titans, but I guess we'll have to go with it because we have ourselves a big bad crossover happening right now with the Lazarus Contract, taking place in Deathstroke, Teen Titans and our first installment here in Titans.  Going into this all you really need to know is that Deathstroke has recently been all about his family and making sure that they're........ Well, doing stuff.  I can't exactly say he wants them safe, but he's willing to go the extra mile to do things that he thinks will show his children that he loves them without actually saying it.  Alright, let's jump into this issue and see how the Titans' hunt for HIVE is going and if we'll do anything to deal with Bumblebee's stolen memory.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our issue begins with us completely getting away from the whole "Deathstroke being blind" thing that we were dealing with in Slade's own book because he wakes up with his friend Wintergreen by his side after having an eye transplant, which for some reason happened after his big fight with his son Jericho in his own book........ Yeah, I guess we just needed Slade to see here, but the biggest question to me comes from a memory that Slade has while he's unconscious, about the day his son Grant died battling the Teen Titans.  I'm not quite sure how any of this goes down because on top of having the ten years removed from the timeline, which is the big mystery of Rebirth about who did that, but we also have five years taken out of the Titans' lives, that everyone seemed to forget.  Somehow though, Deathstroke remembers them from the day Grant died and remembers blaming them for his son's death.  

Meanwhile, the Titans are taking on HIVE troops, who turn out to be......... not HIVE troops.  Yeah, it seems that these guys were hired to distract the Titans and one of them has a message about how their employer Lazarus has a message about the deal being off........ which doesn't mean shit to me or the rest of the Titans, but Omen believes that Dick somehow knows what's up and is very concerned about the possibility of him keeping secrets about this.  During this time, Wally West goes missing and the Titans have no idea what happened to him.

In the end, we find out that Deathstroke took Wally right out in the day light, around the rest of his team........ Yeah, Slade's just that good.  When Wally comes to, he finds himself strapped to a machine that seems kind of like a cosmic treadmill and pumped with something that makes him tell the truth to all of Slade's questions.  Eventually though, after Wally realizes that Slade wants him to go back in time and save Grant, Wally vibrates his way out of the machine and goes to take Deathstroke down.  Our assassin though makes Wally a deal.  Save Grant and he'll give up being Deathstroke forever.  Even with all the lives that this arrangement would save, Wally has to turn him down because time travel is never the answer, but it seems that Slade was ready for this decision and has a backup plan in mind and that's when we see Kid Flash also strapped to a machine, confused as hell how this could be Wally West because he's Wally West.  

That's it for this issue of Titans and our first part of the Lazarus Contract and while I thought this issue brought the Deathstroke story to a lackluster conclusion just to get us into this, I found myself enjoying what we were getting and liked that it tied enough into what's going on with Deathstroke's thoughts of his family to get us to this setup.  Not a lot going on with the Titans in this besides for the question about who this Lazarus is and the idea that Dick's lying about his knowledge about it, but that too was fun for what we got.  All in all, I don't know how Slade got his hands on the tech he has to use a speedster to go back in time if that's indeed the case, but the concept of the story is something that interests me and I loved the art in this book.  Hopefully as the crossover continues we get more insight into how Deathstroke could remember the Titans as kids when no one else seems to and get a story that comes out under the radar when compared to The Button and have it become one of the best crossovers in Rebirth.

Bits and Pieces:

As a first part to this story, this does a fine job in setting up some interesting things, but sacrificing Deathstroke's story in his own book to do it.  With that though, I found something to like with each section of this book, even if I still don't understand the Titans' timeline and who knows about them as kids and who doesn't.  We have excellent art all the way though and a story that gets me excited about what's to come and how it will possibly affect the rest of the DC Universe.  

8/10