This issue... somebody (re)joins the Titans!
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Penciller: Scot Eaton
Inker: Wayne Faucher
Colorist: Jim Charalampidis
Letterer: Corey Breen
Cover Artist: Dan Mora
Variant Cover Artists: Bryan Hitch & Alex Sinclair
Cover Price: $3.99
On Sale Date: April 25, 2018
Pop the champagne! It looks like this is our last issue of this volume of Teen Titans.
Maybe when this property returns this Summer we can get an actual issue or two that isn't predicated on someone joining or quitting the team!
Dare we dream? Well, I'm not known for my optimism, but I've got my fingers crossed! Now, let's put this one to bed.
We pick up right where we left off last month... Beast Boy is under the control of his danger-haired friend, and is taking out his frustration on his fellow Teen Titans. Oh yeah, all of those gullible introverts that popped the pixie? They're after the Titans too!
Of course, since this is our swan song, everything winds up hunky dory at the end. We get lectured on the power of friendship, and Gar's new "handler" reveals a dark (read: cliche and predictable) secret about her past.
Since our "dark web start-up" is called Nevrland... you can imagine that the Peter Pan references are amped up to pretty annoying levels here... and yeah, Chucklehead McDangerhair actually utters "Second star to the right and straight on til morning". Lemme tell ya, this girl ain't no Aunt May.
I'm giving the book a hard time, but this wasn't really all that bad... there were a few bright spots.
The art here is very good! Scot Eaton joining over these past few months has been a great boon to the series. While I enjoy Pham, I feel like the Titans have become pigeonholed where we always have to have a sort of "anime inspired" artist on the title. It's refreshing to see a more traditional superhero artist in Eaton. He especially shined during the air-battle between Goliath and the mind-controlled Beast Boy.
The use of Wally's vibrational speed as a means of painlessly removing the pixie implants from the dumb teen-agers' noggins was pretty creative... inspired even! We even get a little bit of progression in the RavenXWally romance. I mean, why did we wait until the very last issue to get a move on this?
Before we go... let's look at this snake-bit volume as a whole. From jump-street, we had some behind the scenes drama with our original artist gittin' out of dodge... and from there, I've said it before... and I'm going to say it again; every arc is has been predicated on a member joining or leaving the team.
The few times where the book looked like it was headed somewhere, it would be derailed for a crossover event. I won't pretend to be privy to the editorial machinations or whims that caused this book to be such a lame duck... but, for whatever reason, it was... at least to me.
Perhaps it's unfair of me to compare this to other books which bore the name "Titans"... but at the same time, I feel like, when you take on a book like this, there's a certain expectation. I gotta say, I feel for you if you bought this entire run at full cover (or above) price... as it really went nowhere, and added scarily little to Titans' lore. If you sat this one out, you really haven't missed much.
Bits and Pieces:
A fitting end to this volume... hell, a fitting final arc for this volume. It features Beast Boy both quitting... and rejoining the team! Unfortunately, it's not all that interesting... which, I suppose makes it even more fitting!
6/10
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