Titans #24 Review and *SPOILERS*

Dungeons and Titans

Written By: Dan Abnett
Art By: Brent Peeples, Matt Santorelli, Ivan Plascencia
Letters By: Dave Sharpe

Cover Price: $3.99

Release Date: August 8, 2018

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

When the Titans book first started, I was a huge fan. I really loved these characters and the stories that Abnett was writing were great. After a little while though, things started to slip. However, I was still invested the book and where these characters were going. Then No Justice happened. Suddenly the main character that we were focusing on for the previous 4 issues wasn’t a part of the team anymore. Don’t get me wrong. I like the team. I do. But it feels weird that Roy Harper isn’t at least in the book considering how much we focused on him. The last issue was a bit… underwhelming to say the least. However, this is a new issue and I’m ready to hop back on the Titans train. Let’s jump right in and see what we’ve got this month.

Our issue begins with what looks like a big monster following a dark elf into our world. The Titans are suddenly hopping into action and Miss Martian links them all mentally. Their ship lands and the team separates in order to find the focal point of the latest aberration. Miss Martian begins informing the team about the information she’s getting but gets cut off by Nightwing telling her that they will handle it. Unsure of how to handle this, Miss Martian calls up Martian Manhunter. Raven and Steel find an older gentleman sitting on a bench. They ask him to leave the area as there is danger near them. They don’t get far though as they are immediately engaged by the enemy. Meanwhile, Martian Manhunter consoles Miss Martian, telling her that her team is most likely intimidated by her and that Nightwing only resents having a liaison from the Justice League watching them. He tells her to keep to her mission and keep her secrets.

The Titans all group up and start fighting the monsters that we saw on the first page. During the battle, the old man reveals that he knows what the monsters are. They are from a place called Unearth. Miss Martian begins looking into his past. His name is Ernest Hinton and he used to be a teacher and before that he was a fantasy author. Meanwhile, the monsters seem to have gotten an upper hand on the Titans. The dark elf walks out onto the battlefield with a smile. He begins to interact with Raven, asking if the battle is necessary. Nigthwing joins the two and the dark elf reveals himself to be Seneschal Prince Travesty and begins spouting a lot of lore. He then informs them that it was them that breached their world and so they are fighting to defend themselves. While he initially seems like he wants the fighting to stop, he then chooses to keep fighting based on the moral passed down by his ancestors.

Back with Ernest, Miss Martian joins Donna Troy and reveals that Ernest is the one with the new powers and his fantasy world that he wrote about is coming to life because of it. Miss Martian decides that she must remove the new energy from Ernest’s head in order to stop the attack. Donna Troy pushes back immediately because that could harm Ernest. Miss Martian then asks Raven to help her so that no pain will come to Ernest. They suddenly find themselves on the other end of the breach in Unearth. Ernest wants to stay but the Titans have to stop the attack so Miss Martian and Raven finish the process and they are teleported back to Earth and the monsters have disappeared. Something feels different to Raven after she interacted with Prince Travesty. We cut to later when Ernest is in his home and Prince Travesty is meeting with him. He reveals that he used a trick to avoid being sent back to Unearth. In our final page, we see that Raven is trapped on Unearth and the issue comes to a close.

If you thought the last issue was too much of a setup issue, then this issue isn’t going to be much better. Rather than building on the story that has already been built upon, we recap most of the things we already know. Miss Martian is unwelcomed on the team by Nightwing. She has a secret mission from Martian Manhunter. The new energy on Earth is still creating metahumans. I honestly don’t hate the idea of this issue. With a fantasy writer suddenly able to make his world real. However, most of this book is the same old bickering between teammates and setting up a larger story. I also am not a huge fan of seeing non-mystical superheroes interacting with a fantasy world. That’s just a personal taste thing. I know plenty of people will like it. Overall the book was very meh. I’m hoping this book goes somewhere new that we can really enjoy but right now it has been disappointing.

Bits and Pieces:

Titans continues banging on the same drum that it did in the last issue. The team remains the same in how they interact with each other and the mission is exactly the same but in a different area. Bickering ensues but victory is eventually achieved. It’s a fairly by the numbers issue of this series with not a lot of meat on its bones. Hopefully, the story gets more exciting as we get more issues.

4.5/10