Titans #25 Review and *SPOILERS*

Welcome to TV Land!

Written By: Dan Abnett
Art By: Brandon Peterson, Guillem March, Denis Medri, Ivan Plascencia
Letters By: Dave Sharpe

Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: September 12, 2018

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

Our last issue of Titans left us with kind of a bad taste in our mouths. It wasn’t horrible but it didn’t exactly “wow” the audience. The cliffhanger was alright but there was a lot of the same stuff that we’ve gotten over the last two issues. A team that is pretty depressing and constantly bickering with each other. Don’t get me wrong, I think that a Titan’s book can have those themes occasionally but I just personally feel that a Titans books should be at least fun. I know that these characters are older now but this is basically an extension of the Teen Titans brand and I want to enjoy this book when I read it. That just hasn’t been the case in recent issues. However, hopefully that will change as we jump into this next issue.

Our first image shows a giant robot that is attacking a city. We immediately cut back to the Titan’s headquarters and Steel makes a discovery about the emergent events. She hypothesizes that negative emotions have an effect on these events and can actually make them worse. So she encourages the team to keep cool and focused heads in the field. However, this advice has been lost on Nightwing and Miss Martian as they are still at each other’s throats at the moment. Their fight is about the usual stuff that we’ve had for two issues but it is interrupted when they discover that there are three emergent events happening at the same time in the same place. The team decides to split up to handle it. Steel, Beast Boy, and Raven are going to handle to giant robot, Donna Troy is heading off on her own, and Nightwing and Miss Martian are going after the third event.

The team leaps in to action. When Team 1 encounters the robot, Raven immediately jumps in to take care of it but quickly finds that her powers aren’t working. This leads to an all out brawl. Meanwhile Miss Martian and Nightwing investigate another event. They find a woman’s apartment. She is just sitting in her chair watching TV and she asks if they’ve come to fix the cable. Everything seems normal until the woman changes the channel and Miss Martian and Nightwing find themselves in a television show. Elsewhere, Donna Troy finds a lab and Brother Blood’s followers inside of it. They are working on some sort of device before they begin fighting Donna.

Back with Raven, she reveals to Beast Boy that she cannot access her soul-self. This is due to the events of the previous issue. Steel is holding her own against the robot but once it is destroyed it begins to repair itself. Meanwhile, Miss Martian and Nightwing discover that they are trapped in the television and that their own selves are starting to fade as they take on more characteristics of the characters they are supposed to be playing. All the while they continue to have the discussion about Miss Martian’s role on the team. Once the lady gets bored, she changes the channel and Nightwing and Miss Martian find themselves in a Western. Back with Donna Troy, she is able to handle the Blood Brothers for the most part until one of them uses a weapon to take the ground from under her. Team 1 continues to struggle with the robot as it repairs itself immediately to any damage. Nightwing and Miss Martian are shown again, this time in a Sci-Fi show, only for a moment before switching back to the original show they were on.

Donna wakes up underneath the lab and finds someone hiding below. His name is Ben Rubel and he is a journalist that is currently squatting in this lab. He’s the one that found the energy that Donna found above. She convinces him to work with her in order to stop the machine from blowing up after the Blood Brothers sabotaged it. Team 1 continues to fight the robot. Nightwing and Miss Martian continue in TV land. They have a conversation about how Nightwing sees Miss Martian and how they are both actually in a similar position. They try to hold on to themselves but they seem to be slipping as they both begin to lean into each other. Just as their lips are about to touch, Donna is able to disable the machine and they are freed from TV Land. In addition, the giant robot falls apart. All the events were linked to the device that Donna was dealing with. Miss Martian and Nightwing collect themselves and come to an understanding to work with each other. They also agree to never talk about what happened in TV Land. Raven continues to struggle with her lack of a soul-self and Donna brings Ben aboard to help. Meanwhile, we get a scene of the Blood Brothers reporting to their superior and it is revealed that it is none other than Mother Mayhem herself. This is where the issue leaves us.

Wow! Talk about a hard turn from the previous issue. This was way better than the last couple issues we’ve been getting. Significantly so. There was tons of action and I really loved the story with Nightwing and Miss Martian. I like how everything was connected to Donna’s mission from the very beginning and it wasn’t too obvious until it had to be. There were great character moments, great dialogue, awesome action, amazing art, continuing storylines, and new threats. It literally had everything. Was it always so fluid? Not always but I really loved jumping from story to story in this book and seeing each team perform on their own. In addition, the biggest hangup I had for this book was (hopefully) solved now that Miss Martian and Nightwing have decided to work together now. Overall, this issue was a ton of fun and I really enjoyed reading it.

Bits and Pieces

Hopefully we can say goodbye to the bad issues because this latest issue of Titans really brought the quality of this series up. It made me care more about certain characters and a lot of amazing aspects really made this issue shine. I’m actually excited to read more from this series and that is something I couldn’t have said previously.

8.0/10