Teen Titans #42 Review

Blood Trail

Written By: Robbie Thompson

Art By: Javier Fernandez, Marcelo Maiolo, Rob Leigh

Cover Price: $3.99

Release Date: June 23, 2020

Now that the Djinn War is over, it's time to see what's left of the Teen Titans after that last arc, where it looked like that not only the team wasn't really friends anymore, but that they were completely shutting down the team as well.  It would be kind of weird having a Teen Titans title without an actual Teen Titans so let's jump into this issue and find out what happened to Brother Blood after he was mind-wiped by our heroes, sent out into the world and then given his memories back when the magic faded.  Let's jump into this issue and check it out.

As we begin this issue we see that the Titans are pretty much no more.  Each and every member is essentially doing their own thing, whether it's continuing to fight crime on their own or just wallowing in pity and self-doubt.  It's funny though that the person who seems to begin the healing process is Crush when she shows up to Roundhouse's place to just hang out, not to mention Kid Flash going to find Red Arrow to hopefully rekindle any kind of feelings the two may have had for each other.  

Eventually, the team is plunged back into working together when they discover that the body of Brother Blood was found and because of a sense of responsibility and duty and just possibly a bit of curiosity, the Titans find themselves working together again to find out who the murderer is.  While I always wanted this team to be friendly with one another and work as a cohesive unit, we're not there yet, but a big element of this story is Damian dealing with the death of Alfred, who while he would never admit it, was a gigantic part of the young Robin's life and the sole person he could go to for advice and while Damian goes through this issue trying to think of what Alfred would tell him to do to right the wrongs that he's created, we see that that is going to be a driving force in getting Batman into the picture because, like his son, Bruce Wayne feels lost without his friend, father figure and confidant as well.

All in all, I like a lot of the art in this issue, but some of it feels a bit off as well.  Mostly though, I was a fan and I'll just go with that.  As for the story, I like the slow build to get the team back together and the baby steps we're taking in not only getting them to be friendly with one another, but with the steps that Damian is taking in just being a better person because of what Alfred would want him to do.  It's a great perspective for this first solo arc for Robbie Thompson and I look forward to what he has in store for our young heroes going forward.  Using Brother Blood as the catalyst is great too because besides for Slade, it seems like Brother Blood is the go-to villain when you need to have a Teen Titans feel to a book....... Maybe that's just me.  I like what we're getting here though and even though I'd love for the Teen Titans just to be a friends/family team as they have in the past, I'll gladly wait a little longer as long as it seems we're making strides to that end.

Bits and Pieces:

The Teen Titans have gone their separate ways, but now it's time to get them back together again to get to the bottom of a new mystery while healing old wounds and rectifying mistakes they've made in their short time as a team.  The perspective of this issue really got me involved in caring about our members individually and I hope that going forward it will expand into caring about them more as a group.  The art was pretty decent and I like where we start off with this new arc.

7.8/10