Tuesday, July 14, 2020

Teen Titans #43 Review



Wayward Son


Written By: Robbie Thompson
Art By: Jesus Merino, Julio Ferreira, Marcelo Maiolo, Rob Leigh
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: July 14, 2020


The Teen Titans are strained but together as they try to rundown who killed Brother Blood after their magical mind whammy was taken away and the villains who they believed to be mentally neutered went right back to being bad to the bone.  Let's see if our young heroes can work together long enough to fix something they started and if this leads to them feeling like they can actually trust one another and keep going strong as an actual team......... you know, that doesn't lock up, kill or lobotomize bad guys.  Let's jump into this issue and check it out.


While getting the team back together and mending the bonds of friendship that has been lost since before the Djinn War is at the top of things that I want from this book, the idea that we'd have that happen, sans Damian kind of kills me a bit because it really seems that no matter what, these people, altogether will never be a team unless Robin actually changes who he is and at this point, it seems like the only way that will happen is one of those magical lobotomies that he was throwing down the villains he captured.

Beyond that though, this is a weird issue, where the flow of the story feels forced and feels like it interrupts the rest of the story at times because while we know that we left the last issue trying to figure out who killed Brother Blood, we discover here that from something left behind from a boot that Damian is the one who knocked off Brother Blood and at the same time, it seems like Batman may have found something in his son's room as well, but it isn't very clear.  The only thing that is clear is that Damian has lost his way and his former team and his father want to talk to him about it and while that's nice...... it feels out of nowhere here, not to mention Damian just going after KGBeast...... total out of nowhere.  Speaking of out of nowhere, we start the issue off with Superboy coming to town but ultimately doing nothing.

All in all, the book is trying to do something new and whether that's a darkest before the dawn type of story, where we'll eventually get everyone back on track or if it's on its way to get Damian out of here....... I don't know, but that's not the problem here.  The thing is, this story feels all over the place with what it wants to do and the flow doesn't really work too well in my mind, not to mention the flimsy evidence that points everyone to Damian Wayne.  It just feels like we needed to have these things happen this issue, but it wasn't thought out as well as it could have to get us to here.  I enjoyed the art a lot here, but I hope that the story feels more natural in the next issue.

Bits and Pieces:

We've got the Teen Titans trying to find justice for a murdered villain, but what do they do when the murderer is one of their own?  It's a cool concept that I look forward to, but this issue feels like it wanted to cram too much into this, with Batman and the KGBeast on top of what we were currently dealing with and the transitions and jumps to conclusions felt off here.  The art is great, but I want more out of this title in the long run.

6.3/10

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