Teen Titans #44 Review

Robin On The Run

Written By: Robbie Thompson

Art By: Javier Fernandez, Marcelo Maiolo, Rob Leigh

Cover Price: $3.99

Release Date: August 18, 2020

The Teen Titans have a problem and it's one that isn't going to be easy to solve. Previously, we saw that Robin was the one who killed Brother Blood and is upping his game in taking down crime wherever it may roam and we saw this escalate from normal super-heroics to locking up criminals themselves, to magically mind-wiping them and now the final solution that Damian Wayne has in stopping evil once and for all. Hopefully, the Teen Titans will be able to get through to him so that he can change his ways, but I don't think that's going to happen before Damian is confronted by his father. Let's jump into this issue and check it out.

My description of what's been going on in this book in that first paragraph makes me feel a bit sad because really, everything that I described there is essentially everything that's in this issue. Robin is confronted by his team, he gets away after a brief fight and before our heroes come across him again, they use their time looking to talk about what they've been doing in this title in a really awkward way.

Yeah, the majority of this book is pretty lackluster and depressing in how little it gives you beyond Batman confronting his son for the cliffhanger and the idea that the individual villains that had been mind-wiped have gotten back together to form a group to finally take out the Teen Titans because now the heroes have crossed a line. This idea is interesting as hell, but even this, the most interesting part of the book is kind of lessened by the end because all they're going to do is hire Deathstroke to kill the Titans. Yeah, this will work towards Red Arrow getting over her guilt of killing Slade, you know, once she finds out that he's still alive, but we've seen Deathstroke vs. the Teen Titans over and over again and I would have preferred Mammoth, Gizmo, Swerve, Joystick and Black Mask doing the dirty work themselves...because this time it's personal! That's not to be though.

All in all, I wasn't a fan of the art in this issue and it's mostly due to not being a fan of Javier Fernandez's style. I mean, we have some awesome looking characters that make up the roster of this book, but in this issue, they all look like a distorted mess to me and after realizing how little story we were getting out of the issue I think a different artist could have brought so much to this because at least we would have had something decent to look at. The characters themselves feel weird in their conversations and interactions and it doesn't help that all they want to talk about is the recap. Ultimately, this issue was a letdown and even though we know that this series is going to end soon, I wish it would go out on a high note and not what we're currently getting.

Bits and Pieces:

This issue was a real letdown all across the board. I wasn't a fan of the art and the story really gave us nothing and even when it attempted to give us something to look forward to beyond Batman just confronting Robin, it seemed to take a weird left turn to less interesting territory and I have no idea why. I hope this series can pick up and end on a high note because right now I'm not a fan of what we're getting.

4.5/10