Less Than Black Zero
The Tamaranean invasion has begun on Earth and while it looked like our Titans were going to be able to fight off the forces of Blackfire, it turned out that she had a secret weapon up her sleeve in the form of a brainwashed Superboy, now going by the 90's Hypertime name of Black Zero. It's just too bad that Starfire wasn't able to defend the world against her sister because sadly, Starfire was knocked unconscious along with Lady Vic when the two confronted each other. Let's jump into this issue and see if our heroes can overcome their brainwashed friend and fend off the planet from its invaders. Let's check it out.
For this issue of Titans United, we see our heroes getting to the root of the matter in what's going on with Superboy and his newish Black Zero persona, and to do that we just constantly see our more formidable Titans failing in their attempts and I'm not exactly sure why. Donna tries her Lasso of Persuasion to no effect and even when we spend our time "of the mind" with Raven trying to get our Superboy to see the light and snap out of whatever has been done to him, it just makes Blackfire look like a jerk, while Superboy says....... "she's the victim". Mostly though it's strange because since we're only dealing with a limited Hypertime story that wants us to feel bad for Superboy, thus give us a reason for him to betray his friends with all that's been done to him..... all we know is that they told him to hang back recently since his powers have become wonky and since that's all we're shown and previously given, the motivation for the heel turn here comes off really shallow and disappointing.
Yeah, we can always go with the clone anguish and mix and match any Superboy problems that we've known from other books, but we have no idea about this particular Superboy and only know that Blackfire has done something to him and now he's willing to betray his friends and while I found this backstory to why all of this is happening pretty lackluster, it was more so knowing that everyone fell in battle while Starfire remained unconscious in England with Lady Vic this entire time.
All in all, this like the previous issues were majorly just action scenes with some background on Blackfire being jealous of her sister Kory and the lengths she would go to to beat her but the background on why Superboy is Black Zero now and the jealousy were all that dramatic and will just lead to brainwashing since Superboy being told to hang back recently isn't such a great motive. The art continues to be great but the overall story feels odd since we're now right into a Tamaranean invasion that feels like we've left the Cadmus giving powers to randos story behind, while the majority of our Titans kind of just look like chumps. Hopefully, things turn around for this mini in the next two issues because I know personally that I would have loved this book to be my Titans book if it just came off a bit stronger.
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Bits and Pieces:
While the art continues to be great in this mini the story is leaving me wanting. A lot is going on here and while we do get a pseudo explanation/motive for why things are happening, the story feels like it has taken a left turn from where it began, and ultimately I just want more out of this because the plot and characters just don't feel right.
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