Written by: Tom Taylor
Art by: Lucas Meyer
Colors by: Adriano Lucas
Letters by: Wes Abbott
Cover art by: Chris Samnee, Matheus Lopes
Cover price: $3.99
Release date: May 21, 2024
Titans #11 sends D. Morrow's latest robotic creation to attack the Titans on behalf of Amanda Waller. Meanwhile, Nightwing takes extreme measures for a little privacy.
Is Titans #11 Good?
When last we left the Titans in issue #10, the team went toe-to-toe against Raven's demonic brother, Trilogy, after the latter decided to make a name for himself to gain Trigon's favor. Trilogy predictably lost, but his attack was secretly orchestrated by Trigon to force Evil Raven to embrace her dark evolution into the Dark-Winged Queen.
In Titans #11, readers are given a crash introduction to Vanadia (no relation to the European country of the same name in the DC Universe's Blackhawks comics), a woman named Vanessa who dreamed of becoming a Titan from an early age. Through intense physical training, Vanessa reached the peak of her athletic and fighting ability, but it wasn't enough.
Years ago, when Vanessa answered a call for volunteers at STAR Labs by Dr. Morrow, she hastily agreed to undergo experiments to test Morrow's super soldier drugs. The drugs worked until they didn't, and Vanessa's heart gave out.
Now, Dr. Morrow resurrects Vanessa's brain in his most advanced android body yet, with all the powers of the Titans. Codenamed Vanadia, Morrow, under orders from Amanda Waller, reprograms Vanadia's mind to believe the Titans have been replaced by evil robot-demon lookalikes. Vanadia sets out to destroy the Titans, believing she's doing the right thing.
Meanwhile, Nightwing gets a surprising personal alert to meet in the Titans' Tower training room. He's instructed to utter the words Circ-En-Arrh to activate a protected corner of his mind so he can have a private talk with himself about growing suspicions concerning Raven.
Suddenly, Vanadia attacks the Tower, matching and overcoming the Titans with her arsenal of powers. Even Evil Raven is surprised when she's run through with a blade. The issue ends with Evil Raven briefly retreating to an alternate dimension to retrieve a powerful weapon for round 2.
What's great about Titans #11? Vanadia shows potential as an Amazo-styled villain with a human twist. There are few people more dangerous than an obsessed fan who turns into a hater, so the mix of overpowered cybernetics and unhinged rage could lead to interesting conflicts.
What's not so great about Titans #11? Nightwing intentionally creating his version of Zur-En-Arrh is a monumentally dangerous choice, inconsistent with Nightwing's character. Tom Taylor appears to be setting up a scenario where Raven can't read his thoughts, but the point of a partitioned consciousness is to hide secrets from yourself. Raven could still read his thoughts, his suspicions, and his concerns.
In effect, Taylor tries to get in on the Zur-En-Arrh concept that created Failsafe in Batman, but to elevate Nightwing above Batman by showing how to use the mind trick the "right way," he's using the concept in exactly the wrong way. Oy! DC can't get Taylor away from Nightwing fast enough.
How's the Art? Lucas Meyer's art is perfectly good in this issue. Frankly, when considering two artists who are drawing Nightwing in complementary titles, I prefer Meyer's art in Titans over Bruno Redondo's style in Nightwing. Meyer gives readers a solid mix of detail, pop, energy, and drama.
About The Reviewer: Gabriel Hernandez is the Publisher & EIC of ComicalOpinions.com, a comics review site dedicated to indie, small, and mid-sized publishers.
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Final Thoughts
Titans #11 introduces a new robot villain with strong potential, shows that Nightwing is becoming reckless (not in a good way), and sets the stage for Evil Raven to continue her descent into darkness. Tom Taylor's script hits all the right technical notes, but he misses big on the creative choices, and Meyer's art is solid.
6.8/10
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This issue isn't good but on the subject of Cir en rah or whatever, I think it's not supposed to be exactly like Zur. It's just a conditioning maybe hypnotic in nature that has Nightwing record and investigate on a subconscious level without him thinking about it and then informing his conscious levels when it's safe to come to a conclusion about what he has observed, so basically we all observe certain subjects subconsciously but mostly have no control over it while Nightwing has trained his and controls it in a militant fashion like a mind palace and it's all the same ego or personality or consciousness just different levels of it( I think Raven wouldn't be able to read what he doesn't think about but is just observing correct? His analysis comes after the alarm until then it is dormant). Zur is a complete different personality who takes control of Bruce's body and senses completely without any consent and has a thought of his own like an AI program given autonomy which is why it is out of character for Batman to attempt it on his own psyche rather than creating something like brother eye or failsafe and I have been saying for months now while others mostly praise that aspect. So as someone who hates Zur, I understand recoiling from anything that comes close to that concept but even though I don't think this run is good, I have to be fair about it and defend this one aspect. In fact I think given ways to counteract having mind readers around, this is one of the effective ways and what Batman would actually have done instead of Zur and then taught it to his students. I think Taylor just understood the Zur assignment better than Zdarsky. Apart from that this issue as always lacks character and the ones introduced are lame.
ReplyDeleteI think one of the ways to illustrate the difference is that the "Cir character" tells nightwing what he, nightwing himself has attempted and basically is how Nightwing makes sense of the information and really isn't a character and also Nightwing is the one doing all the work and Cir is just an alarm in his mind awakening his investigation so Cir is just a program giving structure to his mind for a specific purpose which is why I think it's a form of conditioning that doesn't think for its own and can be broken while when Zur takes over, he is Zur not Batman and never refers to himself as Bruce or Batman rather Zur as in a different ego with its own motives and isn't a simple conditioning technique or even hypnotism but rather a break of psyche in two. (Again why someone like Bruce who has extensive knowledge of criminology would not attempt it or try to at least and again why I think many fans don't understand what Zur existing actually means, it isn't cool and mastery over mind cause it indicates a a very veryyyy high degree of imbalance in mental health in Bruce for him to basically not be able to control his actions with his mind and him not having full control of his mind's potential the ways it usually is implied in the past. He he doesn't have this condition or couldn't have and been able to achieve what he has these years or maybe they know and just don't care. Aside from all these if Batman was ineffective he wouldn't train another personality to take over him and to do a better job, he would either get better or retire or face the punishment he thinks he should, we have seen this.)
DeleteI think Taylor's weakness on Nightwing is the constant competition to try and show Dick is "better than Batman" instead of allowing Dick Grayson to be Dick Grayson. As a result, a writer whose strenght is "moments" gets tangled in the tick marks of competition, instead of working on plot progression and narrative techniques.
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