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: June 18, 2024
Titans #12 pits the team against Vanadia when the Amazo-tech cyborg with multiple powers and the mind of a deceased Titans fan believes the real team has been replaced by evil machines. Whoops!
Is Titans #12 Good?
When last we left the perennial team of sidekicks in Titans #11, we learned the origin story of their latest foe, Vanadia. Vanessa was a girl who grew up idolizing the Titans and aspired to be a part of the team one day. After years of rigorous training, she agreed to participate in a dangerous experiment that would grant her superpowers. Sadly, Vanessa lost her life due to unforeseen side effects. Years later, T.O. Morrow resurrects Vanessa in an Amazo-tech cyborg body, reprograms her senses to see the Titans as villains, and sends the newly-christened Vanadia (no relation to the DC country) after the Titans by Amanda Waller's command.
In Titans #12, the battle commences. The Titans quickly assume a defensive stance to resist Vanadia's attacks, giving Cyborg time to crack Vanadia's network defenses. Meanwhile, Evil Raven is still in Oblivion retrieving the weapon she confiscated from Trinity in a former issue. There, Evil Raven bickers with Good Raven about her unusually strong feelings for the Titans and her desire to protect them.
Back at the Tower, Cyborg deduces how to crack the AR program that convinces Vanadia that the Titans are evil robots. The Titans restrain the robot long enough for Cyborg to plug in and turn the program off, restoring Vanadia's true senses and diffusing the situation.
Suddenly, Evil Raven teleports into the Tower, unaware that the fight is over, and instantly destroys Vanadia. The Titans are momentarily shocked by the "death," but they soon decide to take the fight to the person who sent Vanadia to them - T.O. Morrow.
After an overwhelming show of force and the confiscation of incriminating files, Morrow is taken into custody. Later, Nightwing privately talks to Evil Raven about what happened, and she attacks him for shielding his mind from her.
What's great about Nightwing #115? Between this comic and Nightwing, This is turning out to be an atypical week for Tom Taylor. This issue has plenty of action, character moments, plot movement for the arc, and the sense that this title is moving in a purposeful direction with a goal. It's a shame Taylor squandered nearly a year's worth of issues to get to this point, but better late than never.
What's not so great about Nightwing #115? Taylor's script moves briskly, but that's partly due to the ease with which Vanadia is defeated. For a cyborg with a human mind and a body comprised of an amalgam of Amazo and Apokaliptian technology, Vanadia should have put up a more overwhelming fight for the Titans.
How's the art? Lucas Meyer's art is perfectly good, giving readers an eyeful of cool action moments and visually engaging panel designs.
That said, Adriano Lucas's coloring choices are glaringly harsh and off-putting. There's a fine line between boldly vivid and ugly. Lucas's color selection tips more to the latter than the former.
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 #12 delivers action, character moments, and plot movement that leads readers to Absolute Power and the ascension of the Dark-Winged Queen in a decently constructed issue. Tom Taylor turns in an uncharacteristically decent issue in an otherwise lackluster run, and the art is generally good, barring off-putting color choices.
7/10
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ReplyDeleteThis is Taylor Titans, I'm sure in the next few issues whatever plot holes will be hastily filled and Raven's off behavior not being questioned by her longtime friends and teammates will be explained away by magic manipulation or them playing dumb.
However, as it stands the Titans should be way more upset that Raven, the demon hybrid who has always been big on self-restraint and pacifism for hers and everyone else's sakes, straight up murdered an opponent. One that we the audience knew was a victim as well as the Titans coming to this realization. Another hero using lethal force against a threat, especially one proving to also be a brainwashed victim, would be a huge deal in most superhero books, especially from the least likely member but here on the supposedly "better than the League because they are bestest friends" Titans nope. Even when it was just Good Raven she pulled some morally questionable behavior that no one brought up like banishing Brother Eternity to the Phantom Zone. This is just the shitty luck of Raven fans where DC seems to be trying their damnest to make everything about her inconsistent from her personality to appearance. Hell, ever since Taylor Titans started she has not really been Raven, she's been Beast Boy's Hot Goth GF as that has been what her entire character has revolved around and remained consistent in other books. I'm still pissed Beast World made it seem she would not kill Waller solely for Gar's morality even when he's always been shown to be the most likely to lash out and vengeful even in Taylor's own run with those men he thought were responsible for the forest fire. And I don't care, that ship has always been poorly written especially for Raven and is pushed so much purely for fan service. The pacing is also not helping and really feels like Taylor killing time til Absolute Power ends and hopefully he is off this book soon. The Titans deserve to be treated as more of a big deal but this book is just killing time and shallow warm fuzzies moments much like Taylor's Nightwing but at the very least something is happening
I think the reason they bought Raven's excuse was that she said she didn't sense any mind or presence from Vanadia or whatever her name was therefore didn't know she was sentient but I would still say they should have taken issue with the way she sidelined all of them by force. Still I think this issue was better than the previous ones though this title as a whole is still not good because these people were supposedly the new JL but they still act like they are barely over the teenage years and I don't see them helping battle worldwide threats which makes wonder what is the world's state now then? Or did those situations only happen when JL were around??? The only JL level threat so far has been the Beast world event that they took heavy losses from that as well.
DeleteThat does seem like what she went with at the end of the issue with Dick but still her initial attack and how some of her teammates were quick to excuse it when Raven has been known for non-violent solutions and could have handled the android in other ways doesn't sit well. Again, part of it is overall frustration with how Raven's character tends to be handled
DeleteAnd you are right, this team is suppose to be the new and supposedly better JL but other than Beast World there hasn't been much actual League level threats. There's still whenever Dark Raven and Trigon finally attack but even still no of those previous stories has held a light to the original Terror of Trigon arc. It very much looks like the actual JL will finally be back after AP which I'm okay with but the Titans have barely done anything worthwhile and instead mainly retread their usual storylines.
This whole Dawn of DC era has felt like being on pause for something else. The stories mostly have either barely started going somewhere or were filler, the few which went somewhere were at best average quality. But it is going to end September and then we are going to start another another era. It kind of gets exhausting because they are reboots without actually rebooting. All the baggage of horrible writing of the previous few reboots is still there while starting from a new point and not doing anything to address those. I wish they would do something like rebirth instead of this infinite frontier, dawn of dc, future state or whatever phases they have been doing or at least don't reboot and try to fix these stories by either addressing them or some retconning.
DeleteIt really does feel like it. Dawn of DC really has an unorganized filler feel to like they are still recovering from the abrupt canceling of Future State and Infinite Frontier also going nowhere. One good thing I can say about DC is they honestly do seem to be building up to Absolute Power so maybe there will at least be some payoff. I do hope whatever is coming is more like Rebirth, which feels like the last time DC mostly had their act together, were they actually try to streamline and make sense of continuity instead of "everything's canon but not really maybe" mess we have been getting.
DeleteOne thing I can say is that at least I am glad they are willing to reboot and retcon some bad stories and sometimes even change course, the complete opposite of Marvel that just doubles down and never acknowledge the problems with the direction and writing. I have not been able to read anything Marvel for years, their stories really are horrible with no redeeming features. Granted DC isn't doing that much better and they also double down but sometimes they don't.
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