By: J.T. Krul (writer), Nicola Scott (penciller), Doug Hazlewood (inker), Jason Wright (colorist)
The Story: If all you know about Hinduism is the Kama Sutra, let me tell you—there’s nastier where that came from.
The Review: In a lot of ways, this current round of Teen Titans has been around each other a pretty long time. Kid Flash, Red Robin, and Superboy have worked together long before they even became Young Justice, when they were still known as Impulse, Robin, and…Superboy. This crew has experienced Raven’s rebirth, Superboy’s clone rage, Kid Flash’s sudden age progression and death, and Superboy’s saving the universe—and death.
So it’s discouraging to see how tepid their interaction has been on this series so far. A lot of what they have to say just goes through the motions of personality, but without any real life behind it: “Wonder Girl’s lasso. She wouldn’t leave it behind. Not ever.” “No sign of her…but there’s a lot of dark cloud cover limiting visibility.” There’s just something distant and kind of clinical about these lines, making it feel like they’re strangers talking to each other.
The scene where the Titans search through the demon forest and muse on which of them could be the modern-day Rama comes closest to getting an actual team dynamic. Unfortunately, it’s mostly between Ravager, who we all know is Krul’s favorite, and his original character Solstice. While the two girls supply most of the energy in this issue (“So this Ramen guy—” “Rama.” “Whatever.”), their teammates’ responses never fail to underwhelm (“Me?” “Huh?”).
Certainly they get no help from Raven, who has lately become a major buzzkill to every issue, increasingly obsessed over her own dark nature. She kind of has an excuse in this arc, as being in a demonic dimension likely brings out the worst (read: histrionics) in her. That doesn’t make you stop wishing she’d just get her breakdown over with already. Then maybe she can move on and go back to the eager-to-please girl trying to get her act together when this title first started.
Character fluff aside, Krul delivers a promising plot, which draws heavily on Hindu mythology for most of its groundwork. It’s a nice change of pace from the largely Western-based myths that populate comics, as Solstice remarks. For all that setup, though, you still get some rather generic demon creatures—for now. It remains to be seen if the real big baddie turns out more than your usual evil god trying to get out of Hell free.
Now, if you so choose, you can nitpick at every little plot hole in the average comic book until the story is incapable of floating, but mostly, you just let them go and enjoy yourself. There is one major plot hole you can’t ignore in this issue: how the heck do the Titans manage to activate that bridge stone to the island of the demon kingdom? They just find it, and without any instructions whatsoever, teleport in, simple and clean. How? How??
Once again, the brightest part of this issue isn’t Solstice (ba-dum-ch!), but Scott’s art, which gives more depth to the characters than the writing does. You have to love how much detail she puts into their design and features, giving them more distinction than their dialogue.
Conclusion: Weak character-writing defeats much any attempt this title tries to make at bringing some energy—for a team of teens, it feels like they’re already experiencing their mid-life crisis.
Grade: C+
– Minhquan Nguyen
Some Musings: – I like how Red Robin tells everyone the creatures are weak between the eyes—and no one goes for the eyes. Oh, the joys of being leader.
– “That is awful.” Seriously, Ravager showing some actual emotions isn’t a total tip-off that something isn’t right with her?