Writer: Judd Winick
Artist: Ian Churchill
Publisher: DC Comics

I sometimes wonder what DC would do without group books. JSA and JLA are two of their top sellers, Teen Titans has enjoyed a great run over the last few years, and almost all of their major Mini-Series focus on the Justice League of America (Identity Crisis, Kingdom Come, and Justice to name a few). So I can understand the thinking on the part of DC editorial when they came up with Titans.

Picking up where the Teen Titans East special for a few months ago left off, Titans brings back together Beast Boy, Starfire, Donna Troy, Cyborg, Nightwing, Raven, and The Flash (Wally West) better known as the original Teen Titans. Each one is attacked in the places they feel the safest by legions of demonic monsters, and in the end they are all pulled together to answer the question of who killed the Titans East (See the aforementioned special). In the end it’s decided Raven’s father, the demon Trigon is back, and out for some ass-whuppin’.

There are things I like about Titans and things I don’t like. First off, I love the art. In spite of the regular thrashing he gets from the internet “experts,” I have been a big Churchill fan since his run on Supergirl, and have honestly found the book lacking since he left. Titans is full of action, and big bright splash pages, and ties into stories from Countdown and 52 as we get updates on the likes of Starfire, and Donna Troy.

The things I don’t like about Titans are two-fold. First, the ending of the book is very anti-climactic. It features our cast, hanging around a murder scene looking kinda bummed and acting as if the return of Trigon is sad more than anything. There was no big reveal or cliffhanger that makes me count the days until Issue 2. The other problem I had was more of a question than anything. Do we really need this book right now? JLA, JSA, Teen Titans, Trinity, and on and on. It seems like the only books worth buying from DC are group books, and to add another to mix is a decent marketing strategy, but in the end, I think that Titans may be the attempt to squeeze blood from the stone.

In the end though, I think that I would be willing to give Titans a couple more issues before I make the final call to add or delete it to my Pullbox. As long as issue #2 ratchets up the intensity a bit, and Churchill’s pencils stay solid, this book could be another hit in DC’s group line.

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Tags: DC Comics, The Starting Gun, Titans

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 24th, 2008 at 10:17 pm and is filed under The Starting Gun. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.