Titans vol. 1: Out of the Shadows

Nightwing.  The Flash.  Beast Boy.  Donna Troy.  Starfire.  Cyborg.  Raven.  They once made up the most powerful group of teenage superheroes in the DCU.  These days they’re looking to step up in a world that’s currently without a Justice League.  So when the giant ape known as Titano attacks a nuclear power plant, that’s something they’ve got covered.  Same goes for when the rainforest in Borneo suddenly catches on fire, and when their former nemesis Brother Blood reappears calling himself Brother Eternity and pledges that he’s turned over a new leaf.  Still, nothing can prepare them for when they show up at their base one day and find the corpse of The Flash with a post-mortem message asking them to solve his murder.

“The New Teen Titans” was a massively successful book for DC at a time when it needed it the most in the early 80’s.  Despite its historical significance, I’ve never actually read any “Titans” comics and that’s on me.  The reason I’m starting now is because this latest relaunch is being written by Tom Taylor, who has shown that he can do consistently good work with any DC character.

What’s here is more “fine” compared to his work on “Nightwing” and “Superman:  Son of Kal-El.”  Where those titles come up with clever ways to have their characters address change in a genre that’s famously resistant to it, the stories in “Titans” are more familiar superhero stuff.  We get to see them (mostly Beast Boy) come up with clever ways to tackle the problems at hand, and I’ll admit that it’s actually nice to see a team where everyone actually gets along and is mostly smart about dealing with obvious threats.

However, if you’re looking for stories that surprise or turn genre tropes on their heads, you won’t find them here.  The closest you’ll get is the reveal about Brother Eternity at the end – because we all knew he was up to something.  Nicola Scott does right by these stories as she shows that she can deliver well-staged conversation scenes, along with over-the-top and even bizarre superhero action.  It’s too bad that she won’t be sticking around for future arcs, but at least we’ve got Ivan Reis coming in to illustrate the big event story “Beast World” next time.  So we’ll see if the writing and the art are taken to the next level then.