Teen Titans #18 Review

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Reviewer: Jesse Baker
Story Title: Titans Tomorrow: Part II

Written by: Geoff Johns
Penciled by: Mike McKone
Inked by: Marlo Alquiza
Colored by: Jeromy Cox
Lettered by: Comicraft
Editor: Eddie Berganza
Publisher: DC Comics

The cliché that is “time travel” as a plot device is one that most if not all comics end up using at one time or another. And in the case of the current Teen Titans storyline, we get one of the most banal interpretations of time travel through the form of the “heroes meeting their future selves and seeing how they end up turning evil” cliché.

In this issue, as seen by its cover, Robin meets up with his future self and finds out he’s destined to become an ultra-violent blaspheme version of Batman. I have no clue as to how this story fits in the current messed up status of Robin’s continuity, but I would assume it takes place before Identity Crisis, which is ultra-cryptically mentioned by Robin’s future self as being responsible for the changes that have happened to the Titans as to the reason why they’ve gone off the rails.

Of course, this raises a whole new can of worms with regards to Tim Drake. If the death of his father is one of the main reasons for his future self’s fall from grace, why not warn his future self of the past? Given that one of the themes of the issue is whether or not the future Titans will allow their past selves to retain any memories of their futures once they go back to their proper time, why not address the notion of future Tim wanting to change his past? This key plot point gets lost in this issue in the way that Geoff seems to instead want to service the cliché of the Titans being at odds with their future selves who deep down LIKE what they’ve become and don’t want to be negated from existence and replaced with non-grim and gritty versions of themselves.

The issue also throws us more plot twists. We learn that a second Titans group exists, one that may not have gone down the path of despair that the main group did. And we also find that one Titan may have found love with one of the team’s enemies in the future, a love that may play a critical role in how this current storyline plays out.