Teen Titans 41
“Titans Around the World Part IV”
Published by: DC Comics
Writer: Geoff Johns
Pencillers: Paco Diaz & Ryan Benjamin
Inkers: Jonathan Glapion, Michael Lopez, Edwin Rosell, Saleem Crawford, Vincente Cifuentes
Colorist: Tanya & Richard Horie
This issue is not a make or break moment for this book, but I’ve felt Titans has been largely listless since the OYL flip. There have good to great bits here and there, but as a complete package something felt”¦amiss. This installment shows the promise of moving away from that feeling, but I still have some issues that tripped me up from recommending it unequivocally.
The most visible of these is the art. Simply put, it was not all great and two different pencillers did little to help that. At least with one, it would have been consistent in its faults. With two, just when you get used to the faults of one, the next one picks up with a whole new set of shortcomings.
Perhaps it is these shortcomings that led Johns down the dangerous rode we call “telling, not showing”. It is a trap that Johns has largely avoided despite the number of times he uses first person narration captions. However, in this case, Jericho seems to be telling us everything we should be seeing, but don’t. This is especially the case when he waxes philosophical about these “new” Titans versus the Titans of yore that he belonged to.
At other times, Jericho’s narration seems”¦needlessly in-depth. For instance, at point, Kid Devil goes (for lack of a better term) “nova” and the caption reads “The red devil goes white. We all back away.” The first sentence”¦okay. A little bit of “telling, not showing”, but not too bad. But the second? “We all back away”? Narration should give us a peek inside a characte’s head, it should not be a moment by moment mirror of the action on the page. This line definitely should found its way to the cutting room floor.
On the other hand, there are a lot of good signs here. The in-fighting and henpecking all but disappears this time out, which is certainly a good thing. I am all for interpersonal issues within a team (I did grow up a mostly Marvel fan, after all), but the volume of the conflict amongst the Titans had reached such a cacophonous pitch that it was becoming difficult to like anyone.
The Jericho/Ravager first meeting/family reunion is presented with a light touch. The final scene of the book between the two is touching, but not syrupy. This could have gone way over on the melodrama scale, but ends up as a restrained (and thus, more effective) bit of the book.
I also thought Raven’s discomfort with Kid Devil was well-played. The bit about his soul being in danger seemed a bit too flashing red sign of foreshadowing to me, but otherwise it made sense and piled yet another problem on poor, hapless Eddie’s plate.
Miss Martian remains a lot of fun and her white/green Martian bit is a nice loose end for future issues to tackle. Of the OYG Titans we’ve met, she is easily the most interesting and best developed. I’m glad to see that, unless the cover is lying, she’ll be hanging around for at least a little while to come.
