Contains New Teen Titans Vol. 2 #24-31, Annual #2 (August 1986 – May 1987)
Written by Marv Wolfman (#24-31, Annual #2)
Co-Plotted by John Byrne (Annual #2)
Dialogue/Guest Written by Paul Levitz (#28-31)
Pencilled by Eduardo Barretto (#24-26, 28-31), Kerry Gammill (#26-27), John Byrne (Annual #2), Jim Baikie (Annual #2)
Inked by Romeo Tanghal (#24-31), Eduardo Barretto (#26), José Luis García-Lopez (Annual #2), Jim Baikie (Annual #2)
Coloured by Adrienne Roy (#24-31, Annual #2)
Spoilers from thirty-six to thirty-seven years ago
The last volume in this series left the Titans in a rough spot. The team had effectively broken up, with Wonder Girl questioning her own leadership, and Vic badly injured. Raven had apparently joined the Church of Brother Blood, and after being brainwashed, so had Nightwing. Starfire was returning to Earth with a broken heart, but to what, exactly? Marv Wolfman had disassembled the team pretty neatly, and the Church was preparing to resurrect Blood, perhaps in Dick’s body?
These trades collect comics that were never written for the trade, but because I’ve been reading them pretty close together, it hasn’t really been a problem. This one looks interesting, although I’m starting to question how long I’m going to keep this going for (I don’t have any of the newer volumes in my collection yet, and at some point, I’m going to catch up to a period where I was actually reading the Titans).
This book features the following characters:
Teen Titans:
- Robin (Jason Todd; #24, 26-31)
- Wonder Girl (Donna Troy; #24-31, Annual #2)
- Hawk (Hank Hall; #24)
- Speedy (Roy Harper; #24)
- Aqualad (Garth; #24-26)
- Flash (Wally West; #24-26, 28-31)
- Jericho (Joseph Wilson; #24-31, Annual #2)
- Changeling (Garfield Logan; #24-31, Annual #2)
- Cyborg (Vic Stone; #24-31, Annual #2)
- Nightwing (Dick Grayson; #26, 28-31, Annual #2)
- Raven (#26, 28-31)
- Starfire (K’oriandr; #26-31, Annual #2)
Villains:
- Gorgon (Andonis Bal, The Hybrid; #24-26)
- Harpi (Angelika Bal, The Hybrid; #24-26)
- Mento (Steve Dayton; #24-26)
- Pterodon (The Hybrid; #24-26)
- Behemoth (Taro Raiden, The Hybrid; #25-26)
- Mother Mayhem (May Bennett, Church of Blood; #26, 28-31, Annual #2)
- The Confessor (Church of Blood; #26-30, Annual #2)
- Twister (#26-27)
- Houngan (Brotherhood of Evil; #26-27)
- Plasmus (Brotherhood of Evil; #26-27)
- Warp (Brotherhood of Evil; #26-27)
- Monsieur Mallah (Brotherhood of Evil; #26-27)
- Phobia (Brotherhood of Evil; #26-27)
- The Brain (Brotherhood of Evil; #26-27)
- Sister Slaughter (Church of Blood; #27-29)
- Brother Bedlam (Church of Blood; #28-30)
- Brother Blood (Church of Blood; #28-31, Annual #2)
Guest Stars
- Robotman (Cliff Steele, Doom Patrol; #28-31)
- Skyman (Sylvester Pemberton, Infinity Inc.; #29-31)
- Booster Gold (Michael Carter, Justice League; #29-30)
- Doctor Midnight II (Beth Chapel, Infinity Inc.; #29-30)
- Batman (Bruce Wayne; #29-31)
- Green Lantern (John Stewart; #29-31)
- Green Lantern (Katma Tui; #29-31)
- Superman (Clark Kent; #30-31)
- Dr. Light (Kimiyo Hoshi; Annual #2)
Supporting Characters:
- Dr. Sarah Charles (STAR Labs; #24, 29)
- Jillian Jackson (#24, 29)
- Adeline Wilson (Searchers, Inc; #25-26)
- Bethany Snow (reporter; #26, 28-29)
- Azrael (#28-31)
- Frances Kane (#28-31)
- Arella (Raven’s mother; #28-30)
- Terry Long (Donna’s husband; #29-30, Annual #2)
- Dr. Jenet Klyburn (STAR Labs; #29)
- Tawny Young (reporter; #31)
- Jenny Long (Donna’s stepdaughter; Annual #2)
Let’s see what happened in the comics, with some commentary as I go:
- A little while ago, a pair of married archeologists from the Indiana Jones school were excavating part of Mount Olympus, which is owned by Dayton, Inc., apparently, and they came across a large statue of a gorgon with a massive ruby on her head. When Andonis removed the ruby, the snake heads on the statue started moving, and Andonis and Angelika were bathed in pink energy. Their workmen removed them from the cave before it collapsed. Two days later, they were taken to Steve Dayton, who was now in a wheelchair after something that happened in Swamp Thing. Dayton had decided to emulate his former mentor, Niles Caulder, and form his own version of the Doom Patrol. His plan was to infuse the two archeologists with Promethium, making them into Hybrids, whatever that means. In the present, Donna is meeting with her new Titans team – Robin, Hawk, Speedy, Aqualad, and the Flash. Robin says he’s departing, as is Speedy. Hawk also wants to go, but it’s because he doesn’t like how gentle everyone is. Flash declares that he wants to stick around, and Aqualad decides to do the same. Jericho turns up, making Donna very happy. They all head to the athletic facilities and talk about what’s happened with Raven and Nightwing. Changeling, Cyborg, and Dr. Sarah Charles are in line at a bank when some guys decide to rob it. Our heroes take a couple of pages to deal with them, and then feel pretty good about themselves. A girl flirts with Gar, and Vic and Gar talk about getting in touch with Donna and putting the team back together. Gar runs into his old girlfriend, Jillian (not that she’s named in this issue), Vic wins at three card monty, and Sarah gets paged by STAR Labs, and tells the heroes to head there. They find the rest of the Titans waiting for them, and like that, the team is back together. A little while ago, a small group of terrorists hijacked an airplane, forcing it to land in Qurac. A group of Israeli soldiers attacked, and the only terrorist left on the plane forced its pilot to take off. A single Israeli captain made it onboard, and after he shot the terrorist, the dying terrorist shot him in the back, causing him to fall out of the plane. His dead body was retrieved by some fishermen who were paid to turn the body over to some men from Dayton Inc. Later, Dayton used his powers to do something to the body. We see the transformations he’s made to Andonis and Angelika, turning them into Gorgon and Harpi, although Harpi’s transformation has left her in pain. The Titans are heading somewhere in their jet, as Donna and Vic talk about their time apart. Wally chats with Joe, with Gar interpreting. Vic finds out that there’s something following them – it’s a being he describes as “a living human pterodactyl”, who happens to be blue. The creature catches their jet and starts ripping away at it, trashing the fuel line. Vic tries to keep things flying, but the being takes out one wing. Wally can’t figure out who would send such a creature after them. Gar leaves the jet to try to fight back, turning into a pterodactyl himself. They fight, and he recognizes the intelligence of the creature. It heads back to the jet and tears apart the tail. Gar turns into an elephant to knock the creature out of the sky, and then flies down to deal with it. It’s unconscious. Vic tries to avoid buildings and bring the jet down in the river. We see it touch down and sink. Dayton tells Harpi and Gorgon that the Titans lived, and captured Pteradon, the fourth member of their team (I assume he’s the dead Israeli). He tells the other two to go get Pteradon, and to kill Gar while doing it.
- The Titans’ jet crashes into the Hudson River, and everyone inside it gets bashed around a bit. It comes to rest on the river’s bottom, and then starts to fill up with water. Garth escapes easily, and starts swimming back and forth to the surface, bringing down mouthfuls of oxygen for his friends. Vic, who is trapped, extends his arms to help free Donna, who dives back to help pull him. She notices that something is moving the jet – Garth has called a pair of whales to help them out. At the Tower, Gar tries to interrogate Pteradon, who talks about having been turned into the monstrosity he is now by Mento. The others return, and take a break to get cleaned up after swimming through so much pollution (I forgot what the Hudson was like in the 80s). At Dayton’s base, he prepares to transform a massive sumo wrestler into his next Hybrid. He commands Gorgon and Harpi to go rescue Pteradon and to kill Changeling. The Titans try to get information out of Pteradon, and he lets them know that Steve Dayton was crippled, and lost what was left of his mind in an issue of Swamp Thing. Gar has a hard time accepting this, and the team starts to talk about how to deal with this threat. An alarm sounds, and Flash heads to the roof, where he finds Harpi flying towards him. They fight, and Wally falls off the roof. Gar, shaped as an eagle, swoops in to save him, and Harpi starts firing her eye-beams at them. Vic tries to jump on her, but she tosses him into the river again. Donna catches her with her lasso, and Garth dives into the river, again, to help Vic, who is so heavy he’s already sunk. As Donna wrangles Harpi, the woman says that she wants to help them, but is too afraid of Dayton, who can control her body remotely. For a moment, it looks like Vic has drowned, but he’s fine. Joseph figures out that something’s up, and finds Gorgon freeing Pteradon. He evades Gorgon’s blasts, but isn’t strong enough to physically fight him off. Wally tries to help him, but gets caught by Gorgon’s snake heads, and is turned into stone. The two Hybrid are about to escape, but Gar rushes in shaped as a rhino and attacks. He catches Pteradon again, while Donna ties up Harpi. With all of the Hybrid their prisoners, and a bag over Gorgon’s head, they try to get Dayton’s location out of them. Pteradon starts to speak of a lab on Long Island, but Dayton takes control of his mind, giving him the strength to free himself. He frees Harpi, who frees Gorgon. Joe makes eye contact with him, but isn’t able to take over his body. Gorgon turns Gar, who is shaped like a panther, into stone. Pteradon grabs Gorgon and they fly off. Harpi apologizes on her way out, but Garth jumps on her back, talking about how he’s been a fool since Tula died, and needs to commit himself to heroism. Harpi tries to shake him off, but he points out that he’ll die if he falls from this height, and I guess agrees to be her prisoner. The other Titans check on each other. The male Hybrid return to Dayton, and meet Behemoth, his newest creation. Following Dayton’s commands, Behemoth attacks Pteradon, giving him a beating. He then does the same to Gorgon. The rest of the team has gone to see Adeline Wilson, for tea and to figure out where Dayton might be. Her employee, Amber, discovers a warehouse registered in Rita Farr’s name, and Adeline says she’ll send people to check it out. Dayton senses a helicopter above his warehouse, and sends Harpi to attack them, with the intention of revealing their position. The copter flies off when she approaches and fires her beams at them. Dayton knows she didn’t want to kill them, and swears that when the Titans come, he’ll kill them all. At the same time, Donna shares that she has a plan.
- Issue twenty-six opens with a news broadcast by Bethany Snow about what’s happening at the Church of Blood, including their plans to resurrect Brother Blood in three nights. The footage shows Nightwing and Raven enthusiastically worshiping with Mother Mayhem. The Titans watch this, and want to go rescue their friends, who are clearly brainwashed. Gar reminds them that Mento and the Hybrids have captured Aqualad, and feels they should do something about that too. Gar admits that he’s confused as to what they should tackle first, and wishes Dick was there. This makes him realize they should go get him first, as he believes that Brother Blood is the more immediate threat. Adeline Wilson is with them, and she suggests they get more people to help them. We see that Mento and the Hybrid are somehow watching this scene unfold, and Dayton is furious that the Titans aren’t coming after him, which is what he wants. He has Garth trussed up over some water, but then decides to toss him in instead of letting him dehydrate to death. Pteradon and the other Hybrids push back on Dayton’s plans, but in such a way that Dayton sees them as loyal, and decides not to kill Garth. The only Titan Donna was able to add to the team is Robin, but then Starfire returns. Everyone is happy to see her, and she explains her point of view of why she and Dick took a break. Now she wants to help rescue him. The team decides to start looking in Zandia, so they all head out in their jet. When they arrive in Zandia, they basically just move towards the Church’s main cathedral, fighting everyone they see. The Flash is not with them, adn this is not mentioned anywhere, which seems odd. Confessor is running the show, and he sends out more troops. As the fight gets more intense, the damage toll increases. Gar gets hurt saving a kid from a falling wall, so the team retreats to the campsite they set up. They gather around a campfire (wouldn’t it be warmer in their jet?) and plan on getting inside the castle to find out where Blood is being resurrected. A group of people I don’t recognize meet to discuss what’s happening with the Church. We learn that they’ve been granted protection by Brother Blood (are they villains I don’t recognize or remember from earlier volumes?). They want to make sure the Teen Titans are stopped, and decide they need the Brotherhood of Evil to come and help them. They want someone to go get them, and a young woman with hideously deformed features, named Twister, volunteers. The others are uncomfortable around her – she’s an eighteen year old that Blood performed experiments on – but they agree to send her. The Titans wake up at their campsite and notice that someone is trying to leave Zandia on a motorcycle (I’m not sure why this is a big deal). It’s Twister, and her powers make their bodies, or reality, warp all over the place (or they just think that’s happening). She escapes them, and we next see her in Japan, where she finds the Brotherhood of Evil in a room above an opium den. She attacks the Yakuza they’re with, and then tells the Brotherhood they need to go to Zandia. The Titans approach the main town from a river or lake. Donna wants Robin to hang back, while the others prepare to assault the castle that is Blood’s base. Troops with tanks are waiting for them, and the fight is intense from the start. Vic jumps into the building, with Joseph riding inside him. Together, they find the remote control they need in a desk. Donna and Gar head for the Cathedral on a hill while Kory goes back to help Vic and Joey. They plan on destroying the office they’re in, but then the Brotherhood appears in one of Warp’s portals.
- The Brotherhood instantly attacks Kory, Vic, and Joseph, with Mallah throwing Kory through a wall and Plasmus getting Vic in a burning bear hug. Joey takes control of Phobia, helping to free Vic, but Houngan uses his electronic voodoo doll (we should talk about how problematic this character is some time) to hurt Phobia enough that Joey leaves her and gets knocked out by Mallah. Vic crawls to the hole in the wall Kory made, and jumps out, badly injured. Donna has Kory, who is badly hurt, and takes her to Gar and Robin. They escape on Gar’s back (he’s a whale), deciding to regroup and come back later. Phobia makes Joseph see a scene where his parents fight over him and kill one another, and this makes him pass out. The Brotherhood talk about their plans, and Brain suggests they use Jericho as bait. The others sit in a cave and argue about what they should do next. Vic makes his way through the city, barely able to move. Warp leads a group of Blood’s people on motorcycles, and they just miss finding Vic. He collapses in the road but is helped up by a nice couple, who decide to take him home, even though doing so risks their lives. The Brain broadcasts a message to the Titans, and they see that he has Joey tied to a lightning rod on top of the government building, just as a storm sets in. He tells them to surrender to save him. Kory insists that the team fight, and Donna struggles with her doubts before making a plan. She flies off to rescue Joey, and tells the others to get to Blood’s church to look for Dick and Raven. Monsieur Mallah carries the Brain through the catacombs beneath Zandia. We learn that Brain only came to help the Church because he wants access to Blood’s pool of blood, because he’s dying. The rest of the Brotherhood and Twister continue to search for Vic. Twister recognizes where she is, and enters her former home. Of course, it’s her family that’s sheltering Vic, and Twister is very confused to feel their love and relief at learning she’s still alive. Vic blasts her and escapes, and when the rest of the Brotherhood come running, Twister lies about where he was to protect her family. Donna flies towards Joey just as the lightning intensifies. She’s able to sever the rod just as lightning strikes, but the bolts keep coming at her as she carries him to the ground. She drops the rod, but it falls straight, piercing the ground so that he’s upside down. She pulls off his blindfold, but isn’t able to make eye contact with him before having to deflect more bolts of lightning. She collapses, but luckily Joey is able to touch her, which also allows him to take over her body (I never knew that), and he flies her away. Mallah and Brain arrive at the blood pool. Kory, Jason, and Gar arrive at Blood’s church just as the Brotherhood does. Sister Slaughter, who I don’t think we’ve met before, tells the Confessor to let the Brotherhood fight the Titans. There’s a battle, and during it, Vic arrives on the scene. He suggests that Kory blast a way in for them, and he enters the church. Brain orders Mallah to put him in the blood pool. Vic fights his way through some Church of Blood goons, while the others keep fighting the Brotherhood. Jason climbs a tree to avoid Plasmus, but he sets it on fire anyway. Kory blasts at Plasmus, threatening to drain herself of all energy while Gar rescues Robin. Plasmus runs, and now the only foe left is Twister. She’s conflicted, but turns her powers on the Titans (who have now been joined by Donna and Joey). Vic plugs himself into the church’s computer systems, using an interface that’s clearly borrowed from R2D2. As he searches for the location of Blood’s main US church and sets the building’s self destruct (why do buildings have self destructs?), Brain is mean to Mallah while he does his bidding. It’s hard to read the Brain and Mallah scenes without thinking about Grant Morrison’s Doom Patrol and the way they portrayed their relationship. As Brain starts to feel stronger, Vic flees the church. He’s had alarms going, so the followers of Blood also flee. The Titans gather and fly off together. Brain insists they stay longer, despite Mallah’s desire to leave, and then the church explodes.
- Annual #2 came out before this, but fits into this part of the story best, I guess, as this is where the editors have placed it. The first story is co-written and drawn by John Byrne, with inks by José Luis García-Lopez. It has a framing sequence that has Donna telling her step-daughter Jenny a bedtime story about the Teen Titans, whom she admits to knowing. It starts with Dr. Light (Dr. Hoshi, not the old Titans villain) being summoned to the San Andreas fault in California by some scientists who are working to ensure that when the “Big One” hits, the earthquake’s damage can be minimized. They’ve uncovered underground chambers that are highly radioactive, and need Light’s help. Starfire and Changeling fly to Titans Tower together, and meet up with Donna, Vic, and Dick. They get a call from Dr. Light, asking for help, as the chamber that she’s uncovered is absorbing her light. There’s an explosion and the team scrambles to their jet and flies as quickly as possible to California. As they approach, they are attacked by a massive robotic pterodactyl. Kory leaves the jet to fight it, and Vic joins her, holding on to the jet with one hand, extended from his body and connected by a steel wire. Kory falls to the ground and hears voices. She discovers Light and the scientists, but needs Donna’s help to lift the slab of rock that’s covering them. They go inside the cavern, and discover other robotic dinosaurs. When one of the scientists touches one, it comes to life and starts rampaging. In LA, we see a guy who is probably supposed to be Marv Wolfman arrive at his new home, just as the robo-dino stomps on it. The Titans figure out that there’s some light beam coming from Easter Island that has something to do with all of this, so Dick, Donna, Gar, and Light head there. Gar finds a hole at the bottom of a dormant volcano, and Light cuts a larger opening. They discover a chamber full of petrified dead aliens that look a lot like the Easter Island statues. Gar finds an active computer bank, and Donna smashes it. Elsewhere, Vic and Kory struggle in their fight with the big T-Rex, but it freezes just as it’s about to smash Vic. Donna explains that the aliens crashed on Earth long ago, and created robot emissaries in the likeness of the dominant lifeforms on Earth, but then they died. Terry hugs Donna when she leaves Jenny’s room, and asks why she didn’t tell a happier story.
- The second story in the Annual, drawn by Jim Baikie, has Mother Mayhem narrating the story of Brother Blood. She talks about how in 1202, Christian Crusaders came to Zandia, spreading mayhem. The people sought refuge in a church, where the priest decided to fight back against the raiders. He chased down a monk and learned that he carried with him the prayer shawl that belonged to Jesus Christ. The priest killed the monk after the monk cursed his blood, licked his blood off his sword, and was immediately bit by a snake. He died for twelve minutes, then came back to life. He led the people of Zandia against the Romans, driving them out of the region. He had the blood of everyone killed in the battle drained into a pit beneath his church and bathed in it. He stayed under the blood for three days, and emerged stronger, declaring himself Brother Blood. Zandia grew under his rule, and his frequent denunciations of traitors helped cement his rule. He was eighty years old but still young. On his one hundredth birthday, he prepared to bathe in the blood again to rejuvenate, but his son killed him and took his place. This cycle, part of the curse, continued through the Second World War, where Hitler refused to interfere with Zandia, despite conquering everything around it. One of Brother Blood’s women brought a young woman named Anna Resik to him, and he ended up marrying her. They had a son together, but this Brother Blood was determined to break the curse this time. When the son was about twelve, he saw his father kill a supposed traitor, and decided that he hated him. One night, he heard chanting and discovered his father going through his blood immersion ritual, to which Blood had added willing sacrifices. The child heard Blood say he’s going to kill his son, so the kid got the mother and they fled. They traveled for a while, and eventually Anna fell in with the Rajah of Qurac, whom she married. The boy had a rough time in Qurac, and ended up fighting with his step-brothers before being sent to England for an education. There, he started something called the Youngblood Society and gained a following. As a young man, he learned that his mother was dying, so he fled to Qurac where he watched her die, and chose to ignore her final words. He sought out the Rajah and killed him (he’d beaten Anna). He returned to Zandia, having decided to kill his father after all. He found the aged Brother Blood about to descend into his pool again, so the young Blood stripped down, dove in the pool, and fought his father. He was no match for his father at first, but was able to impale him with a stalactite, and then submerged in the pool for three days. When he emerged, he took on the name of Brother Blood, and renamed a woman supplicant Mother Mayhem. He took full control of the Church, and now Mother Mayhem finishes her story, talking about how he’s good, unlike his father (despite the fact that nothing has suggested this so far). We see that Mayhem is talking to the Teen Titans (Vic, Kory, Donna, Gar, and Joey), and that she is pregnant. She wants the Titans to leave him alone so he can be resurrected, so her unborn son can kill him and continue the legacy.
- It’s resurrection day for Brother Blood, and it seems that the whole world has tuned in to watch Bethany Snow’s broadcast from the Church of Blood in Washington. Zandia launches some satellites, and Mother Mayhem, flanked by Nightwing and Raven, begins the process. She has Azrael fly over the crowd, talking about how he’s an angel. He flies into the sky, while the crowd starts chanting the word ‘rise’. In the control room, Sister Slaughter activates the satellites so they send light all around Azrael. Dick starts to falter in his conditioning, but Mayhem injects him with something and he becomes a full believer again. We see an image of a fetus, which the control room conversation confirms is a hologram. At Titans’ Tower, Frances Kane arrives, and is angry at Wally for taking on the guise of the Flash. He tries to tell her he has responsibilities, but she doesn’t want to hear it. The Titans want Frances, who has magnetic powers, to join them as they prepare to head to Washington, but she refuses. Robotman turns up, offering to help. They don’t have a plan, because they’re worried that they’ll come off looking like the problem on TV, but they figure that Blood needs Raven to complete whatever he’s doing, and they want to go free her. Frances refuses to join them again, and the team leaves in their jet. At the Church, Raven speaks to the holographic fetus while everyone chants. Frances sits alone in the tower, and finds the costume the team provided for her. She watches the news broadcast, and appears to consider suiting up. In Washington, most of the team jumps out of the jet, while Wally and Robin stay in it. Sister Slaughter learns that the Titans are there, and sends a small force to intercept them. Wally and Jason join their friends as some of the Church gunmen confront them. It’s a short fight. The hologram takes on a grown man’s shape, while people keep chanting and Azrael feels fulfilled. Sister Slaughter wants the Titans kept busy a while longer, and wants them to use Arella, Raven’s mother, as bait. Confessor drags Arella towards the Titans, and threatens to kill her. Starfire blasts him, and some guards drag Arella away; only Flash gets close to them before a wall slams down. Confessor blasts him and he collapses. The others break through the wall, and Joey takes over a guard. As they work their way through the complex, water floods the corridor they’re in. Vic takes down a wall to block it. The Titans climb up a floor (I thought they were moving down from the roof). As they Titans approach Confessor again, he kills Arella. The ritual continues, with Azrael becoming very impassioned. Sister Slaughter and an acolyte talk about how much belief energy they are tapping into, and Raven is bathed in light. Brother Blood is reborn, and the crowds cheer.
- Brother Blood addresses the cheering crowd in his church, showing them the six stars that helped restore him, which then return to their proper place in the heaves (really, they are the satellites that Sister Slaughter has turned off. Blood thanks Azrael for his part in restoring him, and then turns to Raven who is weeping in pain. Blood touches her and restores her health. The Titans attack Confessor and his gunment. Robin figures out that Arella is not dead, and in the momentary confusion that follows, Confessor escapes. Robin offers to stay with Arella, since he doesn’t have the power levels of the others, and they blast their way through a wall, figuring that Raven is their best hope to save Arella’s life. Different news broadcasts carry Blood’s resurrection, with some questioning how real it could be. Sister Slaughter orders the satellites destroyed when she learns that NASA is looking into the claimed stellar realignment. We see a bunch of the Titans’ people talking about them. Terry worries about Donna. Sarah Charles and Jenet Klyburn worry about the team, while Jillian tells her friends that Gar has been ghosting her. Blood keeps talking to his followers, whipping up their beliefs even more, which makes him more powerful. The Titans fight their way through more of the Faithful. Sister Slaughter can tell that Blood is being fed more power. She’s joined by Mother Mayhem, who looks forward to the birth of her child, the next Brother Blood. Blood keeps talking, until the Titans (and Robotman) burst through a wall and challenge him. Bethany Snow gets herself back on the air to show the fight, while the crowd continues to chant Blood’s name. Kory tries to talk to Dick, and Wally tries to talk to Raven, while Blood uses this as proof that the Titans are a problem. Blood becomes even more powerful, and turns to Raven, asking her to stop her former teammates. She reaches out with her powers, starts to control their emotions. They all collapse, except for Robotman, who Blood blasts apart, decapitating him. Mother Mayhem encourages Blood to kill them all. Kory tries to get through to Dick, but he doesn’t do a thing to help her (we do see him shed a tear when she gets slammed into a wall). Back at Titans Tower, Frances feels guilty. She picks up the costume they made for her, and talks about calling in the cavalry. Wally tries to appeal to Raven, taking off his mask and reminding her that he loves her. She does look sad, which prompts Blood to blast Wally. He fries all of the Titans, and calls Raven to him. The camera zooms in on Dick, who tells Bethany that the Titans were wrong to fight Blood. This makes Kory cry. Dick says that the Titans deserve to be excommunicated, which leads Blood to blast Kory with his eyes. At the Tower, Frances is now in her purple bodysuit. She addresses the heroes she assembled: Green Lanterns John Stewart and Katma Tui, Booster Gold (who is wearing a cape?), Infinity Inc. members Skyman and Doctor Mid-Nite (II), as well as Batman. They agree to help save the Titans.
- Blood gloats over the collapsed Titans. He addresses his followers, asking them to believe in him, and in the control room, his people see that he’s bringing in more belief energy than they thought possible. Vic comes to and fires his white sound amplifier at Blood. The power of it disrupts some of the electronics in the room, and Blood gets very angry. He starts to choke Vic, but Nightwing jumps to his aid, and Blood throws him across the room. Mother Mayhem approaches Dick and gives him another injection. Vic gets up again, but this time it’s Raven who stops him from advancing. Blood praises her, and they stand together. This makes Mother Mayhem jealous, as she wants her unborn son to take Blood’s place. Blood calls for revolution, and across Washington, people start chanting his name. Some tanks join the demonstration, and the people realize they are loyal to Blood too. Mother Mayhem wants Dick taken away. We see that Robin is hiding above the control room, with the unconscious Arella. He realizes he has to figure out how to stop things before Brother Blood’s tanks take over the White House. Elsewhere, Superman has joined the group of heroes that Frances assembled. As they plan to help the Titans, Superman notices that troops are approaching the White House, and can also see that an attack is happening on the United Nations in New York. He decides that the Titans can manage on their own, and splits the heroes up. He sends Booster Gold and Doctor Midnight to Washington, while he and Batman prepare to head to New York. He asks that the Green Lanterns and Skyman save the government, and Frances gets dropped off in a park. Raven, Dick, and Azrael carry the Titans somewhere (it looks like they left Robotman’s head and body behind) while Blood again addresses his followers over the TV. The Titans are brought to the Confessor, and Dick is put in cuffs. Azrael returns to Blood, but Raven hesitates. This is when Robin approaches her, showing her that Blood’s people tried to kill her mother. Raven rejects this idea, and the Confessor returns and starts blasting at Robin. Jason takes a hit, and Raven cradles her mother. When the Confessor tries to get her to leave her alone, Raven turns on him and starts to heal Arella. She teleports to Blood, leaving Robin with Arella. In New York, Terry continues to worry about Donna. The Titans are being loaded on a jet so they can be taken back to Zandia, but when the plane tries to take off, it’s brought back to the rooftop landing pad by Frances’s powers. As the guards shoot at her, she frees the Titans, who quickly join the fray. Mother Mayhem finds out that the Titans are back in the fight; she orders that more power be funneled to Brother Blood. As he preaches some more, the Titans again bust through a wall and start to fight him. He throws Kory into Vic, and knocks down Wally. Raven teleports into this scene, and Blood orders her to kill the Titans.
- Raven stands at Blood’s side as he prepares to fight the Titans again. Starfire tries to appeal to her, but he asserts his control over her and blasts everyone. He talks some more, and announces his intention to marry Raven. This does not go over well in the control room with Mother Mayhem, who is pregnant with his child, so she orders one of the Acolytes away and turns off a button. Cyborg gets to his feet and approaches Blood, who blasts away at him some more. Vic manages to hold out for a while before collapsing to the floor. Raven fills Wally and Kory’s minds with anger and they start to fight one another. Donna wraps her lasso around Raven. The two Green Lanterns and Skyman fly over the crowd demonstrating in DC. Karma yells that Brother Blood is a fraud, and people seem to come to their senses and start going home. Outside the UN building in New York, Superman kicks up a strong breeze to start sending people home, and after the crowd disperses, Batman points out that they’d started to waver just before he did anything. The acolytes in the Church’s control room point out that Blood is losing power, and recognize that a switch got thrown (although they aren’t aware that Mother Mayhem did it). As Donna and Raven fight, Gar gets an idea, and grabs Robotman’s head. He takes it to Vic, who attaches it to his own body, since Robotman is immune to Raven’s emotion powers. Vic attacks Blood, who still tosses him away, and then himself attacks Donna. Blood gets to Raven and upon touching her, starts releasing a lot of energy again. Azrael kind of hovers over them as the energy builds, and the acolytes realize that their equipment is starting to overload. All of this power gives Raven the ability to get in touch with her own soul, and she realizes that Blood has been controlling her. She turns on him, severing his connection to his own power. Azrael swoops down, grabs Blood, and flies away; Raven lets them leave. There is a lengthy epilogue to this issue, which starts with Tawny Young broadcasting the news that Bethany Snow was part of the Church of Blood, and that her TV station was owned by them. She shows the acolytes getting arrested in large numbers, and shows the Titans leaving the church. Gar makes some jokes. Later, the team is in Titans Tower, sitting around their meeting table. Raven teleports onto the table, announcing that her mother is recovering in the hospital. Raven collapses from exhaustion, and she and Wally share an awkward moment before he picks up Frances and they leave together. Robin takes this as his cue to leave as well, and mentions that he’s worried Batman will be upset with him. Nightwing enters the room (this is the first we’ve seen him this issue – I have no idea where he was during the big fight). He thanks Jason, and then asks the rest of the team to forgive him. They all make him feel welcome, and he makes it clear that he thinks Donna should continue as team leader. Starfire takes him flying, and Dick admits he doesn’t know how many of his recent actions were because of Blood. He does tell Kory that the fact she’s married (weirdly, he says she’s married to Ryand’r, who is her brother) matters to him, even if it’s just a formality. Donna heads home to be with Terry, while Vic gathers up Robotman’s parts to get him fixed. Gar says he’s going to sleep and then tomorrow go deal with his stepfather. At a monastery in Virginia, we see two monks talk about the strange man who is hanging out with their sheep. We learn that a winged angel brought the man to them, and had them agree to look after him.
I’m not going to lie, I found this volume pretty tedious. The two main storylines in this volume (Steve Dayton and Brother Blood) took way too long to resolve themselves (Dayton’s isn’t even resolved), and it felt like the same scenes were being set up again and again. How many times did Brother Blood take out the whole team, only to have them rise again? Were there any walls still intact in that church after they kept busting through them?
I feel like Marv Wolfman had some grand ideas for these issues, but without George Pérez, he just couldn’t make it work. I think that Eduardo Barreto is a fantastic artist, but he wasn’t able to make these repetitive moments play out differently enough. I wonder if it was because Wolfman was himself getting bored with his own stories that Paul Levitz was brought in to write the dialogue. This really didn’t go anywhere, and then it felt like a lot of the emotional payoff was zoomed over.
Here are a few things that really bothered me about this story arc:
- If Brother Blood had all these arrangements with super villains, why were none of them on hand to help out with his plans?
- Was Blood really resurrected? It was made clear that the whole thing was a fake, with Azrael manipulated into participating and satellites standing in for distant stars, but where did he actually come from? Everything to do with him was weird in this volume. I also still can’t get around people willingly going along with someone who dresses like that.
- What is the point of the Azrael character? He’s been knocking around this title for years at this point, but like, he’s an ancient alien who spent forever in suspended animation, fell in love with a former Titan who became a goddess, and then bought into the Church of Blood’s philosophy? Was he seen again after this? I think I hate him.
- How did we spend so much time getting Frances Kane to wear a costume, only for it to be that generic, and for her to then do nothing? She didn’t even appear in the final fight. I’m glad that she got written out of Wally’s life as soon as he had his own title, because she kind of sucks, and is not interesting.
- How is it that Robotman just showed up to help out in the fight against Blood, but he wasn’t around to help deal with Steve Dayton, his friend? I’m glad Grant Morrison got their hands on the character soon after this, because this was not that good.
- The idea that anything Dick’s done for the last few years that anyone didn’t like is because Brother Blood was influencing him is a cop out. I think it’s weird that the complicated relationship he has with Kory kind of got written off as happening for this reason, even though he’s still not interested in being with her now that she’s married. What else did he do wrong? This got glossed over pretty quickly.
Usually when I write about a chunk of issues like this, I like to go look at different characters’ story arcs, but there’s not a lot of development here. Donna has to deal with her lack of faith in herself as a leader, and that’s good for a bit. Gar deals with his conflicting emotions about Steve Dayton, but that gets dumped pretty quickly for the Blood story. Other than that, the characters are basically chess pieces. Jericho may as well have not been in this entire volume.
I think at this point, the longer page count of each issue started playing against it, as Wolfman just couldn’t seem to find enough character reasons to keep the series going, and instead had to focus on plot-driven stories that got just a little too long. I’m trying to remember if there was a time around here where Chris Claremont started having the same issues with the X-Men, since these two books were so often compared to one another in this era. I really feel like this series was starting to lose steam here, and it showed.
I’m at the point where I don’t have any more of these trades sitting waiting to be read. If I find an inexpensive copy of Volume 13 I’ll grab it, but I’m ambivalent about continuing to read this. I’m glad I started to go through all of these, as I’ve come to understand just what made this book so popular when it started. I just don’t get the same sense of excitement or importance out of these issues.
For my next Retro Trade column, I’m going to be digging into a classic character that I mostly ignored my whole life, despite the fact that he was once in the hands of one of the most celebrated writer/artist teams of the Bronze Age. I’m excited to get into this one.
You can check out my Retro Review archives here.
