DCU Comic Book Reviews

TEEN TITANS #25

The Insiders, Part 3

August 2005

Written by Geoff Johns

Pencils by Matthew Clark

Inks by Art Thibert

Cover by Mike McKone & Marlo Alquiza

Synopsis

In Metropolis, Lex Luthor plots to use Superboy to destroy Superman.  At STAR Labs in Palo Alto, the Teen Titans and Outsiders are battling dozens of Superman robots.  Wonder Girl is angry at what has happened to Donna Troy and to Conner and she takes it out on the robots.  In Metropolis, Brainiac revels that Donna Troy and the Titans were destined to interfere in the development of his homeworld, Colu.  Back in Palo Alto, Robin tells the others about Superboy’s mixed DNA.  Arsenal says the Outsiders will take care of Luthor and Brainiac.  Robin disagrees:  Titans do not abandon their own.  At that moment, Lex Luthor and Superboy appear; Luthor tells his son to kill them.  Both Robin and Kid Flash try to talk to Superboy and make him see that he does not have to give in to Luthor; both attempts to fail.  Wonder Girl uses her lasso around Superboy and combines the lightning with water.  Momentarily, Luthor’s spell is broken, but Luthor quickly recasts the spell.  At that moment, Brainiac 8 appears and grabs Wonder Girl.  Shift tells her to let Wonder Girl go.  Brianiac 8 tells him he has to do on little thing:  “Kill me.”

Review

This crossover story with the Outsiders is certainly getting interesting, but I have to wonder:  what the hell was the point with the Superman robots.  I understand that they allow the titans and Outsiders to ruminate on the loss of Donna Troy (and Omen) and how they should help one another, but beyond this storytelling device, what purpose did they serve in the story itself.  Is it mentioned anywhere that they were set off by Brainiac or by Luthor?  So, in other words, we are given the robots so the Teen Titans can actually destroy something before Superboy and then Brainiac 8 comes along and beats the crap out of them.  Unfortunately, the robots point out the biggest weakness of the story to this point:  beyond revealing Luthor’s big plan for his “son” there really is not much else to the story.  After witnessing Conner’s destruction of the Titans in the first part, we are essentially right back to where we were before.  Well, perhaps one step further as we now get the two Brainiacs and the two Luthors fighting the combined forces of the Teen Titans and Outsiders.  Did we really need this issue to get that point?

The issue, however, belongs to Wonder Girl.  We see how much Donna’s death and then Conner’s betrayal has hurt her while we also see that Ares’ assertion that she needs to let her anger go is starting to settle in. 

It is also interesting to note how much Donna’s death plays a role in this issue, which given the mini-series of return that is being released around this time certainly bodes well that she’ll return to the Titans and/or Outsiders at some point. 

The most interesting part of the story has got to be an aside by Beast Boy regarding the number of times they have been betrayed by various people.  Based on what Gar is saying, I would probably want to stay far, far away from the Titans if I were a teenage sidekick. -- MRB

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