DCU Comic Book Reviews

TEEN TITANS #29

Life And Death

December 2005

Written by Geoff Johns

Pencils by Tony S. Daniel

Inks by Marlo Alquiza

Cover by Tony S. Daniel & Marlo Alquiza

Synopsis

At Titans Tower, Cyborg agrees to go with Donna Troy into outer space.  Beast Boy will be left in charge of the Titans while Cyborg is away.  Elsewhere in the tower, Jason Todd decides the time is right to finally meet Tim Drake.  In Gateway City, Wonder Girl learns from a television broadcast that Wonder Woman killed Max Lord.  In Smallville, Superboy watches a similar broadcast.  Meanwhile, Jason (who is wearing his old Robin outfit) and Tim exchange fisticuffs with Jason winning the battle before he leaves.  The next day, the team is cleaning up the two Robins made when suddenly Lilith (aka Omen) pays a visit, along with her “son,” Brother Blood.

Review by Binkley (e-mail)

Well, that was certainly anticlimactic.  After harassing Batman for awhile now, Jason decides to do the same to the current Robin.  He comes, they fight, and then he leaves.  So what was the point of that?  Was it to prove that he could beat up Robin and thus he is the better fighter and the better Robin?  Strangely, this actually makes a lot of sense for the character.  The interaction and the dialogue was fantastic; Johns really nails a lot of the feelings that I would expect from Jason and Tim’s reaction on how he had to deal with Jason’s “death” was also right on point.  Good stuff.  I guess that’s why Jason walking away is such a disappointment; I would have liked to see more. 

Despite how much I liked it, the fight between the Robins was more or less like filler.  After a two-issue break, Johns returns to the title and his first order of business is to realign the characters and what they are doing based on all of the Infinite Crisis activity.  So, what we get is the chance to check in with the various Titans to learn what they are doing and then to add recent events to give the next couple of issues a sense of timing (after the OMAC Project since they just learned of Wonder Woman’s killing of Max Lord but before Rann/Thanagar War since Cyborg has not yet left and somewhere during the middle of Day of Vengeance given Raven’s reaction to the Spectre).  While it was nice to see Johns touch all the bases, it also seemed a bit too much.

Finally, Johns pulls back to his own previous cliffhanger from issue #26 with the return of Lilith and Brother Blood.  As I said, this issue was more or less a “catch-up” issue with the Robins fighting just to make it more lively than random characters chatting with each other, cause, you know, there is some kind of action quota for comic books (I jest). 

Also interesting to note that during the fight between the two Robins, the statues for Donna and Lilith were both broken.  Since they are now “alive” I guess this makes sense.  But, I’ve got to admit that if I were Jason, I would be pissed there was no statue to represent his death.

Comic Connection

Cassie Sandmark learns that her father is the Greek God Zeus in Wonder Woman, issue #217 (late July 2005).  Wonder Woman killed Max Lord in Wonder Woman, issue #219 (September 2005).  The return of the Golden Eagle occurred in Hawkman, issue #37.