DCU Comic Book Reviews

TEEN TITANS #78

Tortured Souls

February 2010

Written by J. T. Krul

Pencils by Joe Bennett

Inks by Jack Jadson and Ruy Jose

Cover by Joe Bennett

Synopsis

Joseph Wilson (aka Jericho) emerges from within Black Lantern Grant Wilson, where he had hid when it had come for him in the hospital.  Now, he joins with his sister Rose Wilson (the fifth Ravager) as the Black Lanterns of the Wilson family attack.  Their father, Slade Wilson (aka Deathstroke), joins his children.  He takes them to safety, and then fights the Black Lanterns on his own.  He loses.  The Black Lanterns taunt him about his failure to kill the Teen Titans.  He tells them it was never about killing the Teen Titans, but protecting his children.  About giving them a place where they would be safe.  Joseph and Rose then come to his rescue.  Joseph leaps into the Black Lanterns while Rose gets their dad out of there.  Joseph then blows up the place and destroys the Black Lanterns, making it out alive.  Afterwards, Slade realizes that together they can accomplish anything and with him they will be safe.  He wants his children to join him.  Joseph agrees; Rose declines.  She realized something.  Out of all of the Black Lanterns that came after them, none was her mother.  That means she is alive.  Rose will find her; that is her family.  Not Slade. 

Review by Binkley (e-mail)

This was a fairly decent tie-in to Blackest Night.  Like all of the other tie-ins, it hits all of the requisite plot points and the story is structured like all of the others.  The key difference with this particular story is that beyond a tie-in, it also serves as a prelude of sorts to what I think will be the Deathstroke-led reboot of the Titans franchise.  This is not necessarily a bad thing, I liked the conversation at the end, but I think it takes away from the main story, the return of the dead.  Given the large number of Black Lantern Wilsons, the emotional conflict is shortsighted in favor of the big fight.  We don’t really get an emotional response by Rose to the dead, you know the one the Lanterns attempt to get before devouring the heart.  We only get Deathstroke’s emotional response, but even that is in response to all of them ganging up on them, rather than a reaction to, say, his wife.  The focus of the story is simply to get to the end.  I am not entirely certain the end justifies the story, but I can’t argue that Blackest Night was the perfect vehicle to get the family back together. 

The Wilson family lends itself perfectly to Blackest Night, given the number of dead family members that have been strewn all over the place.  Krul takes advantage of them all, introducing each in quick succession before getting to the big fight.  However, the large number of Black Lanterns does not allow for much interaction between the dead and the living, which is one of the signatures of Blackest Night.  Instead we get a chaotic fight that is not very clear due to the fact that all of the dead Wilsons are wearing similar, black costumes, making it somewhat tough tot identify who they are, especially for someone like me who isn’t familiar with the family. 

Talk about a quick undo.  “Deathtrap” is not even a year old or so and already the editors at DC are undoing the ending.  And it is not like they tried particularly hard; it didn’t take much imagination or effort to change things back to the way they wanted it.  At the end of “Deathtrap”, Vigilante ripped out Jericho’s eyes.  Not they have grown back.  How and why?  Well, who cares at this point because it is unimportant.  What is important is that the eyes have grown back. And if you think that was sarcasm, well, you’d be wrong.  Really.  I’m sure the editors and writers will bend over backward to find a reason, but it doesn’t matter.  What does matter is that DC is moving forward with Jericho has a viable character rather than dead weight. 

As I mentioned earlier, it appears as if Deathstroke is going to lead a new Titans team.  In the bunker, in the background, you can see pictures of Cheshire (the ex of Roy Harper) and Mark Richards (aka The Tattooed Man).  So, a good guess is they will join Jericho on the new team.  In other words, DC is trying to find a bunch of lesser-known characters and build them up via Deathstroke’s name recognition.  Or the Titan name recognition.  Or both. 

Comic Connection

When Joseph leaps into his mother, he sees the following events occurring to current and former Teen Titans: 

Black Lantern Terra attacking Beast Boy; and Wonder Girl and Kid Flash dealing with a Black Lantern-infected Donna Troy, from Blackest Night: Titans #2;

Dove killing Black Lantern Hawk in Blackest Night: Titans #3;

Tim Drake (aka Red Robin) holding his father, Black Lantern Jack Drake as Black Lantern Captain Boomerang looks on, from Blackest Night: Batman #3;

Black Lantern Kal-L attacking Superboy, in Blackest Night: Superman #1.

   

 

 

  

 

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