DCU Comic Book Reviews

TEEN TITANS YEAR ONE #5

Flash In The Pan

July 2008

Written by Amy Wolfram

Pencils by Karl Kerschl

Inks by Serge LaPointe

Cover by Karl Kerschl

Synopsis

After having a nightmare in which he visited the graves of other Teen Titans, Robin decides to check on his teammates.  He finds Wonder Girl, who suddenly disappears in a cloud of smoke.  The same happens to Aqualad and Kid Flash.  Then Robin finds himself in the middle of a graveyard.  There, his friends blame him for not protecting them.  Robin just wants to be left alone.  Robin then finds himself, alone in the middle of nowhere.  Antithesis tells Robin that he has been granted his wish:  he will be left alone.  For eternity.  Robin decides otherwise and breaks free, rescuing the Titans, as well.  Then they face Antithesis.  Titans together.  In the batcave, Batman asks Robin to come home.

Review by Binkley (e-mail)

This was a weird ending.  In fact, the structure of this mini-series has been weird for the past several issues.  It began with a central idea, the heroes mentors are acting strange, but managed to wrap that plot up by the third issue and then spent two issues in character-driven stories.  Don’t get me wrong, I loved those issues (and I enjoyed this one as well, until the end), but they felt more like part of an ongoing series that the middle portions of a mini-series.  Add to the fact that this issue doesn’t really tie everything together (except for the appearance of Antithesis) and this issue feels more like an arbitrary ending rather than a planned conclusion.  Having said that, the issue is still a very enjoyable read.  Kerschl’s art is fantastic and even in the brief moments, Wolfram provides so much character and depth to the Titans that their appearances sparkle with life. 

I actually don’t have much of a problem with the ending in an abstract kind of way.  In the concrete, with the way Wolfram structured the story, I don’t think it works.  But, I think it could work.  The key is that at the end, the Titans band together to fight the bad guy.  So, the ending is essentially the Titans coming together to face their enemy, which would work fine if the previous issues dealt with the Titans not being able to work together.  But we really don’t see much of that, in terms of arguing amongst themselves or battle plans going awry or whatever else that would show a dysfunctional team.  Based on what we see, there doesn’t seem much like a problem with working together.  Really, the problem is with leadership.  But even that doesn’t get much play (“we don’t need a leader, we work together”) to make the ending work.  Basically, the ending seems to happen because it is the catch phrase of the team rather than pulling the narrative into a cohesive whole.

 

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