DCU Comic Book Reviews

TITANS #1

Fickle Hand, Pt 2:  Today I Settle Family Business

June 2008

Written by Judd Winick

Pencils by Ian Churchill

Inks by Norm Rapmund

Covers by Ian Churchill and Ethan Van Sciver

Synopsis

In Gotham City, Nightwing is attacked.  In San Diego, Starfire is attacked.  At James Madison High School, Raven is attacked.  In Washington DC, Red Arrow is attacked.  At Doom Patrol headquarters, Beast Boy is attacked.  In Outer Space, Donna Troy and Kyle Rayner are attacked.  In Keystoen City, The Flash is attacked.  In San Francisco, the Teen Titans are attacked.  In Gotham City, Batman helps Nightwing defeat his attackers and then tells him that his teammate are trying to contact him.  Something has happened. Elsewhere, everyone gathers to investigate the attack on Cyborg and Titans East.  Everyone can sense the one behind the attacks:  Trigon. 

Review by Binkley (e-mail)

This is just, just, well, I am not sure what to say beyond...crap.  How in the world can you have an issue that introduces each of the main characters about to get attacked and then not show how they defeat said attack.  Look, here is Starfire, there is a monster, and now we have, um Starfire telling everyone she won the fight.  Does that make sense?  Look, in theory Winick’s idea of showcasing each character individually before bringing them together makes sense, but he provides the set-up to something he does not follow through with.  Moreover, because Winick does not follow through with the set-up, he fails to develop any intrigue and mystery behind the antagonist.  There is no need to guess who is the Big Bad because we are not given a reason to and then we are told who it is anyway.

In most standard size issues, we get 22 pages of story.  Half of that; I’ll repeat, half of that page total are devoted to one or two page splashes.  Now, a splash page can convey a lot in a story but when it is overused, like here, it suggests poor storytelling technique by the penciler or the writer.  Cut down on the splash pages, add more panels, and tell more of a story.  Instead we get bare (literally for some of the characters) sketches of the characters.  I suppose Winick is relying on the fact that we know these characters from previous incarnations, but that is just crap and lazy writing.  Write the character, don’t rely on someone else’s characterization to help you out. 

Personally, I think Judd Winick is the wrong person for this book, for two reasons.  One, I don’t think he writes an ensemble cast of characters that well.  He writes better when he has a single main character (such as Green Arrow) which he can round out with a supporting cast, rotating them in and out whenever the story dictates.  When he needs to focus on numerous characters, they tend to get lost in the shuffle.  Two, Winick doesn’t write established characters that well.  He writes better when he has new characters (like in the original Outsiders) to mix into the old, established characters, which he doesn’t have. 

Finally, is it wrong of me to think it is incredibly stupid to have issue #1 be the second part of the story?  And even if it is the second part, would it have killed the editor to put a little note tell us where the first part was published?  I wonder how many people are going to open this comic up and wonder, where the hell is the first part of the story?  Assuming they like it enough to want the first part.

 

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