DCU Comic Book Reviews

TITANS #13

Deathtrap, Part 4

July 2009

Written by Sean McKeever

Pencils by Angel Unzueta

Inks by Wayne Faucher

Cover by Andrew Robinson

Synopsis

[continued from Teen Titans, issue #70] In New York, Jericho interrupts the grand opening of D’Olivia to announce he has the place rigged with explosives, which he will detonate unless the Teen Titans and Titans come to face him.  As both groups head toward the restaurant, Vigilante continues to observe everything that is happening.  At the restaurant, Eddie Bloomberg (formerly Red Devil) tries to comfort a hostage, so Jericho shoots him.  Ravager then confronts her brother.  She is able to get close enough to place her finger on the detonator.  Jericho, however, willingly lets go of the detonator, allowing the restaurant to explode.  Jericho gets away by making eye contact with someone held hostage across the street.  Jericho jumps out of that body, confident he killed the Titans and Teen Titans.  At STAR Labs, Cyborg hears the news and decides to go after Jericho, even though his body hasn’t fully healed.  Meanwhile, Jericho revels in his victory and makes a promise to kill his father.  Just then Deathstroke appears.  He’d like to see Jericho try it. [continued in Vigilante, issue #6]

Review by Binkley (e-mail)

I am glad this cross-over story is about to end because it is starting to wear on me.  A lot of it doesn’t make sense to me.  For instance, why wouldn’t the Flash run to save Eddie?  Don’t you think he could easily outrun the bullet?  Or outrun the fallen detonator to make sure it doesn’t go off.  And how did Jericho outmuscle his sister, who has precog abilities to realize what he was doing it before it was doing it?  Anyway, the Titans seem to be completely clueless in terms of what they do; they arrive at the restaurant with very little planning.  I suppose one could argue that without Nightwing and/or Robin they are lost (and if that was mentioned, it might work, but it wasn’t, so it doesn’t), but c’mon Red Arrow and Flash were part of the Justice League.  And we have Wally saying things like, “seems like Jericho has everything covered,” followed later by “shouldn’t we do something.”  It just feels rather lame and stupid the way the Titans arrive and do nothing to stop Jericho or protect the hostages.  They’ve got powerful characters that should be able to find a way to do something.  Basically, the big scene in the restaurant lacks conflict or suspense.  Having said that, I liked Jericho’s escape plan; it is ingenious and shows some thinking on McKeever’s.  I would’ve liked to have seen some of that with the Titans. 

All of these questions are centered around the plot and McKeever’s plan for Jericho.  Those are minor annoyances compare to the handling of Jericho the character.  After this story, I think it would be very hard for anyone to find a way to redeem after Jericho attempt to mass murder the Titans on national television.  The voices-in-the-head as an explanation doesn’t quite work.  It might work to explain why he feels the need to murder his friends, but it doesn’t really help with the way he killed the police officer or the restaurant manager or others.  Those are cold blooded kills with very little remorse.  Jericho is beyond redemption (at least I think), which is a shame.  Jericho as a character works as someone straddling the good/evil line (see:  Raven).  Now, he is solidly on the side of evil, no matter what DC tries to say to explain it away. 

Another annoyance is that no one has been able to explain why Vigilante is part of the story, other than the fact the previous Vigilante was once connected to the Titans.  I think (and I stress that I think) the Election Bombings are in some way important to Vigilante, but whatever it is hasn’t been revealed to us.  The character has been tossed into the mix but it doesn’t feel right.  He has remained on the edge, not part of the story except for an occasional moment, but nothing vitally important to the plot.  In fact, I think we can take Vigilante out of the story and it would still work.  It seems like a waste of a character and waste of space. 

 

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