Waid’s World’s Finest comics have been a stellar exercise in modernizing what we love about the old days. All the bright, flashy, simple costumes have been updated to reflect more modern sensibilities; the stories are as campy and goofy as we all know and loved, but with deeper, more fleshed out characters reminiscent of current dramas. It’s great. In his most recent venture, the Teen Titans are finally getting that treatment, and it’s led to their best book in years. Let’s take a look at this month’s installment.
Those darn dramatic teens
All of the pressure that’s been building between the group for the past few issues has finally come to a head. As they finally battle the Terror Titans, all of our heroes’ internal conflict explodes and overwhelms the group.
The gang’s drama did feel a little forced here, though upon a second read I realized that this may have been the result of such a large gap between issues coming out, when realistically this issue picks up RIGHT where the last one left off. In that light, the events here flow drastically more naturally, but there’s still an odd pacing problem. I can’t put my finger on it exactly, but there’s something weird about having your team of teen heroes fall apart and lose in a matter of pages, only to regroup by the end of the issue with a plan to defeat the bad guy already. It might just be a personal preference, but I think the story could have stood to linger in the heroes’ defeat for a while, and maybe focus more on individual conflict resolution than one sweeping gesture of “we’re okay now!”. None of this drastically tanks the issue or anything, of course, but it is enough to make the story feel oddly rushed, like we’re in a hurry to skip to the part where the status quo is back intact.
The art is stellar, of course, with Emanuela Luppachino and Jordie Bellaire on interiors and colors respectively. The intense, dynamic style of this book absolutely rules, and it suits the Titans so well. All of the action explodes off the page, sucking the reader in and keeping them turning the page. These two have had a place in my heart as one of my favorite art teams at DC for a while now, and it’s great to see that they’re not even close to losing steam.
Recommended if…
- You like the Titans!
- Mark Waid’s work on this iteration of the DC Universe interests you.
- You want to see what happened after last issue!
Overall
This definitely felt like one of the weaker issues in the series, but it’s by no means bad. Sometimes you gotta dip down so you can rise higher next time.
Score: 7/10
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DISCLAIMER: DC Comics provided Batman News with a copy of this comic for the purpose of this review.
