Teen Titans #1 Review – Wanted: People Skills
It’s Damian Wayne’s 13th birthday. He’s sadly spending it alone because Nightwing is doing Nightwing things, Red Robin is “dead,” and the Justice League called Bats away. At least he still has Alfred Pennyworth, who even baked him a cake. The kid doesn’t have friends, which I imagine would be hard as the son of Bruce Wayne and grandson of Ra’s al Ghul. Apparently that’s why he kidnapped Beast Boy, Raven, Starfire, and Kid Flash; he needed people to come to his birthday party. Again, Robin, as I said last month, you could just ask nicely.
Also, I’m STILL curious why Starfire is there. If DC wants to try to claim that Beast Boy and Raven are somehow still teenagers, then whatever. But Starfire ultimately is not. She was just with the Titans three issues back. And I mean WITH the Titans, if you get my wink wink, nudge nudge.Damian also throws the worst birthday parties ever. He kidnapped his guests, has them bound in high-tech shackles, and then berates them for making it so easy to capture them one by one. Such taunting does not go over well with Starfire, who does have some bondage issues. She’s able to break herself and the others free to pound on Robin a bit. I guess at least Damian brought a pinata to this birthday party.
The reason for this gathering? He simply wanted to show them that they work better as a team instead of individually. Technically, Kid Flash is already part of a team, but then again, so is Robin. Minor details, I suppose. The funniest part of the whole conversation was Damian throwing out the most kid-like sentence to entice them to agree to form a team: he dared them. I would have laughed out loud so hard if he followed it up with, “I double-dog dare you!”
I supposed that is one way to form a team, and Damian really does have reasons for doing so other than needing guests on his 13th birthday. You can probably tell from the cover why he needed to form a team. I’ve been watching too much Teen Titans Go! so I mistook him for Brother Blood. (Spoiler: it’s not Brother Blood.)
I also need to comment that I have a whole new respect for Alfred Pennyworth. That man has definitely seen some shit in his day, and he knows how to handle the Bat Family.
I can’t get enough of Jonboy Meyers’ art style either. On the one hand, the colored outlines of the characters look odd, and yet they work so darn well throughout the art. The style is almost cel-shaded, and the additional colored outlines almost make it look like paper cutouts. If I wasn’t reading a digital copy of the comic, I’d question whether it was a pop-up book.
Author: Benjamin Percy
Artists: Jonboy Meyers and Jim Charalampidis
Publisher: DC Comics
Publish Date: 10/26/2016
Acquired via Purchase
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