Adam Graham's Blog: Christians and Superheroes - Posts Tagged "titans"

Titans, Volume 1: The Return of Wally West by Dan Abnett

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


DC Rebirth's key plot was the return of the original Wally West, one of DC's most beloved characters who was sidelined with the launch of the New 52. This book continues his story as he is able to get his best friends , The Titans to remember him and then face off against the man who made him disappear.

This is a solid story. The writing really taps into the emotion of Wally West, who has lost so much and the ideas of friendship, love, and heroism make this a compelling story from start to finish. It ranks up with the Superman stories for really capturing the emotion of this admittedly fantastic situation.

If the book has any pitfalls, it may be that for a team book, it's too Wally West focused. You only get vague impressions of the rest of the Titans and who they are. Hopefully, they'll be fleshed out more in future volumes. Overall, this is still a very impressive and enjoyable read.



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Titans Vol. 2: Made In Manhattan by Dan Abnett

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book collects Issues 7-10 of Titans as well as the Annual #1.

Issue 7 is a one shot that is very effective. It finds Titans setting up housekeeping in Manhattan with Dick busy filling out the paperwork. Meanwhile, Donna and Roy begin to reconnect, and perhaps most significantly, Superman comes to visit Wally and as this Superman is the post-Crisis Superman, they share some good memories, it's a wonderful character driven story.

Issues 8-10 constitute a story arc where a former Titan named Mal has gotten rid of his superpowers for his family and his wife Bumblebee goes to explore the options. But it turns out the company that can remove superpowers is run by a team of ex-supervillains (or are they?) This wasn't great, but it was a good story. I liked how Roy took a key role on explaining how people generally turn their lives around and was able to speak to change.

There's also a rebirth holiday tale that's a fun New Year's Eve which also focuses on Arsenal on what New Years means to someone who's been in recovery. A good fun story.

The book concludes with an Annual which (unusually for DC) has the same creative and it's a big story that has Batman, Nightwing, Flash (Barry Allen), Flash (Wally West), Wonder Woman, and Donna Troy kidnapped by a villain and a sense that no one may know who is real. The story trades on tension and character development more than the comic book action and the villain. It all leads up to a pretty good revelation that serves as yet another clue to the events behind Rebirth.

Overall, this book is very good and a solid second volume for Dan Abnett on this title.



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Titans, Vol. 4: Titans Apart by Dan Abnett

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This book collects Issues 19-22 of the Titans and Annual #1.

This editorially-mandated story begins with an issue with the Justice League arriving to bust up the Titans because they're potentially dangerous. The reasons given in the first issue of the book are weak, mainly because the Justice League doesn't have the authority to do it, and the things they're saying about the Titans could apply most easily to them. Because everyone is acting out of characters, Dick Grayson caves to Batman easily.

After that, we get three good issues looking at the aftermath which are mostly pretty good. They focus on what happens when team members like Roy Harper have to work alone and ends up affirming the value of friendship. Abnett does such a great job with the rest of the book, I can almost forgive the rest of the book, but the stupid idea at the core of the book is pretty problematic. In addition, the villains didn't impress me.

So overall, this could have been awful but Dan Abnett made it fair to decent. That said, there are too many problems to give this more than three stars.



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