Teen Titans, Voodoo, Wonder Twins

Tales of the Teen Titans 42-44

Tales of the Teen Titans Annual 3

Here we go with my run of Titans issues.  DC’s answer to the X-Men in the 80s, I never attached to them the way I did w/ Marvel’s mutants.  Still, I picked this up in the quarter bins back when I first started collecting, having heard so many good things about the Judas Contract arc.

It holds up really well, despite a number of 80s drawbacks - super long exposition-as-flashbacks, exposition-as-dialogs, just a ton of exposition.  It’s wordy in all the ways that Tempest was last entry, but Marv Wolfman makes it work, and this is really George Perez at his best.  I never read Terra in any stories before this, so her heel turn didn’t have the emotional impact it probably did back then.  (Taking this opportunity to mention how much I’ve never been a fan of Beast Boy.  He’s immature and annoying, and his belief in Terra’s goodness in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary is incredibly frustrating.)   

Regret Buying: No

Would Buy Again: No

Would Read Again: Yes

Rating: Nice

New Teen Titans 38

Tales of the Teen Titans 50

Also got both of these from the bargain bin.  Who is Donna Troy is an incredibly well done mystery, highlighting Dick Grayson’s detective skills, and Donna Troy’s wedding is one of those heroes-doing-everyday-things issues that reminded me of the best in the Claremont X-Men tradition.  

Regret Buying: No

Would Buy Again: Yes for Who is Donna Troy, No for the wedding issue.

Would Read Again: Yes

Rating: Pretty good

JLA/Titans 1-3

The lead in to the ongoing series.  Devin Grayson and Phil Jimenez gather just about every Titan in history together for this event.  The action is reasonably entertaining, but there’s just so much talking!  It completely destroys any momentum in the story, which involves some nonsense about Cyborg, another character that I could not care less about.  (Jeez louise, do these people love to yammer on about family.)  

He may be annoying, but at least he got everyone to shut up.

Keeping it around for the Perez-level Jimenez art.

Reading this immediately after her wedding issue made it particularly touching.

Regret Buying: No

Would Buy Again: No

Would Read Again: Yes

Rating: Fine

Titans 1-16

Starts off really strong, then tapers off as it goes on.  Grayson’s got a decent handle on these characters, and I’m a fan of a number of these characters individually, but the combination of them on one team doesn’t click for me.  Keeping around because there are a number of fun moments, and Mark Buckingham’s art is wonderfully suited to these heroes.  

Lian's the MVP.

And also heartbreaking.

It's an understandable misconception.

I love how Starfire cuts through the Gordian knot here:  

Love the Batman sniping:

The women really do add up after a while...

Regret Buying: No

Would Buy Again: No

Would Read Again: Yes

Rating: Pretty good for the first two issues, degrades to Nice, and then Fine by the end of the run.

Teen Titans 1-8, 17-19

This should be a fun series, but it’s got several issues:

1. Mike McKone, while not bad, constantly reminds me of an early Tom Raney, before he figured out how to make twisted anatomy work.

This is regrettable.

WTF is up with Batman in the corner?  I can only think of a quote from West Wing: "Is this a joke?  If it's a joke, it's both funny and well-executed.  But I think both you and I know that it's not."

Is he channeling Adam West?

2. Geoff Johns portrays Conner Kent as a completely ungrateful punk, which surprises me considering how well he writes him later on in Adventure Comics.  This is where we find out Conner’s human DNA comes from Lex Luthor.  It’s a twist that I like for the character, but Johns doesn’t do much with it here.

3. Johns also writes Tim as a mini-Batman, which makes no sense given how much he has Tim insist that he’s not Batman.  It’s not a good look for my favorite of Robins.

4. I have yet to read a non-Mark Waid Bart Allen that I enjoy.  Bart makes the transition from Impulse to Kid Flash here, but I can’t bring myself to care.  

5. As a whole, all the team members are just so dour.  There are not many comics where you want that as a descriptor, and definitely not this one.

I remembered nothing of this title from my original readthrough, and the re-read confirms why that’s the case.  I was going to cut these, but I’m going to hang on to them for now after seeing that they’re worth some amount more than cover price.  Sigh.  But I’m not happy about it.

Regret Buying: No

Would Buy Again: No

Would Read Again: No

Rating: Didn’t suck

Voodoo 1-4

The story by Ron Marz is completely forgettable.  But I love the Sami Basri art.  It’s completely fan service-y, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t gorgeous.

There's a Josh Middleton softness to Basri's art.

Regret Buying: No

Would Buy Again: No

Would Read Again: Yes

Rating: Nice

Wonder Twins 1-3

I stand by my original posts; The first issue is a complete delight, the next two veer into totally depressing territory.  I’m somewhat interested to see where it goes, given that it ended up being a 12-issue series, but I’m not going to pay money to find out.

Regret Buying: No

Would Buy Again: No

Would Read Again: Yes

Rating: Good for 1, Disliked 2-3

And that’s it for DC Box 7!

DC Box 7 summary

Time spent reading: 18 hours 11 minutes

Issues read: 196

Issues cut: 5

Highlights (Good or better): First two years of Judd Winick’s Outsiders, Richard Dragon, Shazam: Monster Society of Evil, Tim Sale’s Solo, Injustice: Year Two, Wonder Twins 1.  A lot of good stuff in this box!

Project Summary:

Time spent reading: 29 days, 21 hours, 19 minutes

Issues read: 6127

Issues cut: 802

Spirit, Tempest, Tiny Titans, Injustice

Batman/Spirit 1

Spirit 1-12

So much Darwyn Cooke art to drink in!  The writing is generally nothing more than fine, but the art is enough to bump it up a couple of notches.  Of note are the title pages, worthy successors to Will Eisner’s classics.  What gives them that extra pop is the set up from the previous page; The reveal as you flip the page accentuates their effectiveness.

Eisner.

Imagine flipping from this to see...

...this!

(Issue seven not being Darwyn Cooke is totally bogus.)

Some other things that I love:

So many women, each evoking different tones.

So true.

Regret Buying: No

Would Buy Again: Yes

Would Read Again: Yes

Rating: Pretty good

Tempest 1-4

Ugh.  Phil Jimenez is a wonderful artist (with clear George Perez influences), but his writing here exemplifies the worst of 80s comics in something that came out in the nineties: Tons of tedious exposition about backstory and plot that saps any sense of fun from the experience.  The action and art would probably have been more than enough to accomplish what was necessary, but Jimenez weighs the whole thing down with way too many words.  

Regret Buying: No

Would Buy Again: No

Would Read Again: No

Rating: Boring (Cut)

Tiny Titans 1-6, 33-35

This was given to me as a present ages ago.  On the re-read, I got 3 issues in before tapping out.  I’m about 40 years beyond the target age group, and this really isn’t meant for me.  Tell you what though, I can’t wait to read it with my daughter when she’s old enough.

Regret Buying: No

Would Buy Again: No

Would Read Again: Yes (Eventually, with a very special someone.)

Rating: Huh.  (Really can’t give this any kind of legit grade.)

Injustice: Year 2 1-12

Injustice: Year 2 Annual 1

I know I said I wasn’t going to get more of this, but the trades were on sale at my LCS for half off.  It was totally worth it.  Tom Taylor is a master of the little moments in between the big action scenes.  (Of which he’s also a master.)  Some standouts:

Between Injustice and DCeased, Taylor's love of Ollie and Dinah is quite clear:

Heh:

Great body language by Bruno Redondo:

Chilling:

Chilling part two:

Nice of Taylor to give them a happy ending:

I’m most likely going to pick up the next volume, which finishes up Taylor’s run.

Regret Buying: No

Would Buy Again: Yes

Would Read Again: Yes

Rating: Good

New Comics, Richard Dragon, Shazam, Solo

New comics!

Criminal Sanity 5

Harley meets Joker for the first time, perhaps setting things up for the standard dysfunctional relationship we’re all accustomed to. I hope writer Kami Garcia resists that temptation, as I like where this different take has been going so far.

Seven Secrets 2

An issue-long training montage, and a super fun one at that.  Tom Taylor and Daniele Di Nicuolo give us a tiny bit more insight into the various Keepers and Holders of the secrets, and I’m still on board.  There’s something about both the writing and art style that reminds me of Excellence by Brandon Thomas and Khary Randolph, but I hope this is good enough to last a little longer on my pull list than five issues.

Stringbags

I had no idea this Garth Ennis war graphic novel existed until I read about it in a random interview.  (It’s published by Dead Reckoning, whom I’ve never heard of.)  This one’s about the pilots of the Fairey Swordfish biplane (an archaic aircraft that nevertheless saw service in WWII).  The information turned out to be more interesting than the story or the characters, but that’s not a bad thing.  I love learning about this era.

Old Guard: Force Multiplied 1-5

I got the trade after watching the movie.  And as with the first volume, I think the (hopefully) sequel film will be better than the comic source material.  Really one of the few times that’s true.  Not that the comic is bad or anything, just that the movie brought out so much more nuance.  

Richard Dragon 1-12

This is what I’m hoping the upcoming Shang-Chi comic is going to be - A fun comic about a martial arts master constantly getting into fights with just a touch of character development.  Chuck Dixon teams up with Scott McDaniel once again to tell the story of the man who trained just about every empty hand fighter in the DCU.  (And like in Nightwing, Dixon has his protagonist get involved with a neighbor in his apartment building.  Why is he such a fan of that trope?)  It’s a shame this only lasted a year, I would have liked more.

Regret Buying: No

Would Buy Again: Yes

Would Read Again: Yes

Rating: Good

Shazam: Monster Society of Evil 1-4

Oh my god Jeff Smith.  I’d forgotten how purely delightful this is.  His art is a thing of magic, he draws everything so well.  Here, it’s especially the kids that he nails - Billy Batson is immediately someone that I empathize with due to how he’s depicted, and Mary is the unquestionable MVP of the series.  So much, so much fun.  It just misses out on the Pure Joy rating due to the so so story.  But the art is just about perfect.  

The range of emotions in these panels!

That hoodie!  Cute and honest storytelling.

Regret Buying: No

Would Buy Again: Yes

Would Read Again: Yes

Rating: Really good

Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam 1-4

I bought this because I love Mike Kunkel’s work on Herobear and the Kid.  But unfortunately, something about this just doesn’t click, same as the latter issues of Herobear.  I think it’s a number of little things - Kunkel’s writing is just a little too earnest, and definitely too exposition-heavy.  There do not need to be so many words each page.  It also doesn’t help to follow Jeff Smith on stage; He’s certainly a talented creator, but few people can match up with Smith.

Regret Buying: No

Would Buy Again: No

Would Read Again: No

Rating: Fine

Solo 1

Spotlight on Tim Sale.  This is such a strong showcase of his work; The For All Seasons short story is just as beautiful as the original series, and the last page of the Supergirl bit made me tear up for personal reasons.  Lovely.

Sigh.

Regret Buying: No

Would Buy Again: Yes

Would Read Again: Yes

Rating: Really good

Solo 5

The usually wonderful Darwyn Cooke art, but the writing lets it down.

In love.

Regret Buying: No

Would Buy Again: Yes

Would Read Again: Yes

Rating: Pretty good

Solo 8

Teddy Kristiansen.  Few people capture the dreamy mood better than he.  I like Neil Gaiman’s idea of two ghosts constantly hooking up by possessing a variety of people.

Regret Buying: No

Would Buy Again: No

Would Read Again: Yes

Rating: Nice