Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities Oh Yeah, That Forum: The Titans TITANS Rebirth

Just in case anyone else wants to discuss the series ...

SPOILERS POSSIBLE ...

It has been so long since I read a brand new comic that had the Fab Five together and they were all happy.

I really needed that, today of all days.

I got into the sheer joy the characters had - even their moments with Wally - which were nicely individualized

I felt like something was missing though - in terms of plot.

But I was so happy at the focus on these Titans that I could overlook it

I wasn't worried so much about plot. I get this issue is pretty much entirely set-up, but when you've got Donna Troy that happy after so long I would gladly pay for that again and again and again.

True
I didn't mind the plot-lessness (where I did mind it in Aquaman and Batman Rebirth)

It was just really cool seeing everyone

I'm kind of wondering how much they'll change Lilith as Omen this time around - the costume looks wonky

And I'm hoping Donna stays in Titans rather than being shared with the WW team

Yeah, Donna's always been more of a Titans character to me than she's ever been a WW character. The same guys for Garth and Roy.

Well Donna has never really appeared in Wonder Woman. How long between when the character was introduced until she first appeared in a Wonder Woman story? As we all know, the Pre-Teen Titans Wonder Girl was not Donna.

At least Garth and Roy have a bulk of stories where they were with their mentors.

She appeared regularly in Wonder Woman during Phil Jimenez's 2001-2003 WW run.

Yeah, but that was over 35 years after the character first appeared. Meanwhile Garth, Roy, Dick, & Wally were having adventures with their adult counterparts while the Teen Titans started.

The point is that Donna has been more of a Teen Titans character than a Wonder Woman character.

I'm loving that both Donna and Garth are total badasses, while Dick and Roy remain great at what they do, for 'mere mortals.'

Never been a fan of Lilith, but, eh, she doesn't bug me or anything, so it's all good.

Wally being back is cool. He was never my favorite Titan, in any incarnation, but it's definitely good to see him back with the gang.

Of the old-school Titans, 'Caveboy' / Gnarrk, Hawk, Dove and Mal, I can live without, although I have a soft spot for Bumblebee (and, bizarrely, Golden Eagle, who we haven't seen back yet).

Lilith being part of this group suggests that Raven will not be, since they tend to cover the same 'mysterious character what points out the plot' niche. Changeling/Beast Boy, on the other hand, has been both a new and old Titan (thanks to Titans West), so might show up at some point, and Starfire has ties to the new version of Roy Harper, as well as having her some Dick back in the day.

The more space Starfire has from Arsenal for the time being the better. DC hasn't 100% made up for the way the two of them were handled in Red Hood and the Outlaws, and after she spent like 4 years being half of Roy's ONLY friends, we could use a breather.

I never picked up Red Hood and the Outlaws but I did pick up the first TPB of Starfire and it was pretty good (not great, but definitely decent).

As for the Titans, I'm hoping that Omen's costume has a reason to be (or it changes) cuz right now I don't get it.

I'd love to see more of Bumblebee!

Mal, Hawk and Dove were always fun guest appearances for me -- and never quite clicked as Titans.

I'd love to see Bette Kane, Golden Eagle, Kid Frankenstein, Jesse Quick, Hero Cruz, and Thunder & Lightning (the Vietnamese twins) appear in this Titans

So now where do we go from here? haven't followed the Titans series since the quite terrible New Teen Titans restart a few years ago, but I did read the enjoyable Starfire maxiseries and also Titans Hunt.

The Rebirth issue was not all that spectacular. Not bad as well, but where will this lead? Reestablishing the Titans in the Rebirth DCU certainly is not a bad idea, but I don't see where they will be fitting in with all those unsolved continuity conundrums going on. A second Teen Titans series featuring Starfire will be published as well. How long will it take til the next abysmal crossover will come along?

Nah, I'm not sold. BUT: I do like the new style of the Rebirth line, the new retro logo and retro look - that's a step into the right direction!

Yeah nothing has happened yet in Titans. I am hopeful that the team composition is a good start. I'm not 100% sure what their mission is yet, but if it's to face Doc Manhattan, then at least the Titans will be at the center of the next big DC direction.

Not so sure about the writer and artist, but again - if they don't work out, I'm hoping that DC powers-that-be boot them off sooner rather than later.

I'm skipping the Teen Titans book as I haven't enjoyed the younger adventures of the Teen Titans in a LONG time.

Ok new issue is out now ...

Clearly Bumblebee is joining the team as she's on the cover (though not in the book)

The pace was uneven. As FanFic has pointed out, the writer is not as good solo as he was in a pair (IMO). This shows here.

The artist is playing without restraint. I'm not a huge fan of the style - it's a little too splash page for me. I get that the artist makes more money on the sale this way, but it's not moving the story the way I'd like. Everyone is a little too long for me (if that makes sense). Arsenal is probably the one benefitting the most from this approach.

I'm not sure about the storyline. While I enjoyed most of the Donna/Roy/Garth interactions, Dick didn't do anything besides host them in his apartment (he didn't even come up with any plans). The driver of the story is (no surprise) Wally but after he gives his origin? Not much else happens with him.

Is the cast too large for the creators? Is there a larger vision for this slow, erratic fumble of a first issue? Would I be picking this up if I wasn't devoted to these Titans?

I'm liking Titans so far, but I agree there are a lot of little missteps that keep the series squarely in the "not bad but not great" category.

What I like is the sheer sense of joy so far in the series, particularly the friendship and love the Titans have for each other. I love that Lilith is included and I'm thrilled Bumblebee is en route.

But Brett Booth's art is not my favorite either, though I do get he has a large fanbase. And beyond the "who is Wally running from" storyline, there isn't much there yet in terms of the Titans actually doing anything. That needs to change ASAP.

I will say though that I greatly prefer Dan Abnett over Andy Lanning, and this is also more personal that anything relating to their work. Back in 1999 - 2000 when they both posted regularly with the LMB on the DCMB's, I always felt Andy was a bit of a dick and far too sensitive / easily angered. Meanwhile, Dan was always classy and friendly. Of course, that was 17 years ago. But its always stuck with me. Regardless, I like Dan's work and have for a long time. He can do a lot better than this and I hope he does.

Cobie, thanks for sharing your perspective on DnA. As someone who is both hyper-sensitive and easily angered, I might have been less bothered by Andy if I had been there on the DCMBs, since I probably could have related to him to some extent. OR, I might have been even more bothered by him than you, because I think the old saying about hating in other people what are actually reflections of your own personality does have validity.

But that's neither here nor there. I've never interacted with either Andy or Dan, but I still feel like Dan came across as a not very nice person when he made his official public statement about the end of his partnership with Andy. I'm well aware of how sour relationships between two people can turn over time -- be they friends, lovers, or collaborators -- but I think Dan should have simply said something like, "Unfortunately, our partnership is no more, but we did some nice stuff together that will endure," or words to that effect, instead of words to the effect of, "Oh, yeah, THAT guy. We split up, and I'm really happy about that, you gotta make a fresh start sometimes, and seek out new company." It came across to me as very callous and cold-hearted.

That's why I refuse to read anything Dan writes anymore.

I got Titans #1. It feels like it's trying (snappy-esque repartee, cool-ish palling around) but doesn't make it, in my opinion. Plot pops around oddly. Art has a dynamic layout but the faces seem off. Disappointed...I used to be a Titans fan and was hoping this one would bring me back.

Picked up the latest Titans for the Superman crossover. While I liked seeing Wally and Clark bond over the experience of being from outside the current reality but trying to make it work, the rest of the issue didn't do much for me. It seemed like a lot of treading water plotwise. I also found the "banter" rather forced all around.

Mixed feelings. I like the story overall, and I think drawing mainly from the 60s and 70s instead of the 80s gives it a much less generic "Titans" feel, even though Wolfman/Perez are MY Titans.

My problem is the same as with Rebirth in general: they are not only making the DC continuity snarls worse, they are putting it in the foreground, to the point that even the protagonists are confused about their own backstories.

Reading Titans Hunt on its own, it seemed to me like the mindwipe happened BEFORE New Teen Titans, and they were wandering around amnesiac and the bulk of Titans history never happened. The presence of Starfire, Raven, and Beast Boy in Teen Titans seems to belie that, but I still can't make heads or tails of the timeline.

And Donna didn't just forget her membership in the Titans, she thought she was a murderous psychopath who was formed from clay only a few months ago. Shouldn't discovering she is an adult woman and not a 6 month old golem have more of an impact? And did she suddenly snapped back to classic Donna's personality, or is she still the hotheaded warrior, or some hybrid of the two? I am at a loss.

You know, I think I may have talked myself from mixed feeling to wanting to get a shovel and take that miniseries out back.

Instead of talking about the restructured Rebirth history in bits and pieces here and there, I figured I'd start coming here when I wanted to ruminate on things so all the discussion would be in one place.

The Lazarus Contract didn't change the present-day Titans as much as it did Teen Titans and Deathstroke, but it filled in a lot of backstory, most particularly the Rebirth relationship between the Titans and Deathstroke. I don't think the stories as recounted here would have made particularly riveting reading, but they serve perfectly well as a backdrop to the current stories. Deathstroke's history with the Titans definitely happened with the 60s/70s teams. And the Judas Contract never happened, instead a deal between Robin and Deathstroke ended their feud. Jericho apparently had no Titans connection since they didn't even recognize each other when they came together. Dick was apparently to be some sort of ethical mentor to Rose, but we don't really see how that played out. And I think we can now definitively say that we were right that the Wolfman/Perez iteration of the team no longer existed.

It's only a slight exaggeration to say that run changed my life, so I would have expected to feel some anger, or at least sadness, at its passing. Bu the truth is that run has become something of an albatross around the franchise's neck, as the need to harken back constantly to that era has made the book stale and repetitive. Create a variation of the lineup, drift away as members come and go, then get the book "back on track" by issuing another variation on that classic lineup. All of those members are still in circulation, so it's not as if we're being deprived of anyone. I'm not going to shed a tear over losing Danny Chase, Terry Long, or Phantasm.

The only thing I will genuinely miss is the Cyborg/Changeling Beast Boy friendship. I'd really like to see that reintroduced, even if it involves the current versions meeting for the first time in the present day.

It did have one confusing moment for me, though. I had come to the conclusion that (adult) Wally was actually the New 52 Wally whom we were meeting for the first time, and whose history just happened to closely mirror pre-Flashpoint Wally. That would make this Wally the same one the Rebirth Titans remember, and simplify things considerably. But he remembered Jericho, when none of the Titans did at all, nor did Jericho seem to know them. So is he the pre-Flashpoint Wally, with a set of memories that don't match up even with the people who have remembered him? Uck. The only thing worse than being left wondering about this would be another mess of a story trying to explain the broken continuity.

I'm also unclear on whether Wally's kids never existed here, or if Linda simply forgot having kids along with Wally. That would make for an awkward Ob/Gyn appointment. Unless the kids are floating around in the speed force, I suppose they must not exist.

So the Justice League, apparently unanimously but led by Batman, decided to shut the Titans down pending an investigation into their irresponsible behavior while saving the world last issue. They have also put Donna under unofficial house arrest while they look into this evil future version thing.

Good thing that's the only evil future version of a superhero running around the DCU right now, or that could be seen as contrived and hypocritical. And good thing Justice League isn't currently doing a story about the massive effects of Batmans own screw ups.

Oh, if you were thinking the League doesn't have authority over the Titans? That's explained. The Titans point this out, and the League replies "Nuh uh, we totally do. No takebacks."

I felt like the Abnett Titans were starting to gel, but maybe not so much.

This update actually makes me happy I did not pick up comics in Dec/Jan

I can't believe they brought back Bliss from Eric Wallace's run. That was the drug made from CHILDREN.

And of course it had to be in a Roy centric storyline.