Saturday, April 11, 2020

Convergence: The New Teen Titans #1 (2015) Review

Trouble In Paradise



Written By: Marv Wolfman
Art By: Nicola Scott, Marc Deering, Jeremy Cox
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: April 22, 2015

It's time to get into some Teen Titans fun and not just any ole Teen Titans, we have ourselves the "New" Teen Titans and besides for Kole and Jericho, that's a pretty badass team. Sorry if you're a fan of those two, I just can't get behind those characters, especially being in the Titans.  Not a lot to say, we've spent a year under the dome and our Titan heroes have done their damnedest to keep Gotham safe while the team were powerless, let's see how they do when the dome drops and have to face the Tangent Doom Patrol.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our story begins with Donna Troy keeping audio records of her time in the dome so that one day when she's reunited with her very creepy love Terry Long, they can somehow make sure that this never happens again. I'm not really sure, all I know is that when I opened this comic I immediately thought "Oh yeah, this is the creepy era of Donna Troy, where she was in love with her college professor... gross."  While Donna pines for saggy skin, Nightwing and Starfire are after jewel thieves who shot and killed a couple of people during their heist and get this, our heroes are sporting jet packs armed to the teeth.  That's one way to get over not having powers.  It's during this time where Starfire plans on murdering the hell out of these gun-happy jewel robbers that we find out that Nightwing and her are married and it looks like the honeymoon is over as Dick has to plead with Kori not to kill the murdering thieves.  It all turns out alright though but the dome comes down and we see that our heroes will have to fight the Tangent Doom Patrol, who plan on stealing energy from the Pre-Crisis Gotham to transport their city back to where it belongs so that they can change the future of their world.


Now while we've seen conflicting stories on what happens to heroes that rely on cybernetics and robotics augmenting their bodies, we don't really have a clear cut explanation on what's been going on with Cyborg during his time under the dome.  All we know is that he's having some bad times now because the housing on his power cells is deteriorating and that means bad news for Vic Stone.  Before it gets too bad though, Vic plans on helping out as much as he can and while he was trying to upgrade the city's power grid, the Tangent Doom Patrol attack.  Eventually, we get a full out team vs. team fight but the Doom Patrol decides to fall back because the member Rampage realizes that the power source they were looking for to transport themselves home wasn't from the power plant but from Cyborg.


In the end, Nightwing questions his marriage to Starfire because of her ruthless nature, while Donna continues to pine for Megan's Lister Terry Long and our Tangent Doom Patrol decide that getting back to their home is more important than one Cyborg's life, so they plan on attacking our Titans again.  As the issue closes it looks like not all of the Doom Patrol feel the same because Firehawk sends a message to Nightwing saying that they need to talk.


That's it for this issue of Convergence: The New Teen Titans and while I enjoyed the issue enough, it felt a little bogged down with Donna Troy and Nightwing's love problems.  Yeah, it's good to have a little character background during this event tie-in but with only two issues to this, it doesn't seem like any of their whinings will be resolved.  I would've preferred to find out what Cyborg was up to during this year under the dome but that's just me.  I loved the fact that we got so much interaction with the Tangent Doom Patrol that our heroes will be fighting because it's not something that every title is doing and I enjoy a little knowledge about these characters that our normal heroes will be facing.  So yeah, a good issue besides for everyone's love problems and it's all tied together with the excellent art of Nicola Scott, who I've missed so much since her departure on Earth 2 and it just makes me wish she was doing more books for DC.

Bits and Pieces:

Problems with love are abundant during the Teen Titan's time under the dome and even though I found it odd that we were dealing with all that drama during a fight to save the city from destruction, this issue was still really enjoyable and we get our Nicola Scott back in action kicking ass and taking names...I mean penciling.  The art was great in this issue and I loved seeing these characters again, even if this era's Donna Troy had a creepy thing for older men.  

7.5/10

1 comment:

  1. I chose to skip this Wolfman redux because I wasn't sure he had anything left to say except to remind everyone that Dick used to be caught in the middle of Donna and Starfire. I didn't know much about Terry except that he was Donna's civilian lover. Now that I know more, I agree that he's creepy.

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