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"Daddy's
Home "
The New Teen Titans:
The Terror of Trigon
A DC Comics trade paperback review
By
Troy Brownfield
Writer:
Marv Wolfman
Pencils: George Perez
Inks: Romeo Tanghal
More
Info: www.dccomics.com
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The
Teen Titans have once again captured popular imagination,
what with the new animated series and three sell-outs in a
row for the new DC title. That harkens back to the time when
the Titans franchise was popular enough to split into two
distinct titles: one, for the newstand, was called Tales
of the New Teen Titans, and the other, for the direct
market, was The New Teen Titans. The first five issues
of that more mature, direct-only series from the early '80s
have finally been collected in trade form. Given a great cover
by the Perez-influenced Phil Jimenez, the new volume puts
the stellar work of Wolfman and Perez front and center at
a time when the Titans are the rage and Perez is getting large
JLA/Avengers ink. Good move.
And good
work too. Building on issues latent since the start of the
first New Teen Titans series, Wolfman and company explore
the darkening of Raven. Early in the original run (large portions
of issues #3-6), the Titans battled Raven's demonic father,
Trigon, and barely survived. Now, the team is beginning to
see signs of change in their teammate and things start to
go downhill quickly. (As explained by Wolfman in the intro,
the creative team was able to incorporate the simple evolution
of Raven's look over time into a sinister, long-term transformation;
the inspiration makes it so that any reader who flips back
can indeed see the subtleties that Cyborg discovers. That's
smart work, folks).
Much of
this tale concerns confronting the demon within. For Raven,
that's a literal dilemma, but the other Titans are forced
to deal with other psychological torments as well. It's a
fine metaphor and works well in execution. Also, the return
of Kid Flash and Lilith to the team add both a personal and
powerful weight to the proceedings. Lilith was an interesting
character, criminally underused with the exception of the
later "Thia" and "Azrael" stories, and
it's a shame that she got smoked in the whole "Graduation
Day" thing. At least she gets quite a bit to do here.
As for
the art, this was just before Crisis, and Perez was firing
on all cylinders, and maybe a few extra besides. His facial
expressions are dead-on, and his detail is outstanding. The
man draws super-heroes the way that they're supposed to look.
Overall,
this is a really strong story and a perfect snapshot of both
a comic and creative team at their best. Grab this and a copy
of "The Judas Contract" and lose yourself for a
few hours. Here's hoping that we'll have even more Wolfman/Perez
collections to look for in the future.
Troy Brownfield is the Editor-in-Chief of ShotgunReviews.com.
He would be really pleased with DC Direct figures of Nightwing,
Jericho, Terra and Deathstroke. Email him at psikotyk@aol.com
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