Teen Titans #9

Oh, Harvest wins? I guess I'll cancel Teen Titans, Superboy, and Legion Lost from my weekly comic pull list.

Is this the issue where Robin refuses to kill Harvest and wins? I think maybe Harvest had to come back in time because he was the cause of Red Robin going forward in time to become Harvest which is why he has a Time Bubble. Or that first thing I said earlier where Harvest just needs Tim Drake to kill him. But I guess Skitter needs to do something to stop the whole timeline from happening. Maybe? Because she's new to this timeline and can change it?

Or all of my speculation is way off and I should just get on with reading the final issue of ... THE CULLING! [lightning and thunder and pounding on a piano and screams and heart beats]

This is where Jason Todd would say, "Just shut up and die," and then he'd kill him in one panel after four pages of everyone getting their asses kicked. And for once, I'd approve! Two page finale!

Even though Harvest broke into their telepathic planning party last issue, this issue begins with Red Robin and Tyroc putting a final plan together to bring down Harvest. Tim Drake would never, ever have been this sloppy! But I expect it from Scott Lobdell. Now, Tim states that they can do the telepathy thing while Kid Flash blathers but that skill really only works in Warhammer. But, really, once Harvest breached their secret thoughts through telepathy, Red Robin would have given up on it. Just like Batman.

Oh! Unless this is a big fake plan to make Harvest think he knows what they're planning when really their plan is being made on a different, super secret thought chat party that even the reader isn't allowed to know about!

Um, Gar? That's not Terra. Terra's the blond with the braids, dude.

Then Thunder says, "Ayla! Guards are coming," to which Caitlin Fairchild says, "Blast, Lightning! I was hoping the security people would bug out with the rest of the workforce." So does nobody recognize anybody?! Did they all go face blind?! Did the Letterer just say, "Fuck it!" and just scatter the speech bubbles randomly across the page?

While Caitlin and a handful of others man the life boats (or escape pods. Because evil bases in Antarctica must contain escape pods) and the Teen Titans continue to attack Harvest ineffectively, Legion heads down to the power core to blow it up. Which Harvest mentioned he knew about but in a way that didn't suggest he overheard their telepathic chat but suggested he's just so super intuitive that he knew that's what they were going to do. He's so smart!

*sputter* That's not fucking Terra! Terra is standing behind you! Fuck, DC editors and artists and letterers and, and, and FUCK! Can we get a class action lawsuit against DC to just make them fucking care about what they're doing?

The escape pods are all programmed to go to different places with the last one containing the main super heroes. Rose Wilson sends Warblade and the other Ravagers to meet up with the last pod in Ravagers #1. Legion's assault against the power core begins to tear NOWHERE's complex apart. And the Teen Titans continue to fail to do anything to Harvest. And I continue to hate and despise this entire storyline.

Stop it. Stop it right now. With aliens and super powers and mutants and Batmen existing in this universe, it is this kind of thing that obliterates my suspension of disbelief. Harvest did not fucking plan every single move over the last 30 issues or so of Teen Titans, Legion Lost, and Superboy comic books just for this moment to have the scared teens he kidnapped blasted across the world in escape pods. Nobody can see 1000 moves ahead (by dozens of different people, no less) to manipulate everything because nobody knows every single action every single person is going to make no matter how arrogant you are or how far in the future you're from.

I'm going to continue my Captioned rant down here in the main body of the commentary now. This plot device is always stupid. It's really lazy to just keep making every part of the story, no matter how random it ends up being, part of the evil villain's master plan. It's inane and insipid. It's drivel and bullshit and lazy ass writing. But let me guess! The reason Harvest is going to fail (unless, you know, he doesn't and the cover was correct!) is because he's failed to calculate the moves of Skitters because she's like the MULE from Asimov's Foundation series. She's a random cog that Harvest's future knowledge and superior intuition couldn't account for. Or maybe Harvest will just fucking escape since this comic has got to be nearing its end!

Meanwhile, Legion Lost destroys the Power Core and Gates returns in time to save them (and he's got a new Time Bubble in tow), and they all escape to Legion Lost #10 while the core blows.
And Harvest escapes because that was probably the plan. He probably has his real base on the dark side of the moon that never gets any sun. Am I right, DC? RIGHT?! You and your fucking editors have always sucked major ass, haven't you? For any of the children that don't remember DC's big Eclipso crossover, a huge plot point was that Eclipso's base was on the dark side of the moon. And the way the super heroes finally beat him was to angle some sunlight onto the base on the dark side of the moon because Eclipso couldn't possess people (or survive or something) when the sun was shining on him. Except, you know, that's only a fucking saying EVERYBODY at DC working during that crossover! How could not one person, even the fucking janitor, not scratch their ass at some moment and just go, "Hey, you know what? No side of the fucking moon is dark! Every part of the moon gets sunlight on it at some time during its fucking orbit around Earth!"

Okay, anyway, Harvest escapes and then this happens:

Look! A non-omniscient narrator! He's not omniscient because I don't see any fury or flames. Just snow and an explosion.

The Teen Titans tunnel through the Earth thanks to Superboy and Wonder Girl who somehow flies through the Earth towing the others encased in rock. I'll let this one go and just assume Superboy is digging out the Earth ahead of them as they move with his telekinesis. And then the final page which sucks just as much as every other part of the comic book.

Hey, Lobdell! Have you ever been asleep or unconscious? Yeah, it NEVER EVER seems like an eternity passes after you've awoken. And you couldn't just let the comic end without some kind of stupid ass fucking stupid bullshit stupid cliffhanger? Is that Beast Boy?

Teen Titans #9 Rating: -2 Ranking. What more can I say? I could just get a thesaurus and list all the synonyms for horrible. Would that be a good conclusion? Or I could point out that you know the comic is super fucking bad when this is the best page in the comic book:

HOLY MOTHER OF GOD!

Is this like giving a television show a Friday or Saturday night time slot? Isn't this just DC saying, "Fuck it! Grifter and Hawkman are going to be cancelled anyway. Let's see what Rob can do to them!" Tony Daniel's Hawkman has just sucked. And Nathan Edmondson's Grifter is currently the worst comic in the New 52. While I'm excited to have Rob Liefeld's art to make fun of as I read Grifter, I'm really disappointed that we'll probably be losing Grifter's profoundly nonsensical Narration Boxing! But Deathstroke was actually sort of not too bad. Sometimes.