Teen Titans #19

Of course Beast Boy would team up with Raven. I guess Terra already betrayed him to go off with Deathstroke in Team 7?

Last issue was a steaming pile of maggots decaying under a hot desert sun, so it's best if we just forget about it and concentrate on the good things in life. One of those good things is not having had to read Teen Titans for a full month. But that bliss is now at an end. It's time to see what Trigon and Raven have in store, once more, for the Teen Titans.

The issue begins with Wonder Girl asking a very reasonable question in an extremely unreasonable way.

This is what happens when you raise kids on timed threats and microwaves.

Tim Drake is a greater genius than me so I won't question why he gives Cassie ten seconds before trying to get her death grip off of his throat. I'm pretty sure she's strong enough to crush his neck into sloppy goo in a fraction of a second, so time is of the essence in removing her hand. Meanwhile Kid Flash ineffectively runs around Cassie groping her and hoping she'll be too distracted to kill Red Robin. At least I assume he's merely groping her because anybody with super speed should be able to do more than simply tickle her and tell her to stop it.

As they try to sort things out rationally on the second page, I notice two confusing bits. First off, Solstice and her wacky thought bubble.

Me especially what? What the fuck are you thinking about?

And the credits:

Does this mean Jerry Siegel's family can pull the plug on DC's use of Superboy? Because if so, I've got some fucking letters to write!

Red Robin simply snaps at them and tells them that they'll do what he says without question or they'll get the fuck out of his Yacht Mansion Headquarters! Superboy says, "I only have the mind of an eight month old but that was fucked up, right?" But nobody has time to agree because suddenly Trigon is destroying New York.

Wonder Girl comes upon him trying to make friends with the "Drop Dead" kid. She punches him in the jaw and Trigon marvels about how he felt the punch as he flies across the street and into a bus. I wonder why more characters with near-invulnerability don't die more often in one shot. They get so used to never being hurt that by the time somebody comes along that can hurt them, they don't even bother to defend themselves. And then, dead! Too bad Wonder Girl didn't take Trigon's head off in one punch. That would have been a pretty sweet comic moment. And then the team could have gone home and kicked Red Robin's ass for being such a complete prick. But that kind of story in a comic book would be cutting edge and risky. And I think I remember Scott Lobdell's name on the cover of this thing, so I suspect the fight will continue for a number of pages with really shitty snarky dialogue.

Cassie is Lennox's daughter?

If Cassie is the daughter of Lennox then that means she's actually Wonder Woman's niece. But it also means that she doesn't need the stupid silent armor for her powers. She's a demi-demigod. I think this falls under the category of too many origins. But since I like this origin better than that piece of shit story about Diesel and the Silent Armor, I'll accept this one easily enough! Usually this kind of rethinking of a character's origin doesn't happen so quickly after the original origin's revelation. And usually it's a different writer coming in with a different take on the character. But here Scott Lobdell must have been unsatisfied with how the story revealed itself to him the first time so he decided to toss the dice and try again. Lucky for him, he hit his point this time.

Next Superboy begins punching Trigon in the face while Bunker trips him up with his psychic bricks. Wow, that's pretty odd! The Titans are actually working together instead of taking turns! Trigon spouts the usual "This has ceased to be amusing" mantra of the extremely overpowered finding they're not as invulnerable as they expected to be. And Superboy attacks with a "Get ready ugly! Here comes the boom!" I would have preferred he spoke a comma in there but it's hardly the horror of a Ravageresque speech bubble. Kid Flash saves Superboy before he's incinerated by Trigon's Hellfire Eyebeams. So the team seems to be having a successful go at one of the most powerful enemies to grace the pages of DC's Reboot so far.

How could Madre de Dios help? Put him on a time out? Weep blood? Flaunt her freedom from Original Sin?

Hopefully telling Red Robin that Trigon is an "elder god" is enough intel for Tim to formulate a plan. I'm sure it would be for Batman but I'm just not confident enough in Red Robin's abilities to believe he'll come up with something with so little information. Harvest would have planned Trigon's downfall before Trigon even appeared! I can't wait until Tim Drake is bitten by a vampire and lives for one thousand years and then returns from the future to save humanity and make sure that Tim Drake is bitten by a vampire. If DC's writers can constantly ignore everything they've written from month to month then I don't have to believe that the final word has been said about Harvest's origin. Especially since, like Cassie, he's been revealed to be two different people in two different stories by two different writers. So I'm just hoping for the third (and correct!) writer to come along and reveal Harvest is Tim Drake.

Meanwhile in Los Angeles, Gar Logan is waking up in the rubble of Non-Doom Patrol Headquarters with an editorial note to see Ravagers #12. Excuse me for a second while I reference a book from the future. Oh shit. I forgot my time machine so I guess I'll just have to trust that Deathstroke really did this. I do like that the Doom Patrol has yet to exist in the Reboot but they've already had one headquarters destroyed! Ain't that just like them?

Raven is there to greet Gar as he wakes. She takes over his mind and teleports them to New York to battle at Trigon's side. Poor Beast Boy just keeps getting used by these women. When Beast Boy and Raven arrive, Beast Boy turns into a mass of tentacles. I guess when he's being controlled by a demoness who knows all the monsters of hell, Beast Boy's powers can be used to replicate creatures of the damned as well as gerbils and tortoises.

And then the army arrives and begins by shooting Solstice and some of Beast Boy's tentacles. Then they warn everybody to stop fighting or they'll use deadly force. Or more deadly force! And the non-aggressors had better hope the aggressors stop fighting or else the army is just going to kill innocents and trouble-makers alike! But nobody worry! Psimon the new kid's got this!

Meanwhile, Red Robin is simply standing around saying, "Interesting."

Because the comic book only has one page left, Beast Boy's shapeshifting power somehow cancels out Psimon's drop dead power and they both fall unconscious. Because that explains that! Perhaps Gar shapeshifted into something immortal so Psimon's power overloaded as it tried to make an immortal creature drop dead and both Gar and Psimon were knocked unconscious from the backlash of energy. Or perhaps Scott Lobdell just sucks at writing and he needed the big confrontation to end with a lot of dead soldiers so he could create this contrived and bullshit situation seen on the last page:

Yes. Because I'd blame the bunch of kids in spandex for the destruction of the city and the lost lives before I blamed the fifty story tall, six-eyed horned demon riding the three-headed horse with the fiery breath. Obviously.

Teen Titans #19 Rating: -1 Ranking. I think I hate the X-men. I blame the X-men for this constant and bullshit recurring theme of making the normal human populace distrust and hate super heroes. Why the fuck do we as comic book readers love super heroes and admire their pluck and courage and excitedly follow their exploits as they constantly save the world but the fictional people in the world of the super heroes constantly turn against them and hate them even when obviously just saved from catastrophe by them? I especially hate the end of this comic book where that's the first thing Red Robin thinks when he sees all of these dead people. "This is all about us! His plan was to discredit us all along!" Fuck you, you narcissistic asshole! "All these people are dead but we fucking look bad! What a horrible demon to do that to us!"

I'm beginning to take this bullshit personally, Scott Lobdell! That's your plan, isn't it?! To make me lose my mind! You're writing shittier and shittier comic books each month and DC is selling them to thousands of innocent people who are traumatized and driven to the edge of madness by your books. And it's all to destroy me and my reputation, isn't it?! The more I rant about your awful books, the more I tend toward personal attacks like saying you have a stupid face and calling your asshole a home for wayward gerbils! And every time I make a personal attack that has no basis in how awful your writing is, people will think of me as a monster! I see your plan, you evil fucking genius! And guess what? It won't work! I will destroy you and send you back to whatever hell dimension spawned your hideous form!