Teen Titans #22

I'm a pacifist and I want to blacken the eyes of whoever designed The New 52 Raven's costume. The only good thing about it here is that it's distracting me from Wonder Girl's derpy eyes.

In Issue #20, Trigon attacked New York. But then he had a sudden attack of Demon Diarrhea and had to head back to Azathoth Azarath. So he sent his sons in to take over for him until he could crap and shower and return to the battle at the end of Issue #21. So now Trigon is attacking New York for real this time! I hope he doesn't kill any more soldiers or else the whole world is going to hate the Teen Titans!

This issue begins with Beast Boy lying about what previously happened.

Don't believe him! It was totally the diarrhea thing I mentioned!

I don't believe a young monkey would know anything about the A-team. I think he would have been more likely to compare the Teen Titans to The Wonder Pets. I wonder if Red Robin is going to be reborn yet or if the Teen Titans will be wanted? If those things never happen, should I just cut the covers off of the previous issues and throw them away? I also have doubts that Scott Lobdell is ever going to explain what the fuck was going on with Red Robin when he was banging everybody on the team. Was that a Raven thing? I suppose that will be explained when Solstice tells Kid Flash that she's not interested because Red Robin stuck his cigar in her ashtray.

Tony Bedard doesn't have a writing credit on this thing, so who's writing Beast Boy? He's finally acting like the Beast Boy I like and he actually made me smile with his "Pattern 666" suggestion to Red Robin. Can't be Scott Lobdell writing him. Although he did shove in that A-team reference and that is very much like Lobdell (and Liefeld!) to pepper dialogue with old pop culture references. You know, the ones that mean something to him but really shouldn't mean much to a bunch of kids barely born into the last century.

The beginning of the battle is mostly big splash pages and battle poses. But then Superboy begins taking it to Raven.

No it doesn't! Stop trying to be smart and use logic, you moronic infant. I've seen you answering questions in school and you're not the least chromosomally damaged clone in the lab. You just got lucky that your telekinesis worked on Raven's hell-magic soul-self.

While one of Raven's other soul-selves battles Kid Flash, she tricks him into giving away a bit of his future-past that we all know Scott Lobdell hasn't given any more thought to than this one throw away line:

I take it I'm supposed to be intrigued by this now. "Oooh! How many sheep did he fuck to save his parents?!"

All of the action takes place in big, over-the-top panels as Raven psychoanalyzes one member of the Teen Titans after another. And Beast Boy is simply finally acting like Beast Boy! I'm so happy he's being a silly, whimsical little shit. Although I'm not happy that I have to thank Scott Lobdell for bringing him back to his roots.

Red Robin shoves his Inertrite Wings into Trigon's face which I really wish would have killed him. Instead it just causes him to philosophize about safety and freedom and lessons parents teach their kids. Ugh. Shut up, you stupid demon! Why do you have to make everybody miserable before you kill them?

For yet another unknown reason, Trigon departs. It's not like the wings through his face were the cause since he speaks exactly 100 words after being wounded. He just speechifies and speechifies and then decides he'd rather spit on Red Robin's grave after Red Robin dies of natural causes than kill Red Robin this day. The rest of the Teen Titans recover and Raven is finally safe. Raven makes a big fuss about what could go wrong if any part of Trigon's power is still within one of the Titans but Red Robin convinces her everybody is okay. But Trigon mentioned he attacked Red Robin first, so I suspect when Red Robin was acting weird a few issues ago and sexing up the other Titans, he was being manipulated by Trigon. Which means some of Trigon's darkness is probably still within him! I bet it grows and grows and grows until it overpowers Tim Drake and he becomes Harvest!

So then the woman that I thought was Amanda Waller last issue because why the fuck would the artist draw a completely new character that looks like Amanda Waller and is bossing around a bunch of people and is trying to manipulate the Teen Titans? Why would I ever have even considered that this was a new character?! She claims to be from a pan-dimensional sci-fi club that owes Tim Drake a favor. But she says she'd better never meet him again or it will be the end of Omnithing! She must know him from the Tim Drake turning into Harvest timeline that will probably never happen. She may even be Tim Drake's daughter from the future since those are the only kind of plots that Scott Lobdell can come up with. Plots that develop organically? Too fucking hard! Plots that deal with prophecy and time travel? Easy peasy!

And then Raven joins the team! Hopefully somebody will take her shopping for a new look. If the comic had ended with this moment, it would have been pretty good. But Scott Lobdell just can't help himself. He can't help looking at the book and thinking, "Everybody is getting along great and I didn't put too many comic book cliches in it! So I guess I'm not finished!"

Then Scott Lobdell uses the end of the Trigon story to make sense of all of the previous nonsense going on in the book.

And even though they were just controlled by Trigon, and Raven points out that Trigon was controlling Tim, everybody gets pissed at him. Lobdell, you are a fucking hack.

Because Scott Lobdell couldn't leave the group to be nice and happy and drama free and working as a team for more than one single fucking panel, he blows his narrative apart with this stupid bullshit. I'm supposed to believe that they're all going to be angry at Red Robin for being possessed by Trigon? Right after they've experienced the same thing? And they couldn't break the spell but Tim did? Fuck them all if I'm supposed to believe they're this petty and shallow.

And I never for once bought Kid Flash's "love" for Solstice since it's composed of about two panels in 23 comic books, so his being angry doesn't sit well at all. And even if I do buy into their relationship, he should be angry at Solstice! She wasn't possessed when she fucked Tim! I suppose Kid Flash is just mad at himself for having missed his opportunity with Solstice by moving too slow. +1 Speed Force Point!

But wait! This anger and resentment and teen angst drama bullshit isn't all you get! You also get the biggest fucking cliche in comic books: Raven is actually still working with her father and it was all about getting her to infiltrate the Teen Titans! All that is yours for just $2.99!

Oh, well maybe I spoke too soon about the Kid Flash and Solstice thing.

I still don't buy into their love!

And then Bar Tor is pulled into the future to pay for his crime of Sheep Lovin'.

Teen Titans #22 Rating: +1 Ranking. I didn't want to give it any rise in the rankings after the way it ended but it's making a lot more fucking sense than Lobdell's Superman, so it might as well be higher in the rankings than that piece of Krypto shit. I would have actually thought this was a pretty decent issue if it had ended with Raven joining the team. Lobdell didn't even need to explicitly spell out that Trigon was possessing Red Robin earlier. After Trigon's line of attacking Tim first, it made sense. But then he piled on all the other bullshit as being because of Trigon, like the attack on Belle Reve. It still doesn't make any fucking sense! Raven says Trigon did it to make an enemy of Amanda Waller. But that isn't what happened at all! They actually struck up some sort of secret deal! But even then, maybe the issue would have ended okay. But no! All the idiot teenagers had to hate on Tim for things he did while possessed. Bunch of whiny brats. And I guess since the toilet was already overflowing, Lobdell decided to pull the handle a few more times and really get that shit pouring over the rim by making Raven a mole for Trigon. I guess Lobdell just can't help but completely Lobdell himself. Why can't he have a team that's happy to work together? Fuck all the contrived drama. You know what also works with a super hero team? When they have fun together and like each other! What a disappointment.