Teen Titans #1

It's about time DC introduced the Teen Titans to The New 52!

Finally, DC has decided to return The Teen Titans to the DC Universe! It's hard to imagine that they didn't include The Teen Titans as one of the launch titles for The New 52. I suppose they wanted to make sure they did them right. Can you imagine the outrage if DC had launched the Teen Titans with an awful writer and that writer nearly ruined the franchise? DC really dodged a bullet there! Although this had better be a terrific fucking comic since they had three years to plan it!

Although they couldn't come up with a better look for Raven? Why is she wearing a clam shell on her face?

This issue begins with trouble in New York. And I realize that no matter how much I want to be in denial about Scott Lobdell's train wreck first run of this series, I'm not going to be able to avoid talking about it. I tried for one paragraph and then I began reading the comic book and then I realized I'm going to have to point out how things were in Lobdell's run and how they're different in this one.

Right off the bat, we see Red Robin has allowed Cassie to know his secret identity (see how it says "Tim" on her phone?). Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought he never revealed his real identity in Lobdell's run. And that would make sense because Lobdell stole all of his ideas for Teen Titans from Young Justice and, at least in the first season, Robin never let anybody know his secret identity.

Remember how, in Teen Titans Annual #3, Lobdell wrote epilogues for all of the characters as if they were never going to be used again? That was cute, wasn't it? And how he thought he was being extra cute when he wrote that bit about how their future adventures weren't going to matter? What an arrogant piece of shit. And if there's one thing I'm an expert on, it's arrogant pieces of shit, since I have to deal with one every single day.

That would be me. I'm talking about myself.

Back to the trouble in New York! The trouble is a Unabomber lookalike that has kidnapped a bus full of children. This terrormonster has an a agenda and, being an Evil Mr Smarty Pants (of the female variety. Don't let the "Mr" part of that confuse you), she needs to tell everybody what she's up to, broadcast across all cell phones and ubiquitous televisions in electronic shop displays. Anyway, the Evil Ms. Smarty Pants needs to shut up before she reveals just how stupid she is. She also needs to be careful because she's already showing me the limit of Will Pfeifer's writing. I'm happy to have somebody other than Lobdell heading this book, so I'm going to do what I normally don't do: I'm going to go easy on him. But let me just point out that he really needs to be careful when writing characters that are smarter than himself.

The Evil Ms. Smarty Pants has a few concepts mixed up but the gist is that the folks at STAR Labs seem to be experimenting with Artificial Intelligence and they're developing one that exceeds human intelligence. That's her definition of the technological singularity, not mine! Mine would be that they're developing an Artificial Intelligence of infinite computing power. But that doesn't matter! I wasn't going to nitpick! I'm probably wrong anyway! Just misunderstanding the work of the new writer since I'm used to wildly moronic tales of the Omniverse and Teen Angst! It probably doesn't matter anyway.

See? I think this is just an opening scene to show New York that the Teen Titans are their heroes and not the hated assholes that the world hated (because they were assholes) that Lobdell was writing.

So Evil Ms. Smarty Pants and her crew of five four continue to barrel along toward STAR Labs with Wonder Girl on top of their bus beating up the bad guys, Beast Boy aboard the bus as some kind of inconspicuous green creature, and Bunker hanging out in front of STAR Labs waiting to boost security with his Brain Blocks. Red Robin is coordinating and saving small children while Raven has yet to be seen. I'm sure she's off in a dark corner obsessing over how she's going to betray the group. No, no. That's not fair! That was Lobdell's Raven! I'm sure Pfeifer's Raven will be perky and upbeat.

Beast Boy apparently doesn't know the meaning of inconspicuous because he boards the bus as a tiger. Now if he wasn't entirely green, maybe he could have blended in with the kids. But instead, he drops the Evil Ms. Smarty Pants' crew down to three.

Here's the tiniest, cutest, most adorable Boob-Butt Showcase ever!

Red Robin questions Beast Boy's understanding of the word inconspicuous as well and Beast Boy points out how Red Robin added some kind of clause or something. Whatever. I'm going to scrap this commentary because I hate it! Kenneth Rocafort's art is making me sexually frustrated and unduly angry at the Teen Titans! I don't want to be turned on by a woman in a clam shell facemask or the rippling green muscles of a virile Bengal Tiger. I know it's virile because it has a tiger penis and at least one billion people believe tiger penis enhances virility. You can't argue with one billion people! I mean, you can! But they'd probably drown out your argument and even if you could quiet them all down long enough to speak your view, most of them would be too far away to hear you, and most of those billion people probably don't even speak your language so the ones close enough to hear you would probably just keep saying, "這是什麼白痴話？"

Let me start over! Pretend you didn't read that previous stuff especially the part about Kenny's art and the sexual frustration. That was just me joking around! Ha ha! Okay. Ready for a Teen Titans Review Reboot? Well fuck you, it's happening. Jesus. Readers think they're so entitled that they can answer my rhetorical questions incorrectly? Learn some respect!

In Teen Titans #1 (the new and improved version), some serious shit goes down in New York while the public stands around filming it on cell phones so they can later post the videos to friends on Facebook, videos of children terrified out of their minds who are most likely about to die. Does anybody else have a bunch of friends who simply post video link after video link to their walls? Jesus Christ! I preferred the days when all I had to scroll past were pictures of what people were about to eat for lunch. I guess Instagram took the brunt of that market, didn't it? It just makes me think my friends are a bunch of...what am I doing?! I'm supposed to be reviewing! Okay, okay, back to the review, Comicsverse-style!

"Some very, very shitty shit goes down in New York and the Teen Titans are there to save the day. The way they save the day is very, very interesting and held my interest throughout this very interesting comic book. If I had any complaints about the comic book, I'd have to make them very, very mild and reiterate how it's only my subjective opinion and nobody should hold DC or its creators accountable for my negative view of any aspect of this very, very interesting comic book! You see, having opinions that don't come off as very shiny and very happy might cause comic book creators to not want to be subjugated to horrible three minute interviews by Comicsverse in the future. Look at what happened to that one critic that criticized the cover of this very comic book (I mean the main cover and not the silly cover I scanned earlier)! Do you think Brett Booth, a very, very interesting and very talented artist, will ever give that reviewer an interview ever again ever? Not on your very interesting life! So I have to be very careful about calling writers "douchebags" and artists "hacks" or else the comic book creator community might begin to shun me and the very, very interesting website, Comicsverse, which I represent! Not that I'd ever call any creator a "douchebag" or a "hack!" Well, maybe Dave Sim since I know I'd have the support of Tumblr behind me. Not that any of them would know who he is anyway since his career began in the 70s long before any of the very, very interesting people of Tumblr were born. So in conclusion...oh wait! I forgot to mention the art was very, very exciting to look at and kept me excited by its exciting use of illusory movement across very, very static panels. It was very, very intriguing and interesting and kept me intrigued and interested. Now in conclusion, I really liked this issue of Teen Titans #1 and you probably will too so you should give it a chance! Du nun dunt! That was the Reading Rainbow noise that is made when it goes from one stupid kid's review to the next, even stupider kid's review. I do not have to be nice to the stupid kids on Reading Rainbow because they do not pay very interesting advertising revenue."

Speaking of unduly angry sexual frustration...Mrowr! Bunker knows how to fill out a pair of tight pants!

Anyway, the Teen Titans save the day but The Evil Ms. Smarty Pants gets away because this was only part one of the story mysteriously called "Blinded by the Light." Either Will Pfeifer had better hope his story heads in a direction that will mean the title makes sense or he can just keep using song lyrics as titles whether or not they have anything to do with anything. That never stopped Scott Lobdell on his early Red Hood! Maybe it's Rocafort who is getting to title these stories?

The issue ends with Bunker using his power irresponsibly because he never had an uncle to impart great wisdom upon him before dying like a chump.

I figured he was going to say "assholes" or "douchebags."

I'm glad Bunker has suddenly become the language police because that's not the most useless job in the world. And even if language could be lassoed and people could be forced to use language however one individual thinks language should be used, it would be nice to, at the very least, wait until somebody actually says the thing you think they're going to say before overreacting to it. So far, Bunker has seemed the most forgiving and least likely to explode into a rage, so I get that this is a character moment to show that he's very sensitive to bigots and assholes. But here's the thing, Bunker. Assholes like this guy are dinosaurs. They're living, walking, breathing dinosaurs that don't fucking realize they're already extinct. His daughter would probably have realized her dad is a judgmental asshole speaking ill of the people that just saved her. But now? When the same person just slammed her father up against a wall and threatened him? Maybe now she'll believe her dad's prejudices against gay superheroes more readily. Although I bet this guy would have kept his mouth shut if his daughter had been saved by Midnighter!

Anyway, I'm sure Bunker won over more fans than he lost with this moment but I'm not one of them! He's lucky he looks so good in his tights. I can't stay mad at him!

Teen Titans #1 Rating: For the first time in the history of The Teen Titans Ranking History, I'm going to place it right in the middle of the pack. Previously, I think it's always been ranked at about 50 of 52 or lower. It was so awful! Hopefully everybody can forget how awful it was! We're all going to agree that Lobdell's run never happened, right? We'll just throw it in the bin next to Tony S Daniel's run of Hawkman, Rob Liefeld's run of Deathstroke, and Scott Lobdell's run of Superman. Awwwww. That makes me feel so much better.