Teen Titans #7

When is DC going to force Scott Lobdell to just merge these two titles? The stories have become completely entwined and Lobdell continually retells parts of one comic in the pages of the other except with a different artist. How much of Superboy #7 is going to be retold here in the pages of Teen Titans #7?

The comic begins with Superboy being blasted by a laser while he's shoved into some telekinetic damping machine. Captain Eyepatch cheerily mocks him as he watches.

Director Centerhall is Captain Eyepatch's secret identity.

I'm going to assume that Lobdell is writing Captain Eyepatch as if he were a complete moron instead of assuming that Scott Lobdell is one. An autopsy wouldn't be an autopsy if the patient were still alive. If someone were to perform an autopsy on a living patient, then it wouldn't be called an autopsy it would be called an accident. And it might even be called manslaughter. Now he could have said imagine being dissected while still alive although that would actually be vivisection. But at least would still be less wrong than claiming they're conducting a post-mortem examination on a pre-mortem corpse!

During this scene, Kid Flash is narrating as if this were American Beauty. Not that Kid Flash is dead! But I keep thinking of that movie when I read these comics that are overusing the narrator giving insight to the audience garbage. I'll say it again: it's lazy. If the reader can't feel the tension and emotion of your story without the Boxes, if the reader can't tell what is going on from panel to panel without a Narrator, then the story isn't doing any work. It's just flat, boring illustrations which are propped up by the writer telling the reader what to think and feel. But I guess I'll have to live with it until I stop reading the dreck of the New 52.

Kid Flash has returned to NOWHERE and begins running amok in the Autopsy Lab by redirecting the lasers from Superboy to the scientists. Captain Eyepatch senses him and erects a wall of psionic energy to stop him. I'm not sure how he knows where to place it. I guess math and mind-reading come in handy in this instance. Real life non-engineer usage of Calculus!

I'm pretty sure you don't need that extra period at the end of N.O.W.H.E.R.E.! That's something I would do as a joke!

I know this has become the convention, but how does this work:

When Kid Flash is running at super speed, is he speaking at normal speed? If he's speaking at normal speed so people can understand him, how does that effect his voice and the sound waves? Do all of his actions finish and then everyone hears what he just said? But if he's speaking at normal speed so that he can be understood, then he would run around and beat everyone up in a micro-second and then spend ten seconds finishing his thought and standing around. In the TV show, I think Flash would run really fast, stop to deliver a line, then run around to the next place. He never actually spoke while running super fast. Or if he did, nobody could hear or understand him!

Oh hey! Appropriate! I just looked down at my shirt as I'm typing this.

Man, I need to shave!

As Bunker and Skitters arrive on the scene and the fight to save Superboy is just about to get started, the comic book flashes back to how this rescue mission began. Because at the end of last issue, it seemed like the Teen Titans were ready to go to war against Superboy. So how come Kid Flash is now here in Antarctica talking about Superboy needing the Teen Titans' help? Well, I'll tell you!
Red Robin and Kid Flash were testing out Kid Flash's powers when Danny the Street appeared all around them with a warning that Superboy was in trouble. Have I mentioned that Danny the Street is transgendered or a transvestite? I forget which. Anyway, Danny has been undercover posing as a metahuman kid captured by NOWHERE and reporting what he finds to Red Robin. I don't know how a street poses as a kid but then I don't know how a living, sentient street teleports from place to place either. So I don't really care about that part!

I wonder if Ambush Bug is still living in Danny the Bungalow?

Red Robin calls a meeting in his apartment to go over their rescue plans. But right from the start, I sense a flaw in their plans.

The Arctic, hunh?

Okay, I can buy that they probably have more than one base around the world.

And I can buy that all the NOWHERE Strongholds look the same. Like Mormon temples. Although that land mass looks suspiciously like, um, land.

But Kid Flash, Danny the Street, and Solstice were all held prisoner in the Antarctic.

And Captain Eyepatch welcomes Kid Flash back.

All the evidence points to Red Robin going to the exact furthest point for a rescue of Superboy. Now, the Superboy comic doesn't expressly state where he is when he breaks into NOWHERE. And Captain Eyepatch really is just welcoming Kid Flash back to NOWHERE in a general sense. And even though Danny the Street was held in the Antarctic facility, it doesn't mean he couldn't have found the plans to the Arctic facility or even pretended to be some other captured metahuman up there as well. So everything except for the scene that shows Superboy descending on what looks like Antarctica and not, you know, the Arctic Circle is circumstantial. And I guess Superboy could be descending upon a large glacier or ice mass. And Scott Lobdell has been writing these comics himself (except for that one shot of the headquarters from Legion Lost written by Tom DeFalco) so how could he get his own information so wrong? Right?

In summary, Scott Lobdell is a horrible writer who can't even remember his own story. I rest my case. I'm sure a jury would convict him of sucking. Or perhaps a lesser charge of simply not giving a shit.

So back in Antarctica, the Teen Titans have arrived to rescue Superboy via Danny the Street's dimensional portal power. They held a meeting and while most of them didn't want to save Superboy, Red Robin insisted and was about to go alone. This was about stopping NOWHERE from capturing and corrupting young super heroes. Superboy was one of them and he couldn't leave him in their hands. The rest of the Teen Titans only followed after Red Robin left without them.

Bunker, Skitters, and Kid Flash arrived together in the lab with Superboy. Wonder Girl appeared in Superboy #7 to knock out Ravager. Solstice and Red Robin have yet to turn up.

During the fight, Kid Flash as a flashback. Or a flashforward. Or a flashback of the future? Or a precognitive look into his future's past?

The future is so weird!

Kid Flash manages to undue the lock on the contraption holding Superboy. Once they free him, the NOWHERE reinforcements arrive and the Titans are looking to Danny the Street the fuck out of there.

Meanwhile, in another location in the NOWHERE facility (in the Antarctic), Wonder Girl is trash talking an unconscious Ravager when Templar attacks.

I've seen worse. At least they don't end in penises.

A bit more circumstantial evidence that this facility is in Antarctica. In Legion Lost #8, Captain Eyepatch is inside the Antarctic Facility. And he's just come from a meeting with Templar. Here in this comic, we see both Captain Eyepatch and Templar hanging out. And then the bombshell evidence that Scott Lobdell is a gigantic idiot! I call my next witness, Editor Bobbie Chase!

This is like that moment in Perry Mason where the guilty party breaks down and confesses! It must be fifty-two minutes after the hour!

It seems Danny the Street portaled everybody exactly where they needed to be for the rescue. Red Robin ended up in the NOWHERE Records Room and decided to download as many files as possible while the others took care of Superboy.

Wonder Girl ends up taking down Templar with her Lasso of Soul Sucking. That seems way better than Wonder Woman's lasso!

I'm sure this is only a temporary setback for good old Templar.

Solstice confronts Red Robin about not acting quickly enough when he knew NOWHERE was kidnapping metahumans. Or suspected. She gets overly emotional and brings the drama when none is needed. Much like that Detective in Batgirl, she begins blaming Red Robin for not acting quickly enough. cri cri cri. But then there are two panels that are weird and I'm unsure what happened.

Did Red Robin just stick a RedRobinarang into her belly? Or is she just crying?

Red Robin tries to get the others to leave with Danny while he supposedly waits behind for Solstice. Is Red Robin a bad boy? Who knows?! Writers love to make people turn loyalties on a dime. Or maybe not turn, exactly. Is Red Robin just such a control freak that he can't have someone on the team questioning his motives and tactics and knowing that he has downloaded tons of information on all of the teen metahumans in the world?

For the moment, it doesn't matter because Scott Lobdell decides to introduce everyone to his next big Super Villain creation: Harvest, the creator of NOWHERE!

Now I'm thinking there is a guy in NOWHERE with penis tentacles named Sower.

Teen Titans Issue #7 Rating: No change in the Ranking. I actually really enjoyed this comic book. And that doesn't include how much I enjoyed making fun of the Antarctica mistake. There were moments that I truly enjoyed in this book. But there were moments that made me cringe as well. Like Harvest suddenly appearing. And that nonsense with Red Robin turning on Solstice. Although that might be explained differently. There were no Narration Boxes to tell me what happened! And speaking of Narration Boxes, there weren't many in this issue. Or the ones that were there were innocuous enough. Hopefully this trend will continue in this comic and I'll really start enjoying the Teen Titans.