Teen Titans #12

Good. It's about fucking time.

I admit it! When somebody says they enjoy something written by Scott Lobdell, I immediately assume they are idiots. You know what? I get the feeling I've admitted that before! At the very least, I've ranted and raved and screamed on and on and on about Lobdell's horrible version of the Teen Titans so many times that it should have caused everybody to infer that that's the case. I suppose I don't mind if people enjoy it so much. Everybody has a right to enjoy whatever they want, no matter how stupid or idiotic or horribly written it is. But I do assume a person doesn't get much use out of their brain if they defend Lobdell's work as good. Or decent. Or even competent.

So now Lobdell fans (who are obviously morons (unless they enjoy his comic books simply because they allow them to turn off their brains for the three minutes it takes to read one. I suppose we all enjoy some of that kind of lovely garbage for destressing our lives)) have reason to celebrate. He's back on the Teen Titans! Hooray! More idiotic Narration Boxing! More crappily defined characters! More panels of Wonder Girl being punched by Superboy as she thinks, "I wish his dick were in my mouth!" I guess whoever loves Lobdell at DC figured he'd need some additional money each month after the cancellation of Doomed (which, by the way, wasn't cancelled fast enough). I'm surprised Doomed ran long enough to be cancelled due to poor sales rather than ending with a cease and desist from Marvel because they own Spider-man.

What kind of life have you led that you want it back now? Are tired of not being a living weapon anymore? Do you want to go back to working for NOWHERE? Superboy's life has pretty much been exactly what it is now: constantly running and fighting. Although he did have that brief period where he was dating Bunker.

This opening page doesn't quite feel right for a Scott Lobdell Jam. It's got the boring full page panel. It's got the inane dialogue. But where are the fifteen Narration Boxes?! I guess the lack of the boxes must be Pfeifer's influence.

After turning the page, I breathe a sigh of relief. When the story begins at a place that wasn't where the last story ended with lots of characters missing and nobody really concerned with the plot that had been chugging along the last twenty pages, I realize Scott Lobdell is definitely back! I was afraid maybe somebody at DC just added his name to the script so he could get a bump in pay. But that would have meant I don't get the enjoyment of tearing down his hard work. And by "hard work," I mean rush to get the script done at the last minute while scarfing nachos and guzzling Shirley Temples in some seedy hotel lobby bar.

I think I'd really have a good time hanging out with my imaginary version of Scott Lobdell!

Instead of still being in the basement levels of the MAW with Despero behind him, Red Robin is now in Dayton's destroyed penthouse (I think). Instead of the Elite having teleported in to shut down the prison break, they've completely disappeared (except for Wonder Girl). Superboy was doing the same thing he was doing at the end of last issue which was screaming to have somebody give him back his life. So that's going to be great in the collected edition. I always like having two nearly identical pages lined up one after the other. I suppose I'll have to wait to find out what happened to the others. I'm sure it's either a Despero alternate reality where the core of the Teen Titans will get to talk about how much they love each other, or Manchester Black decided the best way to end the prison break (which was part of his plan) was to just teleport everybody out (which was probably always part of his plan). He does have an Indigo Lantern with crazy powerful teleport powers which he hasn't been using at all for some reason. Why else have an Indigo Lantern on the team?!

The Titans notice that their powers are gone. Red Robin can feel somebody watching them because that's a thing that isn't real but everybody believes. You know when you think you feel somebody watching you? That just means you think you feel somebody watching you. If somebody happens to be watching you at that moment, it's just a coincidence. Believing every thought that enters your head is true? That's schizophrenia.

Was that ever a thing? When they were all Titans? And Superboy was trusted?

Here's a question! Why did DC Comics finally cancel Scott Lobdell's awful Teen Titans run only to reboot it with a change of attitude that never actually changed only to wind up shoving Lobdell back on the title? The only conclusion I can reach is that DC Comics hates fans of the Teen Titans!

Superboy remembers killing the Durlans which makes Red Robin say, "Whoops! I suppose if Superboy is going to turn himself in for murder, I'd better turn myself in for breaking into a prison and hampering a police investigation." Wonder Girl lies to Superboy when he pities himself and tells him that all she ever wanted was to get him help and to have his dick in her mouth. Oh, sorry. The last half of that sentence wasn't a lie.

Bart begins to whine about how if Superboy has to pay for killing twenty Muslims or aliens, then he should probably have to pay for starting a war that killed millions of people who have yet to be born. He even admits that he started the war because he was a stupid teenager who thought he was right the way stupid teenagers always do. He says, "Because I thought I was right. Whatever the hell that means." And Kon answers, "It means everything, Bart." Oh, okay. So any lives taken due to somebody doing something which they thought was right should be forgiven because they intended to do the right thing even though it was the wrong thing because they were acting like an idiot. All is forgiven! Next up, Wonder Girl needs to pity herself so the others can say, "No! No! You're a good person and we love you and that's all that matters! If only the stupid adults would get off our backs!"

Fuck everything. I probably got the Despero part wrong and it's probably Manchester Black but here we go with the "Despero alternate reality where the core of the Teen Titans will get to talk about how much they love each other" bit.

To top it all off, Bart's favorite memory is the moment from Lobdell's run of Teen Titans where Bart borrowed Tim's shirt without asking. What a great life he's led. Weren't we supposed to forget about that landfill? Didn't we cover it up with a golf course and forget about it? No? And now I have to relive it?! Argh! I already paid for this crap once!

Cassie's favorite memory was when she was defending her life against Superboy and thinking about his dick in her mouth.

Superboy's favorite memory was when the Titans saved his life because they're idiots.

Red Robin's favorite memory was probably the night he fucked all the female members of the Teen Titans but he doesn't reveal it to the others.

And then the Titans discover that Red Robin had been keeping tabs on them and researching them before he met them because he had to develop a plan to get them to all work together! The kind of plan only one person in the entire Omniverse could ever come up with:

Harvest! See? Tim and Harvest make plans in exactly the same way because, like I said three or four years ago, Harvest is future Tim Drake after he's become an immortal vampire, lived for one thousand years, and then traveled back in time to make sure the Teen Titans were created so that Tim could become Harvest! And so forth, and so on.

Red Robin is still under the delusion that Harvest is just a guy from the future who lost his son because of a war against superhumans or something. But that's what Harvest needs Tim Drake to think or else Tim Drake might avoid becoming a vampire and ruining his chance at becoming Harvest! Look, Harvest's back story has changed a number of times so don't think I'm crazy sticking to the Red Robin is actually Harvest hypothesis! It all fits if you know where to look! It's all just part of Harvest's ultimate and best plan ever!

Harvest says Kon was meant to be with him and not the Titans. The Titans deny it because they love him! But then Kon finally gets to tell everybody what he thinks. Bah. Why would they care? Who asks their gun if it wants to shoot the intruder?!

Cassie is totally thinking about Kon's dick in her mouth.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha! A-ha ha ha ha ha ha! Oh my god. I can't breathe. Ha ha ha ha ha! This is meant to be funny, right? I knew Scott Lobdell liked to write comedy but I never realized he could be so good at it! This is hilarious stuff!

Tim forgets about that thing where all the Titans have done horrible stuff because they thought they were doing the right thing and declares he's going to do the right thing and go against Kon's wishes. He's going to make sure Kon fights against Harvest instead of giving in and going with him. I really wish he wouldn't. Whenever Superboy is in a comic book, the comic book becomes all about Superboy. That might not be a bad thing except Superboy has no story and no character. He's just a guy who ruins everybody's day while they try to hug him. Just let him go already. He's an albatross!

Some friend! He wouldn't even tell you that his name was Tim! I have no idea how everybody eventually learned it.

To illustrate my point how Superboy is a parasite who just keeps ruining this title, I just realized that I've been saving all of my scans for this critique as "Superboy12a.jpg" and "Superboy12b.jpg"! As I was writing the HTML, I was linking to "TT12a.jpg" and "TT12b.jpg". But I just noticed after saving the last scan that I was saving all my scans as Superboy images. Reading Scott Lobdell comic books causes brain damage!

Superboy flies away and hopefully out of the DC You forever. He needs some serious revisions before he attempts to come back. And Harvest tells the Teen Titans that they joined together out of fear of each other which totally makes sense for no reasons but still makes them all feel bad and angsty and pouty.

And that's the end of this issue. What happened to The Elite and Manchester Black and Raven and Bunker and Changeling and the prison break and Despero and that Powers guy and Klarion and the last eleven issues of this comic book? Fuck you. Don't worry about it.

Teen Titans #12 Rating: -2 Ranking. I guess the celebration of the end of Scott Lobdell's Teen Titans run was premature. But at least I celebrated every single day over the last year and a half, never once taking for granted my time without a Teen Titans comic book with Scott Lobdell at the helm. I pity all of those fans who took the time for granted and never embraced the beauty of that time. I have a feeling that I might be to blame for Scott Lobdell's return to the Teen Titans. Somebody at DC probably missed my scathing critiques of Lobdell's work on this comic book and realized they couldn't live without them. So I'd like to apologize to everybody. I'm sorry I'm so good at tearing apart Scott Lobdell's writing on the Teen Titans. This one's on me.