Teen Titans #7

When Beast Boy turns into an squid, which part of him is his penis?

The Review!
It's too bad I decided to make this one of my short reviews where I read the comic book first and then type some shit that isn't particularly enlightening or entertaining because I love when I'm angry and I get to read a Benjamin Percy comic book! But he's off the hook this month. Especially since this issue was so mediocre that I would have been too busy yawning to actually get mad at anything. See, what happens here is Robin tells Aqualad he is the worst and then Robin almost gets killed by King Shark but then Aqualad saves Robin after which Robin admits that maybe Aqualad isn't totally the worst. This story was basically done with a comic book plot stencil. I suppose the real twist was that King Shark proved himself to be an abominable failure. So when readers get to the end of the book thinking, "Wait. That's it? King Shark and his army of shark men were defeated that easily?", they'll be super surprised by the revelation that Black Manta is now interested in destroying the Teen Titans because of Aqualad. If other readers are like me, they turned the page, saw the Black Manta reveal, and said, "Fuck this motherfucking cunt! King Shark is way more entertaining!"

This is another thing I thought when Black Manta showed up to mention his interest in Aqualad (who's probably his gay son): "Oh great! The Teen Titans still aren't going to be heroes, are they? Here they go again battling family members instead of saving the world!"

I suppose their defeat of King Shark counts as doing something heroic even if they mostly just saved a lousy local on the street news reporter. All those idiots add to the world are segments where they ask ignorant people how they feel about something that didn't affect them. "What do you think about the shooting in the park nearby?" "Oh, you know, it's scary. I have a child. My child is mortal. So scary!" I don't understand the need of people to answer questions when a local reporter sticks a microphone in their face.

The Ranking!
No change!

Teen Titans #6

Nobody wants Aqualad on the team. NOBODY!

I know there are Aqualad fans. But nobody respects them. NOBODY!

I have now hurt the feelings of serious Aqualad fans but I will not apologize. They should be made to cry every hour so they can wet themselves in solidarity with their stupid fave who will shrivel and die if he doesn't get splashed twenty four times a day.

See? Now everybody should understand why I hate Aqualad! Because I only remember the old version who was terrible and made me want to become a bully every time I saw him in a comic book. I normally don't judge anybody by their looks but there was something about him that made me want to shove a peanut butter and jelly sandwich into his face.

Now I've hurt the feelings of everybody who looks like old style Aqualad! Don't worry! I'd never actually shove a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in your face. But if I saw you crying in a corner at a convention covered in peanut butter and jelly, I'd probably mockingly call you Garth.

This entire preamble makes me sound like a bigger monster than all the previous preambles that made me look like a monster (which was most of them).

How about I just read the comic book and try to pretend I don't hate Aqualad? I mean, have I ever really given this Aqualad a chance? He wasn't awful in Young Justice, right?

I guess whoever escaped was in prison for fucking puppies and butterflies.

The Review!
The issue begins with Damian watching a news report about the escaped convicts. The report immediately goes from the convicts to shark attacks being up four hundred percent. So that means there have been, like, four shark attacks this year? I suppose there could be more if she's just talking about shark attacks in general along the entire coast of California. But I'm assuming she specifically means the Bay Area. Why would the Teen Titans care if people were being eaten by sharks in San Diego? That's not their territory! Let Animal Man take care of that shit.

Anyway, that probably means the shark attacks and the prison break have more in common than anybody suspects. Was King Shark ever arrested for fucking puppies and butterflies?

Damian is spending quality time with Goliath because, in comic book terms, Goliath isn't a boring pet. I'd like to see Damian have some loving interactions with Batcow. I'm beginning to think he takes Batcow for granted.

If Benjamin Percy hadn't written so many comic books about how racism is bad, I might look side-eye at that "yo."

Remember the way Vibe was written in the eighties? Sometimes white male writers trying to write an authentic minority character stray a little too far into the field of stereotypes. Unless Percy just thinks adding "yo" to the end of a statement is just how young people speak. I can accept that. What I can't accept is that he wants to try to capture how young people speak. It's impossible! It's so unauthentic in so many ways that you'd be better off not to bother. Using terms to identify with a particular group isn't the sole territory of young people, of course. Everybody does it to prove their in-group credentials. I mean, I don't, of course! I'm so unique, I make up my own words! That's probably why nobody can fucking understand my intelligent and wise digressions.

Is throwing up in my mouth due to the phrase "mouth orgasm" a mouth orgasm? Because if it is, I am spent.

Beast Boy serves a vegetarian meal because it's his turn to cook. Everybody disrespects his decision and Wally runs off to steal some pizzas. What a bunch of assholes. It's one night per week! Fucking respect Beast Boy's dietary choices! Granted, his tofu platter might be terrible. But it isn't terrible simply because it's tofu. Nobody even tastes it to see if it's any good! It looks like deep fried tofu chunks in some kind of curry sauce. And if that's what it is, I'll have seconds! After my mouth wakes up from the nap caused by the orgasm.

After lunch, Titans Island is invaded by a reporter seeking a totally non-hit piece about the new group of heroes bringing serious danger to San Francisco residents while selfishly blocking those residents' ocean view. I hope she makes them look terrible! Her name is Bonnie Chung and she's probably a devotee of Brother Blood. That's how things work in Teen Titans comic books, right?!

Bonnie, live on the air, calls the West Coast "the Best Coast." She also says the Teen Titans tower is "the freshest, hottest, superhero pad on the planet." She must be the member of staff who does the local fluff pieces to make it seem like their city is the most exciting city to live in. Also, she might be a fraud because she works for KARE Channel 7. Excuse me, comic book. But I grew up in the Bay Area and Channel 7 is KGO. This comic book is so unrealistic.

Beast Boy gives Bonnie a tour of Titans Tower while proving he's a lech and an asshole who can't go two minutes without sexually harassing a female member of the team or humiliating a male member. Some people reading might think he's hilarious. But then those people don't have to live with him. I wonder how many pairs of Raven's panties he has hidden under his mattress? I was going to say "Starfire's panties" but I doubt she wears them. Also, panties. That word is almost as ludicrous as finger-banging and lovemaking.

Meanwhile in landlocked New Mexico, Aqualad is fucking with his poor fish! He's all, "I have power over you! Ah ha ha ha! Bend to my will!" Also, his name is Jackson Hyde. That has to be one of the most dangerous last names. How many Hydes die each year when a maniac or tiger is running loose on the streets and somebody yells, "Hide! Hide!" Everybody hides but the Hyde is all, "Yeah? What dude?", as he casually turns and gets brutally devoured or chopped up, respectively. I mean, non-respectively, unless the maniac is a cannibal and the tiger has carving knives tied to its paws.

He's trying hard to be different because he's a teenager! Duh!

So Aqualad is gay. The above panel is the third panel after he's been introduced. You have to get that sexuality thing out there as quickly as possible before all the heteros start believing the character is one of them by default. Percy's reveal here is as good a way to do it as I've seen even if the writer part of me always bristles at the way sexuality has to be mentioned as quickly as possible. Since it's an unseen component of a person's make-up, it obviously needs to be mentioned to be known. Remember, there were decades and decades of comic books where gay characters just didn't exist and gay fans just had to read into every detail as best they could to find a hero they could point to and say, "See? Totally gay!" If sexuality isn't mentioned, the status quo will assume heterosexuality. At some point in the future, writers will be able to introduce a team of young superheroes without instantly calling out which ones like to fuck which other ones and people reading won't automatically assume they're all hetero. It'll be a much more exciting time of fan speculation and intrigue because non-hetero sexuality won't be taboo; it will just be accepted. Until then, just get used to somebody pointing out that a character isn't heterosexual as quickly as possible. Look, there's still some mystery to what Aqualad's penis is up to. He might also like to fuck women! And fish!

How about keeping him safe by backing his play and flipping the fuck out on anybody who disrespects him rather than trying to convince him to not be the best Jackson Hyde he can be? Which — let's face it — isn't going to be that great considering he's Aqualad.

Meanwhile back at the interview slash tour, Bonnie Chung is all, "This was a great interview. It's totes going to go viral! You're going to be so famous!" Then she disappears into the Bay, hopefully to never be seen again because she's been eaten by a shark.

Oh, that interruption didn't last long. And I guess Beast Boy didn't care that Bonnie disappeared under the water because the scene shifts back to New Mexico where Aqualad is already talking about the Teen Titans tour video that went viral (I guess KARE didn't really care either? They have a whole hour between five and six that they need to fill!). Some hero Beast Boy turned out to be! Did he forget he could have turned into a penguin and followed after her? Sure, he didn't see her disappear under the water. But he did see her scarf lying on the water. He couldn't even bother to investigate?

So back in New Mexico where Aqualad has seen the viral video and is all jazzed about maybe being a Teen Titan, he decides to show his boyfriend his powers. His boyfriend decides to treat Aqualad like a pariah because why not? The guy is already dating a dark skinned gay guy with weird mutant tattoos. You can't expect him to accept much more than that! He's all, "Dude! I know we were just talking about how my dad doesn't accept me for who I am and how it sucks but, um, you know what? I can't accept you for who you are, freak!"

Aqualad decides to move to San Francisco. That's like Mecca for gays! I hope that wasn't disrespectful to Mecca and/or fucking other guys in the ass!

I bet the main people I offended with that last sentence were lesbians because I didn't account for them with that whole fucking other guys in the ass thing. But adding something more would have ruined the flow of that super intelligent and wise statement!

Meanwhile, the Teen Titans are attacked by King Shark. He must want Beast Boy so he can ask him to turn into a puppy or a butterfly.

The Ranking!
No change! This has all the aspects of Teen Titans comic books that drive me completely crazy. That being said, it's one of the better incarnations so far!

Teen Titans #5

I lose interest in every cover that has von Grawbadger's name on it because I just start thinking, "Who is this mysterious man?!"

I finally decided to ask Lord Google about Wade von Grawbadger and this is what he initially said: "Wade von Grawbadger is a comic book artist who is known mostly for his inking work for Marvel and DC comics." Excuse me for arguing immediately, Lord Google, but I'd say Wade von Grawbadger is mostly known for having the name von Grawbadger. Also, that blurb from Lord Google? It was actually from Princess Wikipedia and comprises fifty percent of the total Wikipedia entry on Wade von Grawbadger. I knew he was mysterious!

The Review!
This issue finishes paving the way for a resurgence in Marv Wolfman's Teen Titans paradigm. A bunch of teens living in a huge tower in the bay of a city that needs to prepare for all the death and destruction that the teens in their tower will draw to it. This new group of Teen Titans exists for several different ideological reasons. First, it gives Damian a place to go outside of Batman's purview. He now has a place where he can masturbate without having to crank up the stereo and lock the door. I bet he even built a huge room just for masturbation! It's a lot like the Danger Room except sexier. Both rooms are clearly marked because nobody wants the Danger Room to fire up in mid-masturbation.

The second reason this team exists is to inspire others. They have inspired the Demon's Fist to be more rebellious teenagers. Even Mara suddenly doesn't want the thing she's always wanted most. Although that might have more to do with Ra's being a huge dickfuck rather than the Teen Titans being inspiring visions of strength and hope. The ludicrous T-shaped tower in the bay is supposed to inspire regular, mortal San Francisco kids as well. They will look up from the streets of The City and dream about the day they might also discover they have a billionaire father who will give them all the money they need to build an audacious clubhouse blocking the ocean view of every resident in The City.

Lastly, the team exists for friendship! Not the real kind of friendship where people meet in the dark corner of some forced social event and discover their shared joy of mocking everybody else. Nor is it the friendship of the sidekicks of heroes who find themselves in each other's company due to end of the world threats and find that they actually enjoy hanging out with each other and maybe they'd like to not have to wait until the world ends to go see Die Hard together. No, this is the friendship of a story arc that needs to cement the team member's relationship as quickly as possible so the readers can pretend that the members of the group actually trust and care about each other in future story arcs.

Other reasons might exist but I fulfilled the obligation of the high school three paragraph argument essay so I don't have to think of any more. But if more exist, they probably have to do with proving that racism is terrible, seeing as how Benjamin Percy is writing this comic book. He just won't rest until everybody not only knows racism is bad but super-duper knows it's bad!

The Ranking!
-1! It gets a negative ranking for the following panel as I stand in solidarity with my fellow McDonald's loving Nebraskans against this kind of elite nonsense:

Mostly that's just one Nebraskan I know.

Teen Titans #4

I'm excited for the trial by wombat!

The Review!
It's probably not fair that I judge this group of Teen Titans as if they were just a holdover of Marv Wolfman's messed up kids. These kids have to get to know each other and learn to trust each other before they can spend all of their time not doing anything heroic. So I'm cutting them some slack for this first story arc. How can they save the world if they're not actually a team? But once they've committed to being the Teen Titans, I'll definitely get back to pointing out how they aren't making the world any safer and are probably just making San Francisco more dangerous.

This issue, Beast Boy saw how Robin was ready to give himself up to Ra's al Ghul to save the others. He then goes back to the others and is all, "Let's ruin Robin's sacrifice and save him instead!" The others are all, "Yeah! That's what friends do!" Then they go save Damian.

The Ranking!
No change. Next issue will be the big fight and hopefully the end of this arc. After that, the team will probably have to fight Trigon or Blackfire or Reverse Flash or Mento. This comic is off to a good start in that the antagonists are Damian's cousin and his grandfather. The Teen Titans rarely fight anybody who isn't a relative.

Teen Titans #3

Super-villain teams should really think about hiring twice the members of their rival team.

The Review!
Back in the past (not more than six years ago or else Damian would practically be a fetus in the memory), Damian and Mara were battling cousins. They were drawn like adults although in some panels the artist over-corrected and then they looked like sword wielding toddlers. In the past, Damian proved to Mara that he as better at everything. It seems Damian's been trying to prove to everybody forever that he's better than everyone. He's probably compensating for his lack of a father figure, his overburderning mother, and his too legendary to live up to legend of his grandfather. Also probably his tiny penis but he won't understand that overcompensation until he's older or Starfire begins to try to fuck him.

Meanwhile in the present, the Teen Titans are proving their moral compass is just as broken as the previous team's.

"Robin steals billion dollar machines that he probably shouldn't even be flying? SUPER COOL! Can we also break into a prisons and help harbor fugitives?"

The Teen Titans rush off to hide from the Demon's Fist because they're terrible at being a team. But Starfire is ready to beat the Demon's Fist because slavery or something. She's totally passionate about that subject. And Kid Flash is ready to beat the Demon's Fist because they stuck a tracker up his penis. And Changeling and Raven are ready because what else do they have to do (aside from Raven starring in her own six issue series which could have probably been two issues)?

The old Preboot Titans once went camping to get their heads straight and to bond as a team. Now these Rebirth Teen Titans decide that the best way to defeat the Demon's Fist is to make S'mores together.

Waiting around? Changeling does know why he's called Kid Flash, doesn't he?

Over the campfire, the members of the new Teen Titans all learn they have serious family issues. Starfire's sister is a slaver. Raven's father is a demon rapist. Kid Flash's father is Reverse Flash (and probably somewhere in the stone age). Robin's grandfather is the leader of the League of Assassins. And Beast Boy's father is Mento. But his mother is Elasti-Girl! Or maybe not. Beast Boy says he's lost his family and this is Rebirth. Maybe his old history was too complicated to go back to. Easier to believe his parent are dead than have them exist in the Young Animal universe while he's in this one.

I don't know that Rita Farr or Steve Dayton will wind up in the Young Animal version of Doom Patrol but probably! I think Rita may have already been mentioned.

The team begins to get comfortable with each other which means it's immediately time for Beast Boy to begin sexually harassing Starfire. Some things never change, I guess!

Damian realizes his team is a bunch of soft losers so he sneaks off to throw himself before his grandfather to plead for their lives. If Ra's calls off the Demon's Fist, Damian will rejoin the League of Assassins and throw away years of hard work with Batman. I guess that's what it means to have pals! But Beast Boy saw him fly off so if the Teen Titans really are Damian's new pals, they'll come rescue him.

The Ranking!
No change! So far this has followed the template for a Teen Titans comic book perfectly. Bunch of heroes with family problems wind up forming a superhero team that never actually does anything heroic and simply spends all of its time defending itself from personal threats. Great job, Percy!

Teen Titans #2

I'm so thrilled that Raven has lost the stupid mask of feathers that I'm not even going to mention Starfire's missing right boob.

This issue begins with Damian proving that he needs to spend less time patrolling the streets of Gotham all night and more time studying.

I'm not a professional evolutionary batologist but I think I can already detect some holes in Damian's reasoning!

I'll give Damian an A+ for his opening statement! Bats are the only mammals that can fly! Aside from my cat when she's annoying me, and she only flies in short bursts that are usually stopped by the wall on the far side of the room. But his theory that an animal made a choice in its evolution is crazy talk! Not to mention that bats didn't actually trade their arms for wings! They just grew some leathery skin between their fingers. Which might also be what the bird did but even further back than the bat. I'm even less an evolutionary birdologist! Unless I'm just about equally neither. And why is Robin thinking about bats anyway?! He's named after a fucking bird! This little shit really needs to see the inside of a classroom. And why does he bring up switching on genes? I guess he's talking about the gene that makes wings instead of arms which is totally how evolution works and why a creature needs to make a conscious choice to evolve, which it then, apparently, does instantly because the gene switch gets flipped!

I think maybe Percy should stick to stories about how racism is totally uncool.

It's also quite possible that everything Damian just said makes perfect sense since I haven't seen the inside of a science classroom in twenty five years! Also, I spent most of my time in Biology trying to sleep with the girl who sat next to me. Little did I know that the girl who really wanted to sleep with me was in my Steinbeck class! "Sleeping with somebody" is old slang for "talking with somebody." I don't know which makes more sense because neither of those things is anywhere close to fucking!

Robin is still celebrating his thirteenth birthday in the flashbacks. He spent the earlier part of the day eating cake with Alfred. Now he's celebrating the part of the day where his mother visits.

That's a slick looking Damian logo.

Damian continues to mope because his father is too busy doing Justice League things to celebrate Damian's birthday with him. It's pathetic! I don't think I'm going to get used to sad sack Damian! "My father didn't come to my birthday party! I have no friends! My grandfather wants to kill me!" Fucking baby! Buck up!

Talia's gift to Damian was information about the Demon's Fist. Five assassins who all got to choose five targets as their thesis projects. So basically the Demon's Fist chose the new Teen Titans roster. That's fitting since the Teen Titans have never done anything but react to people trying to kill them. It has always been the worst super team in the DC Universe. They're not super heroes; they're super targets.

Damian kidnapped the future Teen Titans and brought them to San Francisco. I hope that's going to be their base of operations because San Francisco is always getting shortchanged in the DC Universe. When it does get some love, it's usually because some shitty back-up team or second squad takes up residence there. It's possible DC was just trying to preserve continuity since most of San Francisco was destroyed in Shade the Changing Man #9.

Starfire must be thinking, "Why am I hanging out with these children?" Or "I'm so fucking horny!" One of those.

Damian explains to the others why their lives are in danger. You know, that thing about the thesis and graduating from assassin school! He says the Demon's Fist choose their targets by finding somebody who will make a good rival--"the sun to their moon," as he explains it. I didn't know the sun and the moon were rivals! Is that from The Bible?

Talia gave Damian a USB drive with information on the assassins. They are Blank, an albino shapeshifter who decided Beast Boy would make a good rival because Beast Boy is green. Green and white are rivals like the sun and the moon, I guess. Then there's Stone who has super strength and Earth powers. His target is Starfire because sometimes the sun has a rivalry with the Earth. It's kind of a complicated three way rivalry system. The moon and the Earth also fight, like when Eclipso battles Terra. After that is Plague who has a diseased touch. Her enemy is Raven because, I guess, Raven's eat the corpses of people who have died from the plague. That reasoning is about as good as the sun gossiping about the moon behind its Earth, right? Then there's Nightstorm who "can bend the weather to his will, weaponizing it into a hard wind or gusting himself into flight." Ooh, scary! He can make a strong breeze! His rival is Kid Flash because Kid Flash isn't just about speed. Remember he's got that lightning bolt on his chest, so lightning is somehow important to his character or something. Finally there is the leader of the Demon's Fist, Mara! She's super smart and knows Kung Fu really well and can stab things and stuff. She's basically a female Robin so her target is Damian.

Now that the Teen Titans have been told that they have archenemies, they're ready to build a Tower and become a fully operational superhero team! I imagine it's only a matter of time before some councilperson in San Francisco begins trying to kick them out of the city. I mean, this whole new Rebirth incarnation of them is supposed to fix them so they're not criminals who do nothing but garner public derision. But I can't help feeling they're already heading down that path.

While Damian is trying to convince the others that he's as great as he knows he is, the Demon's Fist attacks!

Why does Mara have bandages all over her inner thighs? Does her vagina secrete battery acid?

The first thing Blank tries against Beast Boy is to look like Beast Boy. Beast Boy simply looks at him like, "WTF?" At least, I think that's how he's looking at him. He's currently in the form of a tiger and I'm not great at reading the facial expressions of tigers. I assume most of their expressions mean either "I'm going to kill and eat you" or "I'm going to kill and not eat you." Then Blank decides to look like Red Robin. If Beast Boy weren't so sensitive, he would now simply turn into a gorilla and pound Blank into a shapeless puddle. But he's a huge baby and becomes too sad to battle.

The first thing this team needs to work on when they begin training is their battle repartee.

The others all encounter their own problems with defeating their Demon's Fist rivals. I guess they'll have to come up with a plan other than the one where they allow the Demon's Fist to dictate the rules of battle. That plan will probably be to work together or to switch combatants. Since this is a comic book, there aren't any other choices. Oh, except to be defeated soundly or to run! This is, after all, only their first encounter with the Demon's Fist. The Rules of Comic Books practically demands that the heroes be unsuccessful in this first battle. But after that, they'll do one of those two plans I previously outlined.

If Kid Flash becomes Nightstorm's greatest enemy, doesn't that mean Nightstorm is fated to fail to kill Kid Flash and flunk out of assassin school? No wonder he hates him so much!

Mara tells the Teen Titans Damian's secret about being Ra's al Ghul's grandson and they all immediately flip the fuck out. As if having a racist grandfather makes the grandchild racist! Nobody in comic books can think logically. They all just jump to conclusions and instantly lose trust in anybody who has told them one teeny tiny lie. Although I suppose they had no trust in Damian to begin with since he kidnapped them and was forcing them into his stupid new Teen Titans.

Damian and Goliath flee the cave when Mara sets off explosives to collapse it on everyone. But he does come back to retrieve the other Teen Titans and to tell them that he's chosen the way of the Batman instead of the way of the Assassin, even though his father is a huge asshole who can't even be bothered to stop by on Damian's thirteenth birthday.

San Francisco experiences its first case of massive property damage without any of the benefits of having superheros in town. That's what the Teen Titans bring to your city! Good luck, San Francisco!

The Review!
This is par for the course for the Teen Titans. They form a group which subsequently simply fights villains who attack them directly. The plots are formulaic in that the Teen Titans often face a group of foes whose powers match theirs in some way, and the Teen Titans are beat until they learn to work together (or fight the foes whose powers are like the member of the team whose ass they can consistently kick!). They never actually perform any actions for the greater good. But I will say, that's a step up from a team that actively breaks the law or is written by Scott Lobdell!

I still haven't been reminded how I'm supposed to feel about racism. It was bad right?

Teen Titans #1

Damian is going old school Marv Wolfman with his Teen Titans. He's bringing together a bunch of young heroes so they can all deal with his family issues.

In Marv Wolfman's Teen Titans of the 80s, the Titans fought Raven's father, Jericho's father, Changeling's father, Starfire's sister, Wonder Girl's godparents and eventually, as Troia, her son, and all of Dick's Batdaddy issues. Cyborg had some pretty cool grandparents and his father was a dick but I don't think he actively tried to destroy the Teen Titans. He probably had an experiment or two that got out of control though! It's hard to remember the Cyborg issues because he's one of the most boring characters ever created. Even Marv Wolfman became so bored with him that Cyborg spent about four years as a brain-dead, remote-controlled lump of metal. Although that probably had more to do with the then editor, Jon Peterson, who was trying to turn the Titans into the X-men in the 90s. Anyway, now it looks like Damian has put together a team to battle his granddad! Just like old times!

Since Benjamin Percy is writing this series, should we start a pool for how long until he tells us that racism is bad? I've got my money on this first issue!

This issue begins with Damian celebrating his 13th birthday with Alfred and a rabid bat loose in the kitchen. Maybe it's just another of his pets. He probably named it Dadsniff. The sniff is because it always makes him cry when he calls it dad and then he didn't want people to know he was crying so he said the sniff was part of the name. Most of the things I own have sniff in their name!

Percy's characterization of Damian is pathetic! He's showing his emotions and thanking Alfred and enjoying vanilla and strawberry cake! What the hell is this?! Percy had better not turn Damian into Tim Drake Lite or I'll have a stroke! I mean another stroke! I've probably had two dozen since The New 52 began and I decided it was a good idea to read them all. Most of those were caused by Grifter and Ann Nocenti!

Oh! I have an aside! I've never played a single Final Fantasy game and after seeing the commercials for Final Fantasy XV, I'm super glad I never have! All of the characters look like major douchebags!

So the birthday was in the past. The comic book begins in the present where Damian has all of his future friends strung up so he can tell them that he wished to have a superhero team and now they have to help make that wish come true. Most of them will probably be all, "Sure! I'm not mad at you at all for kidnapping me and ruining my life!" Although Starfire might be a little bit upset because she has a terrible temper. Also because she was trying to save some people enslaved by human traffickers when Damian nabbed her.

Since the future Teen Titans don't seem to be angry enough at Damian, he decides to insult them for a bit. He's really proving to be his father's child.

Damian smugly tells each future Teen Titan the reason he was able to catch them all so easily. He's wrong on every account. The reason he was able to catch them because he ambushed them when they weren't suspecting an ambush. Any supervillain worth their death laser knows that you can always defeat the hero in the first issue of a story because they aren't suspecting trouble! It's practically the only way superhero stories begin!

It actually wasn't insightful at all. But Percy nailed how his writing is super annoying!

Damian introduces the kids to his pet Goliath. While he does that, I'm busy wondering if it was wrong to masturbate to Starfire's comic book all those times now that she's about to be a member of the Teen Titans. She's probably twenteen, right? Is that a number that doesn't make me a sex pervert?

Starfire destroys the electro-shackles imprisoning all of the future Teen Titans so that they can get their asses kicked by Damian again. Just like he wants! I'm sure he takes no pride in defeating them all when they weren't suspecting his attack. But he'll definitely take pleasure in destroying them not that he's made them all angry.

Let me take a moment to say this fight that I haven't read yet should end in Damian whimpering naked on the floor as Kid Flash throws his clothes on the lawn and pours bleach on them. Also Damian should have many third degree burns, cobra bites, and severe psychological trauma from a trip through Raven's soulself. But Damian can't lose because Batman never loses and Damian is basically Tiny Batman. I mean, Batman loses sometimes! But he never completely loses! And he definitely never loses when it's a battle against other heroes. Oh, and when the Justice League have to lose in the first issue of a five issue story, Batman is always the last one standing. I wonder if any time somebody says Batman in a meeting at DC, they have to take a break so everybody can change their underwear.

After the fight which consists mainly of Beast Boy getting punched into an octopus, Kid Flash catching that octopus, Raven putting Goliath to sleep, and Starfire shooting one starbolt at Robin and missing, Robin decides to give them the Teen Titan Leader Speech.

Strong?! They didn't do anything as a team! Unless he's just talking about Starfire's crotch from behind game. That really is strong!

Damian declares that they're the new Teen Titans! And Garfield is all, "What the fuck?! If you want a team, you should ask your friends!" And then Doc Holliday is all, "I don't." I mean, Damian is all, "I don't have any friends!" And then everybody is all, "Oh no! Batsniff! Batsniff! Boo hoo!"

After Damian declares he has no friends and he's a virgin and he's a little bit into smothering bats and hiding them around the mansion, he explains how thirteen is supposed to be the worst year of your life. Is that true? Who told him that?! Was Alfred ranting and bullshitting because he was drunk on cooking sherry during Damian's birthday party? I think I had my first major crush when I was thirteen. Before that, I had a few minor crushes like Grace Bamberger and the girl in the Elfquest t-shirt.

And you know the best thing to do with a fist!

It doesn't matter what you thought the best thing to do with your fist is because it was probably way more perverse than what I was thinking. Unless nothing is more perverse than anal fisting?

Damian nailed his characterization of the previous incarnations of the Teen Titans. I'll even allow, being that this is Rebirth, that he's talking about Dick's old team too! Boy what loser jerks those guys were! And three of the members of this team were on that team!

Everybody sort of agrees to be part of the team because Beast Boy likes having friends to joke around with and get foot massages from (apparently), and Raven is super emo and lonely and only pretends to not like hanging out with her friends, and Kid Flash needs to find a place to fit into this universe, and Starfire loves to fuck. So they're all on board!

The story has an epilogue which covers the end of the day on Damian's 13th birthday. It's the day he becomes Tiny Batman but instead of a bat crashing through the window, he lets the bat trapped in the house out. It's symbolic or something! It's like he's pushed his father away to become a man! Except Batman is never around so he Damian had to do this whole symbolic thing instead of the usual thing young boys do where they slit their father's throat and then fuck their mother in his congealing blood.

Oh! There's a double epilogue in this issue! The other epilogue shows graduation day in the League of Assassins. Ra's al Ghul has trained up an elite squad of five assassins who will hunt down the Teen Titans. They're called the Demon's Fist and you all definitely now know the best thing to do with a fist!

The Review!
This is shaping up to be another Teen Titans book where the Titans do nothing heroic at all! They simply gather together to save themselves and emerge from the shadows of their parents (or grandparents (or sisters (or children from the future))). I don't mind so much because this group of Teen Titans has Damian instead of Tim Drake. That automatically makes it better and more interesting and way sexier even though I don't find Damian sexy at all. It's just that Tim Drake was negative sexy. I didn't learn that racism was bad this issue, so I guess I already lost the pool. I'd feel better about the loss if Batcow had made an appearance. When is Kid Flash going to find out that he's got to take care of a cow as part of his duties?

Teen Titans Rebirth #1

The Commentary!
• I was just listening to Josie Long and Robin Ince's podcast Book Shambles while washing the dishes. I believe it's their most recent episode where they speak with Alan Moore. I find that it barely matters what Alan Moore is saying; I could listen to that voice forever. I think maybe he's casting spells as he speaks! I'm only about a third of the way into it (I finished the dishes!) but one of my favorite things he says is about his time on the Swamp Thing. He reminds Josie and Robin that it didn't take a lot to stand out in the late seventies and early eighties because most of it was shit. That's not an exact quote! Comics really were terrible back then! Of course, they were terrible for different reasons in the eighties. And in the nineties. And in the...well, as you can see by my stellar argument, comic books are terrible. But they get better every decade! Okay, some decades they fell all over themselves trying to pass off shitty art with terrible stories because the people running the companies were insane and the people buying the comic books thought they were investment bankers. But ignoring blips like that, generally the overall quality has gotten better. Not as quickly as the quality of independent comic books, of course! That shit was already good in the seventies! Probably earlier but since I wasn't alive and don't currently have access to a time machine or decent research skills, I can't say. In other words, thanks to people like Alan Moore who decided comic books were shit and maybe they should be better, they've gotten better! Despite having a field filled with people just writing as much cliché superhero shit as possible in order to earn a weekly check.

• I know there were greats before Alan Moore! You don't have to get all up in my face about it! But they were only great in relation to the other shitty writers and artists of their time. By today's standards, they fucking sucked, no matter how much your old man mentality wants to yell at me that they didn't! Kirby's Fourth World may have blown your mind way back then but it's not fucking Saga!

• You should try to forget about Alan Moore and other really good writers now or else you'll inevitably begin comparing Benjamin Percy to them. And that's just a recipe for a huge Percy fail. Let's just judge Percy on Percy's own standards. Of course, like Alan Moore, Percy has the benefit of writing the Teen Titans at a time when nearly every Teen Titans story in the last half of the decade have been terrible. How can he fail, right? This shit had better be the Teen Titans version of "The Anatomy Lesson"!

It doesn't get off to a great start.

As a Writer (with a capital "W"!), I can read something and immediately know its quality! This opening page is Benjamin Percy doing the least amount of work he needs to do to get his point across. You might think, "Hey! That's smart! Brevity is the spice of wit! or whatever! He's being economical! Now that's writing!" Okay. Sure. He's only got twenty pages and a bunch of characters to introduce. Why not do the least work possible to get it all out of the way? It's such a simple concept, this works just fine. Beast Boy surrounds himself with other people because he hates himself. He acts like a big shot who's having fun because he's really crying inside. This explains that. Good job.

It's just...well, it's just so on the nose. It's as if Percy doesn't trust the audience to read anything more subtle than spelling out that Beast Boy is alone even though he's surrounded by other people. It's just so cliché to have the rich kid buying friends yet lacking any real friendship. It's just the kind of thing that makes me read quickly past the page while thinking, "Yeah, yeah. Got it." It certainly doesn't try to get me emotionally invested in his pain. Although, that also might be the last five years of reading a shitty Beast Boy talking. Why the fuck would I like this asshole? Hell, he's still fucking tainted from Marv Wolfman's eighties version of him that I've been rereading lately because I guess I hate myself. I'm smiling so wide, it hurts. Also people are getting really creeped out by it.

• Anyway, Garfield is still mourning Tim Drake's death and remembering how Tim said his greatest weakness was his need for an audience. He also says he spent his uncle's money on this stuff. Who is his uncle? Is Steve Dayton not super rich and his father? You know why I don't know these things? Because none of the previous New 52 writers of this series gave a shit about building the lives of these characters!

It's getting better! That's a good use of images versus Narration Boxes! Plus a woman in her underwear!

• Gar scares the naked girl out of the pool and possibly the poop out of the naked girl. Then a shadowy figure electrocutes the pool and knocks out Gar, saying, "One down. Three to go." So Tim went around talking to people trying to get them to join the Teen Titans. It's fitting that Damian Wayne is just going to go around and force them to join. Best Robin ever!

• Next on the list: Starfire! Starfire has decided, apparently, that friendship and fun and fucking are too complicated and now the only way she feels comfortable on Earth is by working. Well, she's really changed! Unless her work is fucking friends for fun!

• Starfire's work is stopping human trafficking. Well, that sucks. Why did Percy have to bring such a serious issue into this comic book? Can't he save that shit for Green Arrow?! Now I'm going to have to ignore the fact that Damian has kidnapped Starfire away from doing something important to join a stupid club of superheroes who never actually do any real superheroing! Starfire was just about to do some before she was kidnapped by Damian! Not that she's been kidnapped yet. I'm still at the part of her story where she has all of her clothes on. She'll probably take them all off on the next page, right?

• Darn it. This Starfire is boring.

• Starfire is captured when a mysterious hand reaches out and incapacitates her with electricity. He then says, "That was shockingly easy." Since when did Damian start getting into puns?! That's more of a Dick thing to do!

Next up: Raven! And her cute little skull barrettes!

• Damian uses Goliath to help get Raven by shooting her with a Ketamine Dart and then letting her trip out on Goliath. She passes out in terror from the demonic sight. Seems a bit harsh since her father was a demonic intergalactic rapist. At least he didn't use electricity again! I wonder how he'll trap Wally? Magic mirror? Weather machine? Freeze Ray? Boomerang?

• Damian tricks Wally with the old "canister of gas disguised as a kid passed out on the subway tracks." And just like that, Damian has captured the new Teen Titans! That's a pretty good start for an incarnation of the Teen Titans. The first rule of Teen Titans is "You are going to constantly get your ass beat by a kid named Robin." Is that a rule? I'm not sure that's a rule. But it is what always happens.

Discounting Bedard, this might be the best Teen Titans' interaction since The New 52. I said might!

• Robin reveals himself with Goliath standing behind him. I'm sure they'll all be quite understanding in the first issue regarding his recruitment methods. I hope Titus, Alfred Pennyworth the Cat, and Batcow are also somewhere in the Teen Titans new headquarters.

The Ranking!
+1! So far, so good! This was a well done Rebirth book. It acquaints new readers (and old ones confused by The New 52 Teen Titans) with the members of the team. It hits on all the pertinent information of each character, even if it's a bit heavy-handed on certain character traits that I suppose Percy will be concentrating on with each character. But all in all, this did what a Rebirth title is supposed to do. Characters introduced! Premise set up! Everything is ready to roll for Issue #1. Oh, and Damian completely starts off on the wrong foot with everybody. So perfect. He's the Robin nobody likes and he just doesn't give a shit. At least not yet! He's getting to the age where he'll stop being a smarmy little pre-teen and start realizing he wants the affection and camaraderie of his peers! Poor little confused boy has a long, hard road in front of him after this recruitment disaster.