Titans Hunt #8

At first I thought there were two Nightwings on the cover. Now I'm positive there are two Nightwings on the cover.

The Review or Whatever!
I don't understand why I've been so disappointed with Titans Hunt. How can a person be disappointed by a team of superheroes that they've never really liked before? I suppose I still have some vestigial feelings left over from thinking that maybe I liked the Teen Titans back in the 1980s. That was also when I learned the word "vestigial" so I might be using it incorrectly. At the beginning of the 1980s, I was listening to Lionel Richie and Billy Joel. By the end of the 1980s, I was listening to Slayer and Metallica. I blame that on picking up my sister's Blizzard of Ozz tape and listening to it over and over and over again. Maybe that wouldn't have stuck so much if not for also liking a girl who I thought liked Alice Cooper but then finding out she didn't really know anything about his music after I discovered I couldn't get enough of it. Also it was junior high and high school and I was looking for a way to not be bothered by anybody ever and it seemed being into metal was a good way disappear into the background. Also, have you listened to Mr. Crowley? How could you not become an instant fan of Ozzy Osbourne after listening to that song? Although even in the late 1980s after my transformation, I'd still punch a bitch in the throat if they talked over Lionel Richie's "Hello".

The one thing I can't figure out about Titans Hunt? Whose dad is Mister Twister? He must be the father of one of these Teen Titans because the only time they get into huge conflicts is when their parents come to town. Okay, sometimes they have to battle their children from the future too. But mostly it's their father or some other close relative. One day, Trigon will wander in from Azarath or wherever to punch them all in the junk, the next day, it'll be Douchéstork the Terminator. Then a few days after that, Mento flips the fuck out before everybody has to rush off to Tamaran to beat down Starfire's sister. Then Donna Troy's foster family begins coming around looking for handouts before Cyborg's grandparents come around and...oh, you know what! Cyborg's grandparents never caused any trouble! Way to go, Cyborg, for having dead parents and cool grandparents! You were the best Titan of all!

So will the big reveal in this issue be that Mister Twister is Bumblebee's estranged father? Probably!

When did Second Nightwing get Laser Eyes?

Mister Twister doesn't seem to be the main enemy. He's the John the Baptist to the evil fuck's Jesus. I don't yet know who the evil fuck is but I'm guessing, as you may have guessed, that it's one of the Titans' mothers or fathers or second cousins twice-removed, whatever that means. I think what that means is a cousin you can do oral with.

The Teen Titans need to rally together to stop Mister Twister's plan from working so Nightwing comes up with one: semantics! They'll defeat Mister Twister with semantics! If he can only open the portal because the Teen Titans remember being the Teen Titans, then they'll point out that they aren't teens anymore! They're adults! They have new names even! So how can they still be used to open the portal when they aren't called Speedy or Robin or Wondergirl or the fish guy anymore?!

Garth? I think you mean Second Nightwing.

Sometimes I wonder if I'd enjoy comic books more if I were less cynical and more earnest. But then I remember how much I love cynically reading comic books and pointing out how stupid they are. Not that the Titans winning a battle by pointing out they've changed their names isn't the most amazing thing I've ever read! Because it's, like, a metaphor or something! It's so powerful! It's like Dick Grayson isn't a little boy anymore. He's all grown up and better than Batman and he's had sexual relationships and everything! I think this is like that moment in It when all the little kids have sex so that they can escape from the innocence of their childhood which was what made them victims in the first place. Except it's less gross!

But apparently the kids need everybody to understand the power of semantics! And too bad for them, they still have that big dope Hawk on their team!

Say you're Monarch, Hawk! Tell him about how you're Monarch!

Dove should choose her words more carefully because she's encouraging Hawk not to fight in the panel above. It's not like he can see her punctuation.

Hawk remembers that Mister Twister killed the original Dove so he flips the fuck out and tears a hole in Mister Twister's chest cavity. The Titans kick the crap out of him like they're fans at a soccer game cheering on their home team by putting a fan of the other team into the hospital. Whatever Mister Twister was summoning (it looks like a gigantic, other-dimensional spider, so I think bringing up It earlier was apt) begins coming through the portal. But Lilith casts a spell and Gnaark feeds Mister Twister to it, and it retreats back to its dimension. I don't know why the thing looked like a spider. Shouldn't it have looked like a big naked blue guy with a flaccid pecker?

The issue ends with the Titans suggesting they reform and with a mystery! The mystery is who was the missing Titan since Mister Twister mentioned ten Titans and there were only ten of them. But Bumblebee didn't count for some reason! I think because she was from Titans West or something. Anyway, Dick only brings it up so everybody can say, "Oh yeah! When are they going to remember Wally?!" Otherwise nobody would have even thought Bumblebee wasn't one of the ten Mister Twister mentioned since she had powers and was obviously a Titan of some kind or other.

Titans Hunt #7

I once ripped Marcus To four new assholes for a boring ass cover like this and it was done ten times better. This is bullshit, Romita. BULL. SHIT.

The Review
The greatest trick DC ever pulled was convincing comic book readers that the Teen Titans were ever entertaining. I blame the Teen Titans cartoon for making people think the comic was enjoyable. I've been trying to get through the second volume of the New Teen Titans (I think it's the second volume? The eighties version with Raven and Jericho?) and it's so much fucking shit that I can't force myself to get through more than one per week! And there are over one hundred of the fucking things! Maybe I'm just not the target audience for the Teen Titans. I think the target audience is dunderheads who don't give a shit about theme or plot or characterization and just want to read romantic triangles and see characters give each other longing looks spurred on by unrequited love! Fuck that nonsense. Love is bullshit and fantasy love in fictional stories is even bigger bullshit than that! You want to read a real love story? Read Edith Wharton's Age of Innocence. Now that's a fucking love story! Compared to that, romance in the Teen Titans books is equivalent to sticking a finger up your ass and giving it a nice big whiff after. Titans Hunt is not better. Which is sad because it's the best depiction of these characters since The New 52 began. Which isn't saying munch since Scott Lobdell has been set up as regent of their omniverse.

Titans Hunt #6

I still hate the title of this comic book.

Rating: The comic remains at 29 of 51 DC Comics. You know who would really enjoy this comic book? Fifty year old or older fans of the Teen Titans! I'm forty-four and I barely know anything about the history they're referencing. But then, I'm also not really a fan of the Teen Titans. I thought I was but then I reread my old Marv Wolfman comics and ugh. I am not a fan at all! Although I still like Joseph Wilson. Probably because he isn't constantly saying stupid shit like the rest of the group. Marv Wolfman figured out the only way he can write a likeable character! Make him a mute!

• I think this comic book is about the Titans gathering together at their old clubhouse and taking peyote.

• You know what? That would be a better comic book than this!

• Not that this is a terrible comic book. It's just unnecessary! I mean, it's totally necessary! But it shouldn't ever have had to have been necessary! If DC hadn't allowed Scott Lobdell and Tom DeFalco and Howard Mackie and Will Pfeifer to screw up the Titans so horribly, they never would have needed this mystic story of the Titans remembering how there was a universe where they didn't completely suck.

• I'm making a pretty huge assumption about a universe where the Titans never completely sucked. Because I'm rereading Wolfman's eighties revival of them and--hoo boy!--do they stink it up! And they've only gotten worse since the issues hit the 1990s! The editors actually think by taking Jericho's sideburns, they're bringing him into the nineties! He just looks like a right turd without them!

• I just realized that the cover looks like Arsenal and Gronk (or whatever the fuck his caveman name is. I don't care if I'm being insensitive to Caveman Culture!) have actually just taken peyote! I didn't realize that when I claimed that that was what this book was about.

• I recently finished watching the second season of Young Justice and my biggest complaint is that they concentrate on the legacy characters too much.

• That last bullet point is a stupid joke and not evidence of my stupidity. Dum-dum.

• Mal sings a song and the rest of the Titans are all, "Hey! I know that tune! It's awful!"

• Donna Troy doesn't seem to remember that she's supposed to have taken the place of The Fates. I think.

• How is Donna Troy going to remember something that happened five years before she was created from clay? I think it's time for one of DC's traditional Who is Donna Troy/Wonder Girl?! stories!

• A guy with a stupid mustache tells Bumblebee all about the demonic Mister Twister and how the Titans sacrificed their memories and their friendships to stop him five years ago.

• DC should just make Kid Flash time travel to change continuity into something they can live with.

• The guy with the stupid mustache works for some organization called Diablo and he decides they need to kill the Titans to keep Mister Twister from entering their reality.

• Diablo is Team Rocket?

Titans Hunt #5

Stop trying to make me look at Dick's crotch, DC!

Rating: No change.

This story is a mystery about a mystery! The mystery is what the mystery is! It's basically the Titans running around going "Something weird is going on but we know nothing about anything but we do know something weird is going on and we're going to maybe try to figure that out maybe? No? Yes?" While they go around not knowing anything about the mystery that is mysterious, they begin to meet up with each other. It seems they once knew each other and had a team together and went on "adventures" but something happened to make those adventures nonexistent. I won't say what that event was that erased those adventures because I don't want to summon assholes who still type things like "Nu-52" or "I would eat out my own asshole if I were flexible enough and fuck DC Comics!"

In essence, the mystery is why did DC erase the history of the Titans in the first place? Some people think that was a mistake because they loved the characters and hate Lobdell's version of them. But those people are probably forgetting how awful Marv Wolfman's version of the Teen Titans truly was. I guess it's kind of a serviceable comic book for a company that really didn't know what it was doing in the early to mid eighties. But it doesn't hold up well enough to be re-remembered! Which I guess is why the Titans are remembering adventures that are even older than those adventures! Adventures in a time where they could actually battle a guy named Mister Twister and nobody's eyes would roll out of their head.

I once believed I enjoyed Marv Wolfman's Titans from the eighties. I should have kept that false memory alive and never gone back to reread that series! Although maybe it gets better after Issue #54, right? It must get better because I kept reading and buying it for another five years! Along with the Team Titans and Deathstork books!

Titans Hunt #4

This cover is the equivalent of giving up in your twenties.

Rating: No change. It's easy to be the best Teen Titans book on the shelves right now which might explain why this one is such a mediocre experience. The only thing Abnett had to do to create a comic book better than Pfeifer's or Lobdell's was have the characters sort of say things you kind of remember these characters used to say and stick them in a story with a plot that's moving along at a steady, if a bit slow, pace. And it doesn't hurt to have a lot of call backs to the various older Teen Titans series. But come on! Let's get this shit moving! Let's make something happen besides revealing that Mister Twister is the big bad because who fucking cares?

Oh, and about the use of the term "big bad"? I thought Joss Whedon popularized it in Buffy but apparently it was being used much earlier by the Teen Titans because Speedy uses it in the flashback to when Wonder Girl was wearing her red jumpsuit with gold stars. Although Speedy looked just like he looks now as Arsenal and didn't have a goofy hat and red Robin Hood outfit, so maybe he was time traveling during that memory. Except he didn't have his tattoos!

I wonder why I'm worried about continuity in a book that's just throwing random bits of remembered continuity into a slow cooker and setting it to "Take Its Fucking Time"?

Titans Hunt #3

Donna Troy would do well to remain in this comic book and give up her guest role in Wonder Woman.

Rating: No change. This comic book is mostly resting on the laurels of Preboot history. But that's fine! Give me any Titans book that doesn't fucking suck its own asshole right now. Let these characters become the main Titans book! I wonder if hitmen accept hits on comic books because I would totally start a GoFundMe page to pay to have the Teen Titans comic book put down.

DC Comics Presents: Titans Hunt #1

Ugh. Look at those nasty greasy fingerprints already smeared all over this thing.

I am not going to do a proper commentary on a 100-page super spectacular. How much free time do you think I have?! Also, I'm fairly certain those disgusting fingerprints were from the jerk at the local comic book store who bagged this thing before I bought it.

[[MORE]]

Stop pissing in the water and do something to fucking help, Aqualad!

As you can see, the issue begins with Robin's skull about to be smashed upon some rocks. Aqualad is too scared to get out of the water because he dries up in mere minutes and dies if nobody spits on him. And Kid Flash isn't able to outrun Mister Twister's weird wind funnel. This scene starts off the comic book but we all know it's going to flash back to an earlier time before Robin's imminent death. And when this scene actually does take place, it'll be totally different than it's portrayed here. Hopefully part of the difference will be that Aqualad never says "Leaping mantas!"

In the above scan, Aqualad actually looks like I do when I'm trying to acclimate myself to cold water because dipping your balls in is the most shocking part. And Aqualad has just gotten to that point.

Wow! Hatton Corners is my favorite place in the DC Universe!

Finally, a mayor with some common sense! Down with teenagers! Fuck them right in their stupid asses! I mean, don't literally do that! That's probably against the law! It might sound like a sexy crime but teenagers aren't worth having sex with at all. The males are no good at it and the females don't yet realize how freaky they'll be when they hit thirty-four! Who wants to have sex with a teenager when they've yet to realize how awesome rimming is? Both giving and getting!

Meanwhile in a piece of shit barn at the edge of town, the mayor's son is organizing a teenage strike if they don't get their teen clubhouse! Oh no! A strike of teenagers?! Who will roll their eyes and act rudely when asked simple questions?! Who will smoke in the park thinking they're the bees knees?! Who will do chores so poorly that the parents wind up just doing them over again?! Who will awkwardly fondle each other over their clothes while kissing like over-aggressive puppies?!

Batman reads about the teenagers' strike and calls them spoiled brats right in Robin's face. Robin gets his green underpants in a bunch and calls Batman a square! Don't think you're too big of a superhero not to get thrown over the old bat-knee, Robin! Batman doesn't want to hear Robin's thoughts on teenager rights so he lets him go to Hatton's Corner to bother the adults there.

The Flash also doesn't get it but he allows Kid Flash to head over to help the teenagers show those adults what's what. And down in the ocean, an eel nearly dies from teenagers throwing garbage into the sea.

Whoa! I just thought Aqualad died if out of water for more than an hour. But he ceases to exist!

Robin, Kid Flash, and Aqualad arrive at Hatton Corners to find the teen clubhouse demolished by some fantastic wind and the teenagers gone! They've gone on strike and they left a note for the adults. But Robin sees through the note and realizes it was written by an adult because the note said "music" instead of "jive." I caught that too, Robin! I was reading it and thinking, "That sounds like adult-speak if I've ever heard it! Plus the note was super legible and all the words were spelled correctly. So it couldn't have been written by a teenager. Also the note was stained yellow from pee and teenagers can hold their piss far better than adults!"

While the Teen Titans search for the teenagers, Mister Twister attacks Hatton Corners with a tornado! I guess now that he's gotten rid of all the meddling kids, his plan is foolproof! I don't know what his plan is yet but I'm sure it has something to do with robbing something. It's at this point that the opening scene actually takes place and, of course, it's nothing like the initial set-up. Kid Flash saves Robin easily while Aqualad is off talking to a bunch of fish.

This scene would have been more romantic if Wally hadn't just called Dick fat.

Mister Twister reveals his plan for Hatton's Corners: revenge! Or something. Okay, he still isn't very clear but he wants revenge and he wants what's owed him. I guess Robin is going to have to do some investigating to find out what Mister Twister wants. But that won't take place until Chapter Two!

It's now time for Chapter Two which begins with the adults lamenting the loss of the teenagers! Oh how foolhardy they were not to appreciate the nonsense the kids got up to when they were around! Playing the jukebox too loud! Well, that isn't that great a complaint because the stupid owner of the malt shop controls the volume on that thing. The owner of the malt shop is also upset that they messed his place up but isn't that what happens when you're selling ice cream?! Poor fucking bald asshole had to clean up after making crazy bread selling fries and malts to kids all day long?! What an ingrate!

A policeman is sad that he doesn't get to chase them around town anymore and beat the shit out of them when he catches them. And the other adults are just plain bored. They'd do anything to get the teenagers back! Idiots.

Robin does his due diligence and detectives up the place.

Jacob Stikk was an idiot and a pedophile. I bet he drove the Passenger Pigeons extinct just to get his pervy mitts on everybody's kids!

Now years later, Brom Stikk, descendant of Jacob Stikk, has returned demanding his Passenger Pigeon feathers! But the town didn't have any to give him so they just laughed at him and wiped their asses with the rental agreement. That's when Brom Stikk decided to steal the teenagers and put them to work on Goat Island! Of course Robin figures out where the teenagers are so that the Titans can ride a Leaping Manta across the bay and save the kids.

Aqualad notices that the island is perched on a tiny pillar of rock so he enslaves a bunch of whales and forces them to break the pillar and carry the island away from its original location. Now Mister Twister has no leverage to deal with the adults of Hatton's Corner! Surely this is the end of his diabolical scheme! Find out in Chapter Three!

It's now time for Chapter Three which is called "The Town That Would Not Die!" I guess that's supposed to sound defiant as opposed to terrifying? Although I'm not sure how bad off the town is without its teenagers. That sounds like the kind of town that's thriving! I mean, sure, the roller rink would probably close down but that sounds like a small price to pay for peace and quiet.

Whew! All of this sex talk is making me horny!

And then Mister Twister makes some tactical errors or something and he's ultimately defeated by Robin because Robin has no powers and Mister Twister forgets all about him. Hooray! The good guys won! There was more to the story but it hardly matters, right? As long as Mister Twister paid for his crimes and the teenagers learned to respect the adults and the adults learned that if they built a clubhouse, the teenagers would be out of their hair completely, everybody lived happily ever after!

Being a 100-page super spectacular, it contains several more stories to read. I was about ready to pass out from exhaustion when I finished up the Mister Twister story which is why I explained it so unsatisfactorily. Although I'd argue that Bob Haney is the one who really made the ending unsatisfactory! Really. A story about teenagers and adults which ends with both parties respecting each other? Unheard of!

The second story is called "The Beast-god of Xochatan!" That sounds familiar. I think I've read this one before! Judging from the introduction, it sounds like it must be the story from the original Teen Titans #1. I could ask Lord Google but I'm too busy! I really should be reading Green Lantern #47 right now but no! The collector's need for completion I inherited from my mother is really kicking in hard today! Must read and write about old shitty Teen Titans stories!

Dry up, Aqualad!

The Teen Titans have been asked to join the Peace Corps to help save some people in the Peace Corps. I guess everything in the Peace Corps is top secret and only members are given access to information about them. I don't know much about the Peace Corps because I'm against joining cults. I also don't have that need to do things that I can self-righteously brag about to make people feel like lazy assholes. "Oh, you were partying in your early twenties and getting laid and having a generally all-around grand time exploiting your youth and freedom? Well, I was doing things that mattered!"

It seems Aqualad is only on the team so that Robin can get a break from spouting ridiculous interjections: Leaping mantas! Suffering sunfish! Leaping lionfish! Suffering sharks! As you can see, he's not quite as imaginative as Robin though.

Fuck you, Wonder Girl! Who told you to think?! Just bat your huge fake eyelashes and look pretty!

Wonder Girl is allowed to place a new pin in the Peace Corps' map of world domination though. Also she has much bigger boobs than I expected. I hope she's not too "teen" so that I'm only breaking the law in the majority of states by being sexually attracted to her. Also she's fictional so I have that going for me.

After putting a pin in the map for some reason, the Cult Leader says, "You're not really in yet! Come along--indoctrination starts immediately!" What an innocent and carefree time it was when the word "indoctrination" didn't have seriously creepy undertones! "Right team! Let's go get indoctrinated! For the USA!"

The news that the Teen Titans have joined a cult quickly spread to their guardians!

"Don't you dare try to speak with the king! Write the news on your fucking news-shell and deliver it like a proper messenger!"

I tried to ignore Aquababy but I couldn't do it. Aquababy?! AQUABABY?! How come Mera is the only one in this relationship who gets a real name?! And, let's face it, that isn't the worst thing in the above scan. Why is a there a man on Paradise Island in charge of delivering outside news? What better way for a civilization of women to be influenced by the patriarchy? And do Hippolyta and Diana usually stand around watching the news get carved into one stone so that they can know what's happening before everybody else?

Meanwhile in Xochatan, a bunch of Latino stereotypes have angered a giant robot conquistador by not giving it enough fruit and vegetables. Luckily the Teen Titans are parachuting in to save the day! Kid Flash lands on the Conquistador's helmet and runs around the brim super fast. I'm not sure the robot even notices. Then Robin throws a smoke bomb in its face because robots probably hate imagining they're inhaling smoke and also probably don't have optics that allow it to see through smoke. Good moves, guys! I hope Aqualad has the wherewithal to talk to some piranha and asked them what they think about the robot.

Robin's smoke bomb only makes a smokescreen which enables the giant robot to disappear in a cliff face. While the Teen Titans try to unravel the mystery of the disappearing giant robot, let me bring up another mystery! How the fuck did Aqualad survive the plane trip to South America? Was he sitting in a tub of water on the plane? How embarrassing.

Wonder Girl's super power is either intuition, gas, or spontaneous orgasm. Two out of three of those are totally sexist. So I hope it's gas.

In the next panel, one of the boys says, "Oh come on, W.G.! Don't pull that woman's intuition stuff on us!" And then another woman in the crowd says, "I feel it, too!" If she has the same power, maybe she can become Wonder Girl's sideick!

A bulldozer slides down the hill nearly crushing everybody before plunging into the river. Great! An opportunity for Aqualad to be useful! Save the bulldozer, Aqualad! Save it!

This is just fucking embarrassing. Somebody told Aqualad that being able to exist out of water for only an hour was "an ability."

Aqualad ties Wonder Girl's lasso to the bulldozer and she hauls it out of the river. Is her lasso exactly the same as Wonder Woman's? I mean, of course it is because Wonder Girl was just young Wonder Woman until she wasn't! I guess the lasso is one of those artifacts that has a backup just in case the first one is eaten by a hydra.

Dude, she's like thirteen. I can ogle her because she's on a different plane of reality than I am. You're on the same plane so you're a creepo perv.

I don't even know what Robin is hinting at in the panel above. Is Wonder Girl going to rap next?

Robin uses his detective brain to figure out that the cliff where the robot disappeared was hollow so they head back to investigate. Kid Flash does the vibration trick that Linda will eventually love and disappears into the cliff face. Seconds later, he's chased out by the robot! Why? I don't know yet! I'm sure the evil mastermind behind this entire plot will explain it in a few pages. I just hope the villain isn't Juan Valdez! He was one of the Latino stereotypes earlier.

Just before the second chapter ends, a jaguar with the face of a man exits the pyramid to play with Kid Flash. It's just as fast as Kid Flash so he can't lose it until he runs into the ancient labyrinth he finds in the jungle. Handy those ancient labyrinths!

Wonder Girl battles a bird with a human face and Aqualad battles a serpent with a human face. They kill some of them and Wonder Girl loses her lasso for good (or until next issue) before they finally find and defeat the man behind it all!

Wait. Are the Teen Titans really just the Scooby Gang?

So the Teen Titans first big enemy in their own series was Don Matanzas, a balding French man with a love of oppressing the poor! Maybe he wasn't actually French but he kept saying "ze" which totally sounds French to me. At least the way I read it.

The next story is "The Secret Olympic Heroes" which totally sounds like boring bullshit especially since it stars Speedy! Fucking Roy Harper! At least I don't have to worry about him Narration Boxing in this old comic.

The story begins with America's best hope to win all of the Olympic track events running away. And since he's the best runner America has, nobody can catch him! He simply disappears while his dad yells, "Davey! This person calling you right now is me! Your dad! You know, your father! The person who impregnated your mother! I'm calling you with my voice! That's the voice you hear right now! It's mine! Your dad's voice! DAVEY!"

Christ, Wonder Girl! Put your dick back in your pants.

Via their private television station, the Teen Titans get a plea from Davey's father to help his son. Aqualad does his thing and yells "Holy Hammerheads!" That's a new one. Better yet, Wonder Girl says, "Suffering Sappho!" Between that exclamation and her pants-ruining moment looking at Davey's picture, I'd say it's official that Wonder Girl is bisexual.

Before anybody can react to Wonder Girl's sapphic revelation, an intruder intrudes! But it's only Speedy! Batman squealed and told Green Arrow the secret location of the Teen Titans' Clubhouse. He needed to find them so he could tell them all that he's going to be in the Olympics! Well, he's not actually going to be in any of the actual events since it's probably cheating to have a superhero compete. Even if the superhero doesn't have any superpowers and is actually just really good at shooting a bow just like the athletes that will be competing in the Olympics. Anyway, Roy has a sad story about some international organization called Diablo trying to wreck the Olympics. Who cares?!

Did every issue of the Teen Titans present some kind of propaganda for young kids to embrace? The first issue taught them about how America helps the world via the Peace Corps and how teenagers should get along with adults. Now I'm being told that the Olympics aren't about winning competitions and flaunting your gold medals in rival countries' faces but about friendship and sporting rivalries! But the jokes on the writers because the Olympics are so boring that I can't be bothered to buy into their patriotic nonsense! Plus they decided to make it even more boring by having the story star Speedy!

Eventually something happens or whatever. I think the Olympics were saved and Speedy wasn't invited to be a proper member of the Teen Titans.

There's one more story but I've gone on way too long as it is on a book that has no connection to the DC You! I think I'm just going to go to sleep now. Good night! May all the boys and girls of the world dream about Wonder Girl! But only if your dreamhead makes her the appropriate age for whatever sick things you're going to do to her in your sleep. Goodbye!

Titans Hunt #2

Let him go! Bismillah! We will not let him go! No, no, no, no, no, no, no! Oh mamma mia, mamma mia! Mamma mia let me go!

Last night I found the Christmas music channel while driving around for work because I enjoy Christmas music for a limited amount of time. The radio station seems to have a better rotation than most radio stations because even though songs are often repeated, at least they're different versions of the songs. A version of "Here Comes Santa Claus" played last night and the ending really disturbed me: "Hang your stockings and say your prayers cause Santa Clause comes tonight!" Why am I saying my prayers? What the fuck is that old bastard about to do to me?! Is that why I drop into a fetal position whenever I hear sleigh bells?! They also played the Peanuts version of "O Tannenbaum" which might represent perfectly the way I always feel around Christmas. I would go into greater detail but didn't you just see it represents the way I feel "perfectly" so adding more words to explain it would mean that I was lying and the song wasn't a perfect representation at all.

My favorite Christmas movies is About A Boy which I must remember to watch this year so I can continue to tell people that it's my favorite Christmas movie. Some people think it's a lousy pick for a Christmas movie because it doesn't bash you in the face with Santa Claus but it's just as Christmassy as It's a Wonderful Life and jerks choose that as their favorite Christmas movie constantly without getting any side-eye. If too cool for everything guys can pick Die Hard as their favorite Christmas movie then I can pick one where the main character gets to live a life of luxury because of a hit Christmas song. Also, I love the way it opens with the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire question asking "Who said that no man is an island?" Hugh Grant answers "Bon Jovi, of course." And he's right. Bon Jovi did say it in one of the songs I think of as one of my life's theme songs: "Santa Fe."

Anyway, Roy Harper is currently driving while guzzling whisky because he's an asshole. I'm fairly certain that with this depiction of him, I can stop wondering why I never liked him and begin wondering why anybody at all does. I have no sympathy for people driving drunk and even less for people defending their actions because alcoholism is a disease. First off, the reason we have such a problem with drunk driving in this country is because the penalty is always a slap on the wrist unless somebody is killed because of it. Nobody in power is willing to attach hard time to the crime because they all fucking do it themselves. Every person arrested for drunk driving should be slapped with an attempted murder charge as well. Second off, not having enough willpower to not engage in risky and self-harming behavior is not a disease. It's a character flaw. My father is a recovering alcoholic and I've been to plenty of AA Meetings over the years. Yeah, sure, it works (if you work it!). But I can't imagine it works for everybody because recovery through AA is an extroverted way of solving the problem. AA Meetings simply become the new bar where everybody hangs out and supports themselves. Alcoholics who make it to AA are generally needy people. I imagine introverted alcoholics have the decency to just rot away and die in a dark room without bothering anybody. I've never taken a poll but I would guess the majority of people recovering through Alcoholics Anonymous own dogs. Fucking "addictive behavior" is just saying "fuck it!" because you really don't give a shit about the consequences of something you love to do. Recovering from your "disease" is finally accepting responsibility for your actions and deciding to be a fucking adult about it.

We really tiptoe around a lot of shit in this country, don't we? Fuck this "I'd rather be nice than smart" movement used to passive-aggressively insult smart people. I'd rather be honest than nice! Although, seriously, nobody has to choose between "nice" and "everything else." Stop thinking nice trumps everything, you stupid assholes. Being nice is definitely something people should strive to be but not at the cost of lying about reality and letting all of the weak-willed monsters dictate the conversation by screaming that they engage in bad behavior because they're sick. Hey, I'm sick too! I'm sick of all of the idiots bemoaning their lots in life! Buck up, motherfuckers! Walk it off! I mean, "I'd rather be nice than selfish!"

Roy Harper sees somebody fly by the windshield of his truck and then reacts poorly. Maybe because he's been drinking and maybe simply because he's Roy Harper.

One minor slap on the wrist coming up!

I don't mean to say people can't bitch and moan and complain about their lives. What the fuck do I spend 95% of my time on the internet doing?! I'm just saying that the world has so many problems that I don't have time to sympathize with people creating their own problems for themselves. In that panel above, Roy fucking did all of that shit to himself and now he's endangering lives by being drunk with a bow and arrow which could spook the cops into murdering everything. He brought that problem on himself. If the above panel were just a black male with a bow simply on the seat next to him being pulled over by these cops, he'd probably be dead by now. That's a serious problem with the world that everybody can complain about all they want because other people need to change to fix it. You know, while they complain about other stuff that hardly matters as well, if they want. I don't think anybody needs to complain that nobody is complaining about the right stuff. Complain about whatever you want! Just don't expect everybody to care if the source of and the solution to the shit you're complaining about is you.

Richard Grayson is currently in the Batcave. He's also hunting for something. The hunting theme is going to be strong in this comic book! Because after Roy hunting for something and Dick hunting for Atlanteans, the next scene begins with Gnaark's omniscient narrator mentioning how he has to know when to go out and hunt. There's also not arguing with fate. But if you argue with fate, weren't you fated to argue with fate? If we're going to embrace the concept of fate then we have to assume that everything that happens was fated to happen. Thus nobody can deny fate because even the denying of fate was fated to fate. Therefore the concept of fate is useless and should never even be brought up.

This is the ninth time in eight pages (not counting the cover!) where the word "hunt" or a form of the word was used. And that's ignoring all the synonyms!

Back in the Batcave, Alfred has decided that the hunting theme can't be played out yet because this comic book still has ten and a half more issues to go. So he begins to tell Dick about how prehistoric hunters thought about hunting because that's something that cave paintings must be about. Alfred figures the knowledge can help Dick use the Batcomputer more efficiently.

Are anthropologists this good at their job that they can reach these kinds of conclusions about how preliterate cultures prepared for a hunt?

Roy Harper has decided that he doesn't want to be arrested by the police for drinking and driving. And since he's a superhero, he has the ability to beat the cops down and escape. I never thought I could dislike Roy Harper more than when he's written by Scott Lobdell but Dan Abnett has changed my mind. That's not a criticism of Dan Abnett! I don't think. I mean, I'd have to get inside of his head the way Alfred has gotten inside the head of prehistoric hunters to know what Abnett is trying to do. He just seems to be writing Roy Harper as a guy who makes mistakes with which I cannot sympathize. He's acting as horribly as Red Robin in Teen Titans when he decided to go on the run with Superboy simply because he believed Superboy didn't murder anybody so why let the actual law deal with it?

Thankfully, Roy Harper gets tazed. But now he's not only driven drunk, he's also assaulted cops and resisted arrest (really resisted arrest! Not that fake bullshit "resisted arrest" which cops use simply to arrest anybody they don't like the look of). So he's in big trouble! Unless that thing that flew past his windshield decides to beat up the cops to save him. And then Roy can be in big trouble and on the run!

There's a scene with Mal and Bumblebee which almost made me rant again but Malcolm cuts the rant off before it can even begin. See, he starts saying how "the bumblebee shouldn't be able to fly" which I'm so fucking tired of hearing nice people talk about because they're too fucking lazy to actually understand anything scientific. But he cuts himself off immediately by saying that it's a myth and I breathe a sigh of relief and my heart wipes its brow and my blood pressure lies back in bed and my asshole unpuckers. Probably. I don't actually have any proof of any of that but especially of the butthole thing.

Dick Grayson heads to the beach to fish for Atlanteans. He gets a bite and winds up battling Garth on the beach. Luckily Donna Troy arrives to make things worse. Lucky for Dick! Because Garth was about to murder and eat him.

Titans Hunt #2 Rating: No change. It's not like I should have expected anything different from a Teen Titans comic book. It's always all about the team. It's all about their fucked up lives and incestual relationships within the group. It's always about their mistakes and how they fix their mistakes and how they completely ignore everything in the world that doesn't begin and end with one of them. It's always about their nemeses who want nothing more than to destroy the Titans and so the Titans are always just fighting for their lives and hardly ever fighting to make the world a better place. It's always simply about themselves. Just like every other fucking teenager that ever lived! Unlike Batman and Superman who are adults and they're always fighting enemies who are trying to get revenge on them for constantly putting them in jail and...well, those were bad examples of adults. Adults usually fight to make the world a better place for themselves. So that's...um...different? I think? Hmm. Can I start over before I have to apologize to teenagers?

Titans Hunt #1

It's a good thing this hunt isn't being performed by OMAC.

Can we all agree that Titans Hunt is a lousy title for a comic book? Dan Abnett either got hit in the side of the head by a cricket bat just before pitching this idea, or he came up with the title using a focus group composed of a three year old, Tarzan, and a man named "Ty Tans" in the process of transforming into a werewolf. I suspect this story will be about hunting. Whether it's performed by Titans or to hunt for Titans, I guess I'll find out. Probably both.

The issue begins with Roy Harper and a bunch of narration boxes. I admit it scared me for a second even though Dan Abnett is writing and not Scott Lobdell. Then as I began to read them and realized they were by an omniscient narrator, I felt like I had just been shoved up my mother's vagina and back into the womb. Which is probably the most uncomfortable way to say that I felt comfortable. Oh how I missed you! And by "you" I mean the omniscient narrator and not my mother's womb! The Narrator explains how Roy Harper gets freaked out by the sight of a water tower that barely looks like Titans Tower but I guess it's close enough to make Roy feel funny. Funny and scared. So scared that he goes to a nearby store to buy a bottle of whisky. He's served by Gnarrk who he doesn't recognize because this is a different universe than the universe that is trying to elbow its way into Roy's head.

Maybe Gnarrk named this series?

The name of the convenience store is "Ice Age" if you didn't notice it plastered all over every panel. Because where else would a cave teenager wind up working? Roy leaves the store with all sorts of familiar Preboot things running through his head where he decides to hang out, drink his whisky, and watch the tornado plow through town.

Meanwhile in New York, Dick Grayson is dealing with some Spyral business. He also preempts the omniscient narrator to take over so he can make a whole bunch of comparisons between life and the circus. Things like they're both full of clowns and neither one is ultimately as fulfilling as everybody would want you to believe. The group he's after deal in black market human organs and they call themselves Harvest. This is the part where I'd make fun of Dan Abnett for trying to be clever if he wasn't actually being so clever. That's clever.

Life is a circus so sometimes an Atlantean probably named Garth appears from out of nowhere and kills everybody under the Big Top. The Atlantean is also after Harvest but in a far more deadly way than Dick Grayson will commit to. Dick avoids dying and almost gets a Preboot memory as he watches the Atlantean disappear under water in a whirlpool.

Donna Troy? If so, she should be okay. She's had plenty of experience with disappearing timelines, alternate memories, and retconned origins.

Down in Los Angeles, Buddy Baker presents an award for Best Original Score to Malcolm Duncan. He's at the ceremony with his pregnant wife Bumblebee. Of course neither of them are currently heroes or ever have been heroes or know anything about having been heroes. But once again, memories of another time and place begin to seep into their lives. I think this scene matters less than the others because Mal and Karen are basically West Coasters. Nobody living on the West Coast is ever taken seriously in DC Comics.

While Dick is lounging around in a towel, Lilith comes to visit him. That's a problem because Lilith shouldn't exist. Unless she was actually Omen although why would I even bring up Omen? Those are memories that should be forgotten while the memories the Titans are dredging up are the ones that should be remembered. Just let the old Titan history pour in to replace the Lobdell, DeFalco, Nicieza, and Mackie bullshit from the beginning of The New 52.

Lilith tells Dick that he needs to find them and then he needs to find her. After Lilith leaves, Dick looks at his penis in confusion.

Lilith works as an addiction counselor. She counsels Roy and keeps a file on all of the old Preboot Teen Titans. She also talks to somebody who is always watching and trying to take the Titans. It's all a big mystery because this is just the first issue and questions are only raised in first issues, never answered. Unless the writer is writing incorrectly, or engaged in some kind of experimental writing. But then the comic book becomes Jeopardy with the answers given without the questions so the answers technically become the questions looking for the questions to answer them.

Titans Hunt #1 Rating: This issue featured a Roy Harper that didn't annoy the fuck out of me, so it probably deserves to be ranked around #20. The Teen Titans have been the most horrendously written characters of The New 52 aside from every character written by Ann Nocenti. Any attempt to fix them is appreciated because it will either end up in the Titans being fixed or just leave them with one more shitty story they were involved in. So at least there's a chance that they can be interesting. Although hopefully nobody tries to make them more like Marv Wolfman's Teen Titans because those guys were worse than I ever remembered. I never should have started rereading the 1980s run of the Teen Titans because now I remember how much I hated Dick Grayson, Changeling, and Cyborg. It's possible now that I've gotten to the issues where Danny Chase is a member of the team, Danny will make me appreciate the other characters because he's awful. He's worse than Scrappy Doo and Cousin Oliver combined.