Scans_Daily

- or, "The One In Which Nothing Happens." No, really. Nothing happens. Certainly this "Red Robin Reborn!" stuff from the cover:



doesn't happen.

We do learn that earth-time and azarath-time move differently, and in earth-time it's only been a few weeks since Phantom Stranger sold Rachel Roth out to Trigon, but it's been a much longer time, possibly years, for Raven on Azarath. This may help explain why in earth-time scenes only about five minutes have passed since the very messy end of last issue, while Trigon takes his sweet time explaining the family history to his sons back home.

( Cease your prattle a moment and all will be made clear. )

And looking at that splash, can I just say, I think Trigon prefers Raven 'cause she's the only one of his kids that's pretty?

"Next Issue: The Teen Titans Battle The Brothers Trigon - With The Fate of NYC In The Balance!"

Yeah yeah, I know, I'm on a Raven bender lately with her reintroduction in the DCnU. But it was either this or Steph Brown, and that's a hard one to do without letting "toxic" bitterness creep in; besides, Steph's got plenty of boosters here, I figure.

Besides, I was trawling the used bookstore's comic stash today and came across a copy of Baxter paper series New Teen Titans #43, which amounts to a Raven solo story and a good illustration of the things I loved about her. So I've got 8 pages out of a 27-page issue. A note on the art: the credits give the pencils to Eduardo Barreto, but the cover claims - and the DC Database confirms - it's Curt Swan. I'm not a huge Swan fan, and this is serviceable art, but I'd love to see what, say, Gene Colan could've done with this same material; something to keep in the imagination while looking these over, no?

( Are paranormal powers any more difficult to accept than man's sometime cruelty to other men? )

- or, "Prologue to A Tale of Light and Dark," which is the Titans' next big arc, apparently. 3 whole pages and 2 partial pages for a total of 4, and man did I have a hard time cutting it down to just that. This is a bridge issue, tying up the Death of the Family crossover story and putting pieces into play for this Light and Dark thing, so there's a lot going on here.

( Can we go back to the awkward silence? )

Can't swear to it, but I think I may be looking forward to the War of Light and Dark thing.

As per discussion in icon_uk's earlier post, I've taken a shot at scanning two pages I particularly loved from the New Teen Titans: Games graphic novel.

Some context: CIA spook Faraday has alerted the Titans that they've been picked as chess pieces in the machinations of a shadowy figure called the Gamesmaster, and he's targeted the Titans' civilian-ID nearest and dearest. So they scatter to warn and/or secure their closest relations: Donna to her adopted parents (see NTT: Who Is Donna Troy?, posted here once but now I can't find it), Vic to his grandparents, Raven to her mom who's settled in Arizona, Dick to the Batcave, Jericho to Adeline and Slade and Jessica/Megan/Jocelyn/Kayla/Betsy/Morgan/Trinity/etc.etc.etc., as icon_uk notes in the comments.

But! It turns out the target is not a relative, but a friend. Remember Sarah, the petite blonde physical therapist working with kids with prostheses who befriended Vic in the original NTT run? She's taking a charter bus of those kids to the Ren Faire Joey was playing around at in icon's post. There's a bomb on the bus, and it's a race against time - one where they're literally hobbled, because many of her kids have leg/foot prosthetics and can't move quickly enough, or nimbly enough on the grassy roadside, to get out of the blast zone. The Titans are trying to come to the rescue, but -

( -some days your friends just aren't there for you. )

All flying Titans available are desperately scouting the roads for the bus, but there's just no time left.

Raven hangs back and weeps guiltily in the aftermath. Vic goes postal on Faraday and Dick has to have Joey possess him until he can get himself back under control. And Raven - oh, Raven - decides she has to have a face-to-face with Vic -

( - and then, some days your friends just are there for you. )

Seriously, these two break my heart. Because I remember how suspicious and hostile Vic was to Raven in the beginning, and how hard she worked to earn his trust, and what they've come to mean to each other. I really miss these kinds of friendships.