Titans #8 : Nothing Is Not What It Seems

[superfangirl1]

I wonder how long it be, until the Titans find out about the switch and saved good Raven from her prison in the crystal?

Comments

[zachbeacon]

"Superheroes can't be trusted "

Wait, the other side is lead by an acrobat and you have a robot gun-hand. Which one of you is the superhuman in this situation?

A career spy with such flexible loyalties talking about trust sure is something, though.

[mastermahan]

I'm sorry, I just can't take this plot seriously. There's really a serious debate about whether it was wrong for the Titans to prevent the murder of a million people? This is absurd on so many levels.

1) The beast people were cured. Easily. That's a million unnecessary deaths prevented. The decision to exterminate them was clearly, objectively the wrong decision.
2) You'd think the non-American rest of the world would be vocal about how glad they are the US military didn't murder a bunch of their citizens.
3) It wasn't to prevent the condition from spreading since the spores couldn't reproduce. The outbreak couldn't get worse with time.
4) The Hall of Order. Subtle.

There's more but I'm tired and this isn't worth it.

[cainofdreaming]

When someone starts preaching about people taking "our" power away you should really be asking who "us" is.

[shadur]

Likewise when they start yawping about knowing what "The American People" want.

Somehow I'm not sure he bothered asking anyone what they wanted.

[cainofdreaming]

Oh, I'm sure NuSteel asked NuWaller and/or the corrupt secret agency of the week operating his strings.

[tcampbell1000]

An interesting Raven-Trigon arc? What is this madness, I haven't seen one of those in the comics since 1986 or so.

I swear, these Civil War storylines are getting me staring in the mirror and asking, "Is this how I become Garth Ennis?" Sarge Steel is completely right that a nation, a planet, can't just let free agents take over its military and its people whenever the hell they want because they know what's best. We know the Titans actually will almost always know what's best because the stories are engineered that way, but in real life? Those "free agents" are the people trying to put Trump back in power. Because he's their superhero, you see.

Marvel's Civil War was overall a train wreck in terms of characterization, character likability, believable plotting, and handling of its themes. So far, DC's Civil Unrest is hitting a lot of the same beats, but it's at least keeping its heroes likable by making sure the other side of the debate is represented by J. Jonah Sarge Steel Jameson here, who's taking a little time out from his new hobby of destroying national monuments, and the formerly nuanced Amanda Waller, who's probably found some way to get eviler by the time you finish reading this sentence.

("Okay, okay, new idea. We tell some of the Squad members their time is up and they're free to go, but we don't actually deactivate the bombs in their heads, so when they're out of prison and in a fast-food joint, about to bite into their first hamburgers as free ex-convicts...BA-BA-BOOM KA-BLOOEY!! AH HA HA HA HA! Like Boxer in Animal Farm! Damn, George Orwell was HILARIOUS!")

[nyadnar17]

" Sarge Steel is completely right that a nation, a planet, can't just let free agents take over its military and its people whenever the hell they want because they know what's best. We know the Titans actually will almost always know what's best because the stories are engineered that way, but in real life? Those "free agents" are the people trying to put Trump back in power. Because he's their superhero, you see."

Its just so hard for me to care. Sarge Steel and Amada Waller are literal slavers and war criminals who will never be held accountable. Steel is also a moron who thinks the solution is to kill/alienate/remove the person who demostrated Steel's utter inability to defend the world against Alien AI threats rather than solve the actual problem.

Like Steel flat out says that Cyborg can do what he did because of alien technology. Is Steel honestly so fucking stupid he thinks that technology is one of a kind? ANY SPACE AI CAN DO THAT.

....marvel government types are asshole but at least they are actually competent and if you expose their bs to the world they sufferer consequences.

[tcampbell1000]

I feel like we have to be leading up to some kind of comeuppance for Steel and Waller, but it could be a long time getting there.

And to be clear, I agree their actions are moronic in terms of national/global security. But it's a sadly familiar kind of lunacy in American politics right now, a strategy of breaking stuff so that you can say "Oh, look, it's broken" and use that as an excuse to seize power.

It's why I get impatient with stories like this. Superheroes obeying no one but their consciences is great escapism but horrible sociology, and there's a reasonable argument to be made against it. But DC and Marvel don't want to risk the long-term appeal of their brands, so anyone trying to rein in superheroes for any reason has to be a fascist lunatic. Or at least act like one for the story's duration and get some kind of redemption arc later (see: Iron Man).

[thanekos]

The thing about the " order " side of " regulate the super-people " stories is that their position tends to " there should be laws to bind this specific category of person, there should be police agencies to regulate this specific category of person " - statements whose real-world equivalents are not pretty.

[cainofdreaming]

And the regulators in comics are never the Mounties but Weapon X.

[tcampbell1000]

I always have limited patience with the super-people-as-minorities analogy, because it confuses power with powerlessness. This isn't some conspiracy nut's theory that the Mexicans/Blacks/Jews/Luxembourgians are secretly controlling the government. These are genuine world-breaking super-powers held by individuals. There is no direct analogy for that in human history, but the closest match to it isn't an oppressed minority, it's the 1%. As an audience member, I know Beast Boy and Cyborg are nice people who answer to their own stern consciences. But if I were a citizen of the DC Universe, I'd be about as worried about this as I would be about an Elon Musk who had access to nukes.

(I sometimes have problems with the analogy even when the X-Men do it, but at least that property has a long history of pursuing the metaphor and evening the playing field with genocidal villains like the Sentinels and Orchis. DC superhero properties...haven't really gone that route.)

[zylly]

I don't think you're wrong that, from a purely objective point, things like Cyborg being able to casually take over a global military arsenal would probably be objectively terrifying.

And a lot of the plot threads since The Last Big Crisis Part 87 with Waller and Steel and the like have focused a bit of "the universe getting rebooted on a whim and the heroes of Earth participating in cosmic altering stuff without consulting anyone would be existentially terrifying."

They aren't -wrong- about it, but applying that level of Earth-logic to comic books just... rings false here.

Like, "Yes, I took over the world's drones, but they were going to kill you all rather than wait five minutes for a cure" should be the next Titans' press conference in response.

I'd expect this level of distrust over at Marvel.

Over at DC though, which has generally had smarter citizenry when they weren't being brainwashed by Glorious Godfrey, it feels especially false and manufactured.

[blues32]

This again? Evil Raven wants to turn her friends into her minions instead of killing them? What is this, the fourth time? Never mind that the Titans AREN'T the most powerful. Surely Superman would be a superior minion. Same old nonsense...

[deh_tommy]

There are at least four certainties to Titans comics: Oh my gosh I can’t believe they killed Beast Boy for real this time, Raven turns heel again oh noes, and Titans Tower and/or Starfire’s new home planet blows up.

Is Raven acting on who would genuinely be good minions or does she choose the Titans because she loves them and enslaving them is a twisted form of her appreciation?

[blues32]

Yeah, I would have believed the latter too, except she tried to kill Beast Boy. Up until that, I always thought Raven's affection was so strong that even her evil self couldn't resist.

[zylly]

Just once, I'd like to see a "hero fights evil double off screen" fight turn out that the hero actually did win.

[cainofdreaming]

Maybe the plot twist is that good Raven did win, and this whole thing is just a smokescreen to keep Trigon in his corner? Or is that too hopeful?

[blues32]

Sounds like it would happen in a parody, but nobody would believe them.