Titans East (Teen Titans #43-47) and World War III #2

[zechs80]

So you survived Robin OYL and Supergirl #14. Now can you endure the next chapter of Cassandra Cain's villainous career, Titans East?!


Be warned there will be a TON of scans featured in this entry. This story isn't for the timid either!

Once more prepare yourself for more:

So here we are at Titans East, the event DC promised we get true answers as to why Cass went evil! And it's the turning point for Cass's EVIL career.. well with one more surprise road bump (more on that at the end).

There's a lot of Titans East to cover (so much like Raven's hypno-ass, Rose/Jericho scenes, Titans East attack on the Titans, and Cassie's teenage angst over Kon). So I'm only including the Cass portions since it makes things so much easier. That starts when Cyborg and Miss Martian pay latest Titans traitor Bombshell a visit. It doesn't last long though when some unexpected guests drop in:





Thankfully, Sean McKeever did a great deed for the world and retconned this death. So one less death on EVIL Cass's hand. With this the Titans East strike and all the Titans save for Rose and Jericho get caught. Each are put through their own little hell. Which leads us to Tim's:






So there we have it folks! The answer as to why Cassandra is evil! She was hopped up on Slade juice. .... Ew. As to how this all happened. Well during this time period DC promised us more answers and to get those we had to look at 52: World War III for them. The thing is though.. we don't really get a full answer or shown the scene where Slade captures Cass. Just this:






We do get one extra panel of Cass in Slade's cross hairs or something when the Martian Manhunter's mind extends throughout the Earth. My friend could only find this part. However, of course Beechen had to add his own little part to Cass's missing year that kind of negates a little what Harvey was the protector of Gotham making it more she made it safe (with help from Alfred).

So with part 2 Beechen himself returns to write Cass once more. Why? Because his Robin was so successful they gave him the Teen Titans job after Geoff decided to leave. Even more Geoff and Tony Daniels decided to leave midway through this very arc (Daniels to go onto Batman and Geoff.. I think just to focus on his GL stuff). The next time we see Cass and Tim it's like this:



No wait. That's a fan edit.. OR IS IT? No really it is, but it looks exactly what's going on. Plus it always cracks me up. So with the REAL panel:




However before Cass can inject Tim and they can have evil naughty Bat incest, Rose/Jericho vs. Slade busts into the room. Which leads us too:






Cass gets the better of Rose again, but notices Tim is now starting to get loose:





And so ends part 2. When part 3 starts up Daniels has left the penciling duties to another. Plus more and more we get see Beechen's writing bleed through:




So where are Cass and Tim? Why breaking free Titans trapped in their personal little hells. They free Miss Martian and Kid Devil before trying to bust Cassie out next:





Wow Tim, way to be a dick.



Cass is knocked out when the original Titans (with Bart) show up. Most of the Titans East get knocked for a loop leaving Slade the last villain left standing and the final target for all the heroes:







Wow Dick. Way to be a dick. And actually that's Cass's final appearance in the story. Slade decides to get the hell out of dodge and with the dust settled two Titans East members are missing:




So where is Cass? Is her EVIL career done now that she's been cleansed of the Slade juice? Well during part 3, Cass made a surprise appearance elsewhere in Beechen's own Robin. Fans assumed this took place before Titans East. I mean the way Cass acted and the scenes played out. It had to be Titans East right?

*sigh*

That's right, Cass continued to be EVIL even after this storyline. WHY?! Beechen deemed it so. Really he did when he explained it all away in his Batgirl mini. So yes.. when I post tomorrow you get Cass's final EVIL appearance and Beechen explaining the entire situation of Cass's EVIL career.

Comments

[fifthie]

You are a monster.

[fifthie]

like... the Heinrich Himmler of S_D

[ebailey140]

The fan edit of that panel is better. In fact, I consider that the actual dialogue, like with the fan edit where Bruce kicks Steph out of the Robin role because she won't dye her hair black. See? Jason Todd was being completely accurate about the hair color thing.

And nice of Slade to not only announce how he did it, but provide a demonstration in case Tim had any doubts.

[shadowpsykie]

eh, Slade was a little out of character here too... i say only a little because really this IS all something he WOULD do... heh

[shadowpsykie]

oh and one more thing... hehe i love that fan edit... "Stop fondeling my nipples and listen to me!" hehehe

[jlbarnett]

link to this fan edit?

[shanejayell]

Geh. SUCH bad writing....

[shadowpsykie]

i actually liked This Titans run... i mean yeah some of the writing was like... really Adam West? but... oh never mind.... i seem to be in the minority here...

[thehefner]

Thanks for posting the pages of Harvey and Croc from WWIII! May I yoink and post them in my Two-Face fanblog, with credit?

[zechs80]

Sure.

[shadowpsykie]

am i the only one who while i didn't Love Beechen's Batgirl stuff, i didn't hate it either?

[shanejayell]

Beechen gets a bit of slack, IMHO, because a lot of Batgirl going Bad was editorial. But I still think he could have written the story better.

[fifthie]

Yes.

[auggie18]

So, Slade knew Superboy's secret identity? This is why keeping the Kon name would've been useful. I know they probably couldn't use "Superboy" at this point, but by having everyone and their dog know his identity just creates issues. Particularly given his lack of a super suit.


Also, pretty sure Batgirl could take Slade on by herself. I'm willing to accept her wanting to kill him here since she just got off of the crazy juice, but in the later miniseries...

[ebailey140]

Also, pretty sure Batgirl could take Slade on by herself. I'm willing to accept her wanting to kill him here since she just got off of the crazy juice, but in the later miniseries...

You're selling Slade extremely short. He's one of that handful of people who can take down Cass. If you can beat Bruce, you can beat Cass. Slade has enhanced strength, speed, agility, reflexes, and a healing factor. He can use 90% of his brain, and is a tactical genius. He was, after all, created to be able to take on the Wolfman/Perez Titans.

Deadpool was created as a parody/homage to Slade. Eventually, things came full circle, and DC did a parody/homage of the parody/homage.

[jaybee3]

Sad thing is - there WAS a good tale to be told about how the Titans treat (or rather abandon) their own. Risk had a right to angry, the whole "Titans Together" schtick was pretty much ignored even before CryBaby-Prime tore off his arm. And they did pretty much the same with Osiris - disowning him PUBLICLY after he was set up by Waller and then after he was killed they put up a statue to him as if they gave a damn. Even when Osiris came back from the dead - we had the scene of Wonder Girl telling him to "turn himself in" even though by this time presumably they knew he was set-up (or Atom Smasher has remained quiet on his role in that even after re-joining the JSA) and even though he probably has Khandaqi diplomatic immunity.

A story about abandoned Titans banding together and doing something GOOD without their former teammates blessing would have been interesting.

Instead we get this...and as for the Cass stuff - I give up - Beechan was still obsessed with her killing people (something she had previously been horrified by prior to him) and the whole Geoff Johns retcon (as thankful as I am for it) was one of the clumsiest and hand-waving away I've ever seen - and obviously seem to be made up on the fly in light of the backlash against Evil Cass. Johns has done much better.

[shadowpsykie]

that i think is my main issue with Beechen. he had the potential to tell good and interesting stories (with both Cass and the Titans,) but for some reason he decided to go for action instead of substance.

[ebailey140]

Slade is approaching Joker or Lex territory with his obsession with Dick Grayson. First Chemo, then doing this to Cass, then the stuff with Damian...

[blackruzsa]

Wow, they weren't kidding when they said that all Tim could talk about every other conversation was Conner in the Teen Titans at the time he was still dead.

And was that his shirt Cass was holding? D'aw.

Slade, you are a sick bastid. I'm pretty sure Cass' dad was a better father than you.

[q99]

The "And I'm Going to Kill Slade for it!" page made be roll-eye at the time. It's sort of, "Ok, fan pressure means she won't be a villain... but we still wanna keep the same evil persona! Killer Cass! Kill kill!".

And it sucks.

[pepperspray101]

...LIKE A WHALE.

[pepperspray101]

I HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE that panel where Cass is all over Tim.

DEAR MOTHER OF GOD, IF I EVER MEET THE ARTIST/WRITER WHO'S RESPONSIBLE FOR THAT PANEL I WILL SLAP HIM IN THE FACE.

or at least give the dirtiest look I can give.

Seriously. It made my skin crawl. Not only is Cass a killing machine before and after she is on drugs, NO, she's also gotta be in a sexy pose AND ALL OVER TIM.

When there NEVER was any precedent for it! Definitely not on HER END. Hey guys, CASS HAS LET LOOSE NOW, SO WE MUST SHOW THAT HER LIBIDO HAS TOO! AND TIM'S THE ONE SHE WANTS! After all, he was the last living guy her age she had a meaningful conversation with! RIGHT?? SHE'LL WANT TO BE ALL CLOSE TO HIM AND SHIT.

Ugh...

Yeah, wow, god forbid a girl express some respect for Tim and want to be his friend...IT MEANS SHE WANTS TO JUMP HIS BONES. (Dear God, this was a prelude to what's going on now in comics!)

GAH, this reminds me eerily of my old job. Anytime I talked with a guy about anything, they all assumed I had the hots for them. DUDE NO. YOU NEED TO GO OUT MORE. I just wanted to make conversation, IF THAT. I do not secretly have the hots for you just because we happen to talk!

(thank God I left that job...made me paranoid to talk with guys...)

[zechs80]

Well it is Tim. What gal wouldn't be hot for him when he's all, "Get away from me." I mean Rose was practically on third base when she had Tim like that.

[mister_cairo]

re: "go to hell alone" panel -

Can anyone tell me why colourists don't add black lines when they correct a panel?

I mean, I can see why editorial decided that the strategic shadow was insufficient to protect Kid-devil's modesty, but not why the colour guy couldn't outline the shorts he created.

It's the same story with old-devil. The guy notices that his skin shouldn't transition into cloth and so colours it differently, but doesn't do anything else.

Is he not allowed to tread on the sacred work of the inker? Is it some consequence of the production process?

(It has occurred to me that many could be drawing lines them-self and I'd never know, and that the odd ones that stick out are aberrations.)

[silicondream]

I'm pretty sure even Bruce can't just jump on Croc's back and choke him out like that, unless the big guy's been seriously softened up first. I mean, being hard to put down is kind of Croc's thing.

Aside from that, every event depicted in these scans makes absolutely perfect sense.

[espanolbot]

Considering it was No Man's Land and Cass specifically that got me into comics properly after drifting around at the edges with the DCAU stuff for a while... this storyline didn't go down well with me. Obviously.

I put Cass' continued violence (and extremely damn clumsy) behaviour after getting dedrugged down to her still shaking off the effects of the serum personnally.

And I have to say, I have nothing against Beechen specifically as a writer, I really liked his stuff on the Teen Titans tv show, but after the debacle that surrounded Robin: Wanted (including Didio etc. being badgered at convention panels for a good three or so years after this story) they REALLY should have reconsidered giving the mini that has Cass officially coming back into the light to someone else.

Gail Simone for example, is just one of many writers in the DC staff that are actually fans of the character, as opposed to just writing it because they're told to use the character for some reason or another.

I suppose that the good thing is that we've now reached the point that people who started reading comics roughly the same time as me, if not a little time before, are now starting to be the ones actually writing them, for example Scott Snyder etc. so they could have Cass and Co. back in the comics.

I admit that it's kind of selfish of me to think this way, I mean there are probably tones of people who'd prefer the Bat Family to be trimmed down to Bruce, Tim as Robin, Dick as Nightwing, Jason as... Robin 2 or something and Babs as Batgirl, but I have my preferences, thank you.

Though apparently Geoff Johns is meant to be planning some Big Reboot or something event in October at the end of Flashpoint, that will either be a companywide restart of all the titles, or more of a OYL event which it'll be we'll have to see.

[ebailey140]

Not expecting Flashpoint to be a Crisis on Infinite Earths level changing the DCU thing. That was Infinite Crisis. This looks to be more Zero Hour. Johns isn't about to just undo the stuff he's done for the last seven years. The franchises that are in good shape, with solid directions like the Bat and GL ones, won't likely be affected that much. Franchises in actual need of a reboot of some sort, like the Marvels, on the other hand...

What Simone's plans for Cass were... Would have been better than what Beechen did, certainly (which falls into damning with faint praise territory), but still wouldn't have been consistent for Cass. It would have turned her into a completely different character, and wouldn't have been based on anything established about her. The idea of a deeply religious Bat driven by their Christianity isn't a bad one in and of itself, but I think it would work better for Helena or Jean Paul, who already have religion as part of their make up. It would just be having them behave in accordance with the symbols they wear, and would be natural progressions for them. With Cass, it would have been altering her fundamentally just for the sake of doing it.

[schala_kid]

I am soooo late for this but I liked that panel where Cass is holding Superboy's shirt (it's on the page were she snaps out of Slade's serum).

I dunno what the significance of that was but it was a nice touch.

And yeah I was majorly disappointed with the Titan East arc, didn't go fucking anywhere.

[sun_man]

Great arc. Loved when Dick knocked the snot out of Cassandra

[superfangirl1]

Awesome scans! :)