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scans_dailyYeah 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?
The issue opens with the Titans tying up loose ends from a previous arc, and then going their separate ways on various weekend getaways, leaving Raven on her own in the city. This is fine with her, she insists, and actually means it; after they all go, she muses that she was raised in solitude and now finds it hard to come by. With her recent conversion to "White Raven" and new ability to feel emotions, she's felt so much of her own and other people's that she needs time and quiet to sort it all out. I should note that young-me reading Raven in the 1980s was also an introvert with a great need for space and quiet - still am, but have learned to balance it better as an adult - and that was an aspect of myself I seldom saw reflected in comics or anywhere else really.
Raven settles down to meditate, but a wave of powerful raw emotion from elsewhere overwhelms her.
Phobia leaves, and drunk with power, takes out a couple of random people on the street as she passes.
Raven makes contact with the police investigating the streetfolk's deaths, and assures them it's Phobia of the Brotherhood of Evil. Captain Mandy Wayne-Herrold, newly arrived in town from Santa Fe, notes that she's used to dealing with a very different set of problems. Sarah Simms and some of her disabled kids happen along, and she and Raven chat amiably for a page or so. Meanwhile, Phobia wakes from a nightmare in which she experiences her own deepest fear. (Incidentally, if you've ever wanted to see Phobia mostly naked, this is the issue for you, as she spends a half-page in the shower.)
Phobia goes after her next target while Raven goes to her favorite dimensional nexus to sift through the collective emotions of "all who live" to find Phobia. She narrows it down, but arrives too late to stop her from killing another man.
(I kind of feel like Swan may have been looking to Tanghal to fill in some kind of more atmospheric background on that middle panel there? Again, I'd love to see Gene Colan do this stuff.)
With the help of her cop contacts, Raven identifies the link between the two targeted kills - both were among four candidates for a U.N. ambassadorship. With the third out of the country and the cops' help, she baits a trap with the fourth...
This was perhaps a wee bit of poor planning on the Brain's part, methinks.
This is what I loved about old-school Raven. It's not enough for her to help the victims of a crime, like Mrs. Lodge; it's not enough to just stop a villain, like zapping Phobia; she wants the hat trick of helping heal the bad guys too. Her empathy drives her to help everyone, without distinction of good and bad; and when you think about it, if your benchmark for evil is Trigon, even the worst human villain must seem very small and manageable.
At this point Raven thinks there's nothing more for her to do there; she teleports to Titans Tower and types an entry into the computer: "Phobia - File Closed."
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?
The issue opens with the Titans tying up loose ends from a previous arc, and then going their separate ways on various weekend getaways, leaving Raven on her own in the city. This is fine with her, she insists, and actually means it; after they all go, she muses that she was raised in solitude and now finds it hard to come by. With her recent conversion to "White Raven" and new ability to feel emotions, she's felt so much of her own and other people's that she needs time and quiet to sort it all out. I should note that young-me reading Raven in the 1980s was also an introvert with a great need for space and quiet - still am, but have learned to balance it better as an adult - and that was an aspect of myself I seldom saw reflected in comics or anywhere else really.
Raven settles down to meditate, but a wave of powerful raw emotion from elsewhere overwhelms her.
Phobia leaves, and drunk with power, takes out a couple of random people on the street as she passes.
Raven makes contact with the police investigating the streetfolk's deaths, and assures them it's Phobia of the Brotherhood of Evil. Captain Mandy Wayne-Herrold, newly arrived in town from Santa Fe, notes that she's used to dealing with a very different set of problems. Sarah Simms and some of her disabled kids happen along, and she and Raven chat amiably for a page or so. Meanwhile, Phobia wakes from a nightmare in which she experiences her own deepest fear. (Incidentally, if you've ever wanted to see Phobia mostly naked, this is the issue for you, as she spends a half-page in the shower.)
Phobia goes after her next target while Raven goes to her favorite dimensional nexus to sift through the collective emotions of "all who live" to find Phobia. She narrows it down, but arrives too late to stop her from killing another man.
(I kind of feel like Swan may have been looking to Tanghal to fill in some kind of more atmospheric background on that middle panel there? Again, I'd love to see Gene Colan do this stuff.)
With the help of her cop contacts, Raven identifies the link between the two targeted kills - both were among four candidates for a U.N. ambassadorship. With the third out of the country and the cops' help, she baits a trap with the fourth...
This was perhaps a wee bit of poor planning on the Brain's part, methinks.
This is what I loved about old-school Raven. It's not enough for her to help the victims of a crime, like Mrs. Lodge; it's not enough to just stop a villain, like zapping Phobia; she wants the hat trick of helping heal the bad guys too. Her empathy drives her to help everyone, without distinction of good and bad; and when you think about it, if your benchmark for evil is Trigon, even the worst human villain must seem very small and manageable.
At this point Raven thinks there's nothing more for her to do there; she teleports to Titans Tower and types an entry into the computer: "Phobia - File Closed."
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Date: 2013-03-19 08:53 pm (UTC)