Teen Titans #19 - "Trigon-ometry"

[perletwo]

No, really, that's what it's called. Approximately 3 pages (2 whole, 2 halves) from the new issue.



You'll recall that when we left the Titans last issue, Red Robin had whisked the Titans off to Belle Reve prison to square off against the Suicide Squad on a rescue mission that turned out not to be a rescue mission at all. None of the other Titans are happy about this, and as we rejoin our merry band Cassie is simultaneously demanding an explanation and, as Bunker points out, trying to crush Tim's trachea. Cooler heads (Bart! Bart is the cooler head here!) prevail, and Tim defends himself thusly:



He storms off to elsewhere on the ship, and the Titans dither over his strange demeanor a minute or two until they notice the sky's gone wonky and Cassie doubles over in pain. Her armor apparently has a connection to Trigon; she goes full Amazon Battle Dress and flies off, the Titans in pursuit.

In Times Square, Trigon and his three-headed horse are wreaking havoc. He notices the meta-kid from the coffee shop massacre and is impressed. Cassie engages Trigon, who makes sneering references to her parentage that Cassie does not understand. The rest of the Titans join the fray and succeed in getting him to drop Cassie. Tim requests Cassie give him an intel report. "...Name's Trigon...Elder God type...Might just need the whole Justice League to back us up here..." she slurs. "Madre de Dios!" "...Could use her help too..."

In Los Angeles, Beast Boy lies unconscious in the rubble from the battle with Deathstroke in Ravagers #12. "And it would seem that the Angel of Death is upon him," the text box exposits.



AAAGGGHHHH THE MASK REALLY IS EATING HER HEAD!!!! *gasp*choke*wheeze*

OK, I'm calmer now. At least she doesn't have 3 sets of eyes or demon horns or something under there as I'd feared.

Back in NY, Trigon is peeved that the best he gets in the way of opposition is children. Bunker, Cassie and Kiran keep up the fight while Tim hangs back, strokes his chin (literally) and muses, "Fascinating." Trigon clearly can turn them into grease spots on the ground with a thought, so why's he drawing it out? Bart: "Great. You stand here and do the math - I'll try to keep our friends from dying!" Trigon retorts, "I think not, time-child," and induces another of Bart's flashbacks, this time to being sentenced for crimes against humanity, which disorients him enough to keep him out of action.

Raven arrives and sets Beast Boy to "STOP these children from laying hands upon my father!" Meanwhile, Kiran offers the meta-boy help, but Trigon has apparently amped up his evil factor somehow. Then a platoon of soldiers arrives and opens fire on all and sundry, injuring Kiran and Beast Boy.



So THAT's who that is. Psimon on Old Earth was a Dr. Simon Jones, leader of the Fearsome Five, and looked more like this. Sorry about misleading you about the nature of his powers; it sure looked like light power to me. But Beast Boy, appalled, stammers out "You KILLED those people?! With your MIND?!" "And you're next - you FREAK!" "Let's see how your powers work after I've GROUND your BONES to DUST!"

Yes, let's. That would be a cool thing to see, wouldn't it? But instead we go directly from that to this:



I'm trying to figure out how Tim knows Raven's name. She never announces herself by name, though she does call Beast Boy by his codename, nor does she interact before this with any of the Titans that we see. But there are a lot of little dialogue oddnesses in this issue like that, a consequence of the breakneck pace maybe?



BTW, is anyone else getting the "Image has been moved or deleted" placeholder on part of the s_d header?

Comments

[akodo_rokku]

Yeah the answer to Superboy calling Raven by name there is "crappy editing".

[perletwo]

Lot of that going around in this ish. Words misspelled, bits of thought balloon text that don't mesh well, etc.

[junipepper]

Lot of that going around DC, generally, I've been noticing.

[shadowpsykie]

okay sorta confused.... Raven has no problem harvesting the souls of these kids for her father.... but she draws the line at murder?

[perletwo]

My theory - and it's entirely possible I've put much more thought into this than, oh, say, Lobdell - is that Raven is working both sides. She has to keep up the appearance of being Trigon's creature to a certain extent, while at the same time stealthily moving chess pieces into place to take Trigon down, at which time he will curse her sudden but inevitable betrayal. But if she's not sufficiently gung-ho and Trigon catches on, it's game over for her.

[shadowpsykie]

could be.

i;m just REALLY distracted by the DO NOT WANT art.... i mean serously.... i;ts all pinched and smudgy....

[perletwo]

IKR? I found the action very hard to follow in the battle scene, which is one of the reasons I didn't post much of it. Barrows and Ferreira did much better than this the last couple of issues, I don't know what happened here.

[mrstatham]

Yeah, Cassie had yet another case of the stretchy torso going on in the first page or so with her, Kid Flash and Tim. *shudders*

[chrisdv]

Uh oh, looks like Timmy needs a time out...

And yes, I'm getting the same thing with the header.

[perletwo]

Or a spanking. But he might enjoy that too much....

[shadowpsykie]

so would i :D

[superfangirl1]

I would bring the paddle and popcorn if need and third. ;)

[strangerdan]

I am a little out of the loop as to why Beast Boy is red but it tricked me into thinking for a second that there's now a New 52 version of Kid Devil.

[nightauditguy]

Maybe the monkey that bit him was red?

[bj_l]

Oh, right Beast Boy is red now.

Is it bad that's the only thing I took away from this? My eyes just sort of glazed over when I tried to go deeper.

[onceaskrull]

Someone at DC must really like red. I suppose it is the most hardcore of all colors.

[junipepper]

1. Yes, getting that problem with the S_D header.

2. Raven's ... head-thing... is among the worst costume changes in DCnU, and I don't say that lightly.

3. Beast-Boy is red. It looks awful. Is there some kind of DCnU policy about this? "Can't figure out how to 'update' a perfectly good existing costume/character appearance? Make stuff red!"

sigh

[blunderbuss]

Jesus christ, is there any particular reason why Tim is being such a little asshole?

[thefiretonight]

He's being possessed/some sort of mind shit is going down with him as hinted at by the couple panels in the last two issues before this with his eyes glowing red.

[zabilac]

Okay, Tim has officially become one of my least liked superheroes in the New 52.

[espanolbot]

Well he was in a good place just before the reboot. Control of his own (adult) superteam, proved himself to be a foe that even Ra's al ghul respected, may or may not have begun dating Cass Cain after several years of dropped hints...

Really I think that he has grounds for an interdimensional law suit against Barry Allen at this point.

[chrisdv]

Really I think that he has grounds for an interdimensional law suit against Barry Allen at this point.

Call my office, I'm building a similar case on behalf of several other clients.

(Yes, I'm a lawyer now. Just go with it)

[icon_uk]

Control of his own (adult) superteam,

You mean the Outsiders? IIRC Morrison was the only one to set up and reference that one within Batman Inc and has hit that whole "Fuzzy area" within DC continutity as to what is relevant to to old DCU and what is relevant to DCnU... (Especially since I'm not sure half those characters exist any more, like the Metamorpho for example)

[mommy]

Barry Allen tops that list, at least for me. I assume all the random red is because of him, too.

[thefiretonight]

Yaaaaaaaawn is how I choose to describe this storyline. I might be one of the few Lobster fans, heh, but damn this book could use a shake up in the creative team department.

[espanolbot]

Considering the way DC is upseting their creative staff, chances are thime time next year this guy will be writing ALL of DC's series'.

[kurenai_tenka]

Why would you even joke about that. :'(

[mrstatham]

Hey, look on the bright side, you'd be spending less money.

[kurenai_tenka]

Hah, well there is that!

[paradoxrealm]

Which means more money to spend on events hon!

[mrstatham]

I don't particularly mind Lobdell either, but the guy needs a better artist on the book, frankly. Barrows isn't bad, but this doesn't feel like the right book for him.

[chrisdv]

Reading that last page, I can't help but feel it would be more effective without Superboy & Raven's conversation, just to give Red Robin's words more weight.

[icon_uk]

I think that would make it worse, since it would make it seem that Tim's reaction to such mass death would be "Oh god, all this death, all this carnage... our PR image is going to be SO screwed!"

[katya]

I gave up and dropped this book yesterday. I love a lot of the characters, and I enjoyed some of the early issues, but... it is clearly sinking into a black pit of increasing terribleness lately. Sad.