Teen Titans #23 - "Hello, I Must Be Going"

[perletwo]

The new issue of Teen Titans is out today, and it's a kind of breather issue between Big Epic Battle Sequences - the one we've just finished with Trigon & Co., and the upcoming Forever Evil sub-issues (numbered #23.1 and #23.2) featuring Trigon and Deathstroke.

You'll recall that last issue ended a little something like this:



(preview image from issue #22)


And that's exactly where we pick up, as was shown in the DC.com preview pages. Cassie jumps in first to snag Bart with the lasso, but finds herself being tugged toward the portal. Bunker brickhand anchors her to the doorjamb, but the frame starts to buckle under the pressure. Enter Beast Boy in octopus form to add to the Titan chain, with Solstice right behind. Red Robin orders Superboy not to join the chain, but instead to focus his TK power on the portal itself. He's able to break whatever force is holding the portal open; Bart is safe and very grateful.

Elsewhere, and elsewhen....



Interesting.

Raven tells the crew she can sense the portal came from another time. Bart tells them he knows he's done something bad but can't remember it; he'd tell them if he knew what it was. The Titans aver that they believe him. "Do we?" purrs Raven; "Asks Li'l Satan Girl," Kon retorts. Tim calls a time-out for the Titans to stand down, relax and process the revelations and changes of the last few days.

Beast Boy and Bunker hang out at the pool, where Bunker says this used to be a fun job. Gar says compared to where he was it's a barrel of laughs. "They say God never gives you anything you can't handle," Miguel muses. "Try saying that after you watch your friends die in front of you," is Gar's reply. "I don't believe in God." But if Miguel didn't believe before, he does once his phone chimes with a text message - He's awake! He's asking for you!

Elsewhere, Cassie and Kon discuss her dalliance with Red Robin. Posting this page because I suspect Cassie is stating an overarching theme of recent arcs here.



Cassie insists she's a big girl, makes her own decisions, and owes nothing to Tim. Scene ends on Cassie kissing Kon.

Tim and Raven are in the war room, where Tim is catching Raven up on all the Titans' secrets, history and enemies. He tells her she'll need to know all this because if anything happens to him, the Titans will no doubt look to her for leadership. (pause while y'all absorb that one.)

"I saw you stand up to your father. Trust me I know firsthand how hard that is to do. He tried to forge you into something you're not. He couldn't break your spirit - couldn't extinguish everything that was good about you," Tim explains when she demurs. "If a demon couldn't do that...then sure as hell nothing human ever will." She takes the compliment gracefully while the art shows her casting a Trigon-shadow on the wall.

Bart is trying to run out his troubles over the water, with Kiran close behind. They make up and are kissing when Miguel hails them to come back aboard.



Fade out on a splash page of Miguel walking away from the boat. So that's "The End of A Titan - but not the one you think!" plugged last issue. (My money was on Kiran, since she's still got a plot thread dangling out there somewhere.)



We have a guest artist in Robson Rocha this issue, whose pencils are serviceable, and inker Wayne Faucher. But I continue to hate the coloring jobs we're getting on this book.

Comments

[salad_barbarian]

This is probably dumb but I'm fully willing to accept Cassie's speech as truth if it means fewer characters have been raped.

[obsidianwolf]

Even if it is true it doesn't change the fact they were raped. Being willing to do something under circumstance A doesn't mean if it happens under B it was consensual. We also only have one participants point of view on things. We have no idea if Tim shares the view that it only makes you do what you really want to or not idea.

It was still an incredibly skeevy storyline that continues in the tradition of majorly skeevy story lines in DC involving rape that will get glossed over and ignored by the writers.

[shadowpsykie]

okay... were they both possessed?

because if they were then it could be seen as two drunk people having sex. they would not have done it, at least not that way, if they weren't both drunk.

However if only one of them was possesed then that's another story.

also... isn't that kinda similar to what Raven did when she first appeared in Wolfram's run? she "Made" other characters fall in love with her in order to form and keep the titans together... (albeit HER motives were purer than this one's)

[obsidianwolf]

I'm not actually sure if both of them were possessed but Tim at least was being manipulated by Trigon.

I don't think the drunk metaphor holds because theyd idnt' choose to get possessed where as most folks who are drinking at a party choose to drink*. It would be more like someone dosing two people behind their back with a drug at a party to manipulate them and then they sleep with each other. Neither one of them is in the wrong but the person who dosed them pretty much raped both of them. Even if the two people were attracted to each other they didn't consent to it.

Raven's initial appearances have some really unfortunately implications and sadly the Titans titles have been responsible for plenty of DC's really skeevy rape moments. Like the time Mirage raped Nightwing and folks treated him like a cheater or the time Raven's brother Lust forced Nightwing and Starefire to have sex to distract them from finding out about him.

*Editing this in real quick cause on reread I get how bad this sounds. Not to say someone who drinks is instantly absolved of any guilt for any wrong doing they do or is responsible for everything bad that happens to them. Just there is some choice involved in choosing to drink in the case of someone drugging you in real world or possession in this context someone else has taken all choice out of your hands.