Teen Titans #24 - a guest star with style brings readers a smile

[perletwo]

Mods inform me that the Teen Titans Annual's release this week means #24 is no longer current, and therefore a little more can be posted. There's not *that* much more of interest we haven't already put up, but there is this page and a quarter or so, with a special guest star cameo.



Remember our crew has been bouncing around the timestream thanks to Forever Evil. Raven's bounced back to the 12th century.





That's not Trigon but Cassie zapping in the background there. The next panel is a big ole "krackkt" sound effect of Cassie snapping Etrigan's neck, the quicker to tell Raven of Red Robin's Plaaaaan.

For the heck of it, care to guess what he planned on rhyming with 'demon spawn' there?


He's always so much fun. And while the art in this ish did not rock my socks, yon guest star looks terrific!

Comments

[cainofdreaming]

Will not see dawn? Victim of my brawn? Get off my lawn?

[psylynce]

Here, have a prawn.
You'd like my brother, John, I think you two would get along.
My tongue is forked and my verse two prong...ed

Scratch that last one.

[psylynce]

"Trigon" and "spawn" do in fact rhyme. So he's covered!
Oh and Raven, you've got something on your face.

[perletwo]

IKR? Etrigan, you've made a great start shredding the feather cloak, can you get that thing out of her eyes next?

[beyondthefringe]

I'd like to think his rhyme was going to be:

"Die you shall, demon spawn! Then I'll find out whatever happened to Joseph Michael Linsner's Dawn!"

[junipepper]

"Die you shall, Trigon spawn! For I must away home now and mow the damn lawn!"

"Die you shall, Trigon spawn! (Have you noticed this issue is one giant yawn?)"

[darkknightjrk]

"Die you shall, Trigon spawn! (Have you noticed this issue is one giant yawn?)"

I live under the philosophy that any book which includes rhyming demons and alien Egyptians plotting world domination is the exact opposite of a bore.

[perletwo]

They were saving the worst of the borings for the Annual, I think.

[silicondream]

"I have long wanted to crush you to bone?" That seems anatomically unlikely.

[icon_uk]

Oh good, not just me thought that was a clumsy line

[pteppic]

Dude's riffin' in the middle of a fight, and you're going to burn him over *one* line?

[icon_uk]

Etrigan is a Rhyming Demon, which is a rank demons fight hard to achieve and maintain, especially in battle. In combat terms, if you can't rhyme well then you're not worthy of the title.

In the old DC RPG, there was a section about how difficult Etrigan was to play in character since it involves near constant extemporaneous rhyming, and how if someone does it well, they should be rewarded. So if the player simply can't rhyme properly then they should quietly lose a couple of points when they role for success, if they maintain decent rhyming couplets then they get a few extra points and if, in the approximate words of the manual "They manage off-the cuff poetry of such sublime beauty that it causes women to swoon and men to shed a manly tear" then they get an automatic success.

[wizardru]

The problem with Etrigan in that context is that his rhyming is difficult to do WELL...and Alan Moore's cover of the creature (and to a lesser degree, Matt Wagner's cover) raised the bar in terms of rhyming. Etrigan in Swamp Thing made complicated rhymes that weren't the simple "end every other sentence with a word that sounds the same as the one from the previous sentence". Sometimes you had to read it once or twice to notice the scheme. He also came across as more flowery in his speech.

[icon_uk]

Indeed, Etrigan did have a touch of the Sondheims at times! :)

[bruinsfan]

I once ran a Vertigo game at convention where a player chose Etrigan and spoke exclusively in rhyme throughout the game. He got the role-playing prize of that game by unanimous vote of the other players.

[perletwo]

It's not that horrible a line - given that it's a Lobdell line.