Several years ago, the newly formed Teen Titans save a couple of teenagers from being burned as sacrifices.
Later, though, it’s ace archer Speedy who’s feeling burned as Robin has a pop at him for having camera drones at the scene.
Cue teen tensions.
Later, the members with mentors let them know how things are going… mostly.
Batman’s problem is that he doesn’t know that Aqualad, Wonder Girl, Speedy and Kid Flash are as well trained as Robin, so fears the Teen Wonder is in danger.
Meanwhile the one member who doesn’t seem to have an adult to learn from, Bumblebee, is spending her downtime with the team’s ‘social media guy’.
Golden Eagle and Bumblebee! It seems we’re not quite in the classic Teen Titans timeline – Karen wasn’t involved with the original team at this point, and Golden Eagle was only ever a Titans West guy. But here they are and I’m fine with that – writer Mark Waid has been giving us a slightly tweaked pre-Crisis DC Universe in Batman/Superman: World’s Finest and it’s been great. I’m very happy to see a second WF-branded book, and this approach means we get a few surprises.
As well as Karen and Charley, there’s the budding romance between Aqualad and Wonder Girl – traditionally we’ve had Speedy and Kid Flash fighting over Donna. As Karen notes, it isn’t so unlikely – the original Wonder Girl had quite the thing for Mer Boy. There’s also some sharp foreshadowing of Speedy’s loneliness at home which will lead him down the path to become a drug addict.
I’m less keen on Robin coming off like a junior Batman, and a dickish (no pun intended) post-Crisis Batman at that. Dick is smart enough to appreciate that his pals’ skills and/or powers mean they’re easily able to fight beside him. He should be standing up to Batman, assuring him they’re smart young super-kids. Maybe the drone tetchiness has to do with secret ID paranoia, but still, the Dick we know is a natural leader, not one to rub colleagues up the wrong way.
Speaking of the secret ID, here are two panels from different parts of the issue.
So Speedy knows Dick was a circus acrobat but not that Dick is Dick? He don’t know Dick? Hopefully things will become clear.
I’m really keen to see what plans Waid has for Charley Parker, who didn’t have much of a career in his original incarnation – a few appearances, then murdered during the Titans Hunt storyline. The earliest Titans stories had the team reply to kids in trouble who wrote to them by letter, so social media is perfect for this update.
And what’s going to be the deal with Bumblebee? Karen was never a sidekick, heck, as a scientist she had to have been post-teen when she hooked up with she joined the Teen Titans following her boyfriend Mal Duncan. Is there anyone from Silver or Bronze Age DC to whom she could be attached? Blue Beetle, maybe?
There’s a villain in here so obscure he dates back to the team’s Brave and Bold tryouts. I wonder who else we’ll see…anyone but the Mad Mod and Mr Twister again would be great!
So yes, I’m enthused by Waid’s story, which combines familiar characterisation with surprises, familiar faces and a last-page mystery villain. As for the art, well , it’s Emanuela Lupacchino, who never puts a foot wrong. She captures the youthful energy of our heroes, their quickly shifting moods, and slips in funny bits of business to boot.
Of course teenage Satanists wear socks with sandals!
The action scenes sing, but the argument between Speedy and Robin is especially nicely staged. And Bumblebee is adorable. The thoughtful colours of Jordie Bellaire add to the overall goodness of the book while letterer Steve Wands keeps to the sharp World’s Finest house style.
The cover by Chris Samnee and colourist Matheus Lopes is fine; I’d rather variant artist Lupacchino had been given the illustration assignment.
What the heck, this remains a five-star debut from the office of Brittany Holzherr and Chris Rosa at DC Comics. Miss it not.
Too Dangerous For a Girl 2 
I absolutely LOVE this book! It’s everything I hoped for in a Titans book. The character moments are great, the art matches the era of continuity, & it features Wonder Girl, Bumblebee, & Golden Eagle who are 3 of my favorites!
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Anyone else you’d love to see? I want Lilith and Mal, they’re historically the first original Titans characters and need to be in there. I’m pretty sure they’ll turn up, mind.
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Golden Eagle(in costume), Joker’s Daughter/Harlequin, Bat-Girl/Flamebird, & Lilith. I’d also like to see Air Wave III & Supergirl guest-star to find out why they were never invited to join the team.
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Good questions, there must be a good in-universe reason as to why Supergirl’s non-titanhood never came up… I doubt it was common knowledge that she was already in a team.
Air-Wave II (or did I miss one… are you counting his mother’s one-time outing?) was barely around pre-New Titans, but I’d not be surprised to hear Bob Rozakis had him on a list!
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Yes, I’m counting Hal’s mother’s quick stint as Air Wave II.
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Fair enough!
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Gnarkk, of course! Who doesn’t love a kooky cave-dude? But also… Harlequin. I wouldn’t say no to Lilith or Mal, but they could be included in the second season of the book.
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Maybe a side adventure with Kole with the two OG Titans she didn’t meet in NTT? BTW, who hasn’t wanted a successful Kole revival? I’ve wanted one ever since finding out Wolfman only created her to shut up detractors who said he wasn’t killing off any of his own characters.
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I’d love to see more of Kole, she was like a superhero chandelier.
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Solicitations say Mal is upcoming… is this OK to say here?
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I have a month’s worth of comics to be read but this jumped to the front. It was indeed awesome and I especially liked that the persona they gave Roy back when made him a complete asshole even though it wasn’t their intent. It took Lobdell to get me to like the character but it was a nice touch to show Ollie’s bad parenting was there all along. Aside from archery, Ollie also taught Roy how to be such an asshole. His history of cheating on Dinah, belittling someone for saving the world instead of a city block, and his general misogyny will send me to my grave loathing Green Arrow. I have hope Waid will make me enjoy Roy as much as Outlaws did.
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Oh and that ad for the Hawkgirl series: Who the hell wanting to be a serious hero would move to Metropolis? That city has more Super-People than cockroaches plus Steel & Co. That’s where you would do if you need a great big safety net or know you can’t hack it solo. Whoever’s writing this will have to study Gardner Fox’s JLA so they can use the best excuses why Superman or one of the three dozen others don’t show up to save the day constantly.
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Roy is such a rich character, you’re right, and I liked the stitching together of his characterisation and history. I loved how here he was spunky, yet also the voice of reason.
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Loved this book! Waid and Lupacchino are a hell of a team. (Loved the footwear references you slipped into the paragraph before the socks-n-sandals reveal!)
Very happy to see Bumblebee included here, and Charlie, too. (Likewise, I see in the main Titans book, Starfire, Raven, Beast Boy and Cyborg might be retconned a little earlier into team history, too. Compressed timelines, sheesh. But however it shakes out, I’m fine with it.)
As for Robin… I think he absolutely has the instincts of being a natural leader. And right now, Batman is tamping down those instincts. He knows he’s got a lot to learn from Batman…but his gut is telling him something different in this case. I see him overcoming that as being a process, and not necessarily a character beat I need at Day 1. In a way, this seems a little like Waid’s Tower of Babel storyline in JLA, in which Batman doesn’t trust the JLA enough, but learns to through a hard lesson. We’re getting the same thing here with Robin… which means, if I have the timeline right, that Batman won’t learn anything from his protege’s (unwilling) mistakes.
Sounds about right for Bruce.
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Very fair point about Robin, Rob. He’s being pulled in several directions.
It would be pretty cool to see the New Titans kids show up!
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I really thought Aqualad was gay.
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It’s been a popular theory. Or am I thinking Element Lad in the Seventies and Eighties!?
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Probably Element Lad who was shy and wore pink and that OBVIOUSLY made him gay to even well-meaning parts of fandom. Tula was Garth’s girlfriend for eighteen years starting in 1967. He also stole Dolphin from his mentor. People might also be conflating Garth with the new gay Aqualad.
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Funnily enough, an upcoming Teen Titans solicitation basically tells us that Garth double dips.
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I think the team knows that *Robin* used to be a circus performer. There’s no reason that they know he was specifically one of the Flying Graysons. That’s how I make that work in my head.
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That’s how I figure it too, Murray. Although “former child circus performer” gives them a lot to work with if they really wanted to find out his real name.
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Luckily only Garth would have had the smarts in that group to think of that.
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If I knew half the story you can jolly well bet I’d be doing the research to find out the rest!
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Donna would respect his privacy though, Wally would be distracted in his research, Garth wouldn’t care about surface world trivialities, and Roy would screw it up is my take.
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