Titans #5 Review

Creative Team
Writer: Judd Winick
Artist: Julian Lopez
Inkers: Prentis Rollins, Bit, and Rodney Ramos
Colorist: Edgar Delgado

Issue Rating
Story: 4/10
Art: 7/10
Overall: 5/10

Issue Summary
Beast Boy and Raven go on a “date.” Cyborg shows off his new body to Wally, Roy, and Donna. Dick and Starfire are alone at the pool and decide that they only love each other as friends and not lovers. Beast Boy and Raven are attacked by Raven’s three returning brothers. Raven turns into her demonic form and leaves with her brothers through a portal leaving a beat up Beast Boy behind. End of issue.

“ADRIAN!
Sorry I couldn’t resist.”

Review
The one thing I’ll give Winick credit for is that he never disappoints in taking characters, in this case a whole team, that are some of my favorites in comics and turning them into one-dimensional characters and in a story that is hard to become invested in the heroes and villains. The story in Titans #5 is no different with the continuation of the Trigon sons story that wasn’t very good to begin with.

One of the only reasons I actually rated this issue higher than the last issue is because Winick surprised me that he did not use the Dick and Starfire scene to put them back together and end up in bed like Winick usually likes to do. I was actually surprised that Winick could write a scene that did have some interesting development. Even though I did like the Dick and Starfire relationship back during the Wolfman/Perez era on Titans at some point these two characters need to move on from one another. It was nice to see some closure between the two and have them realize that they are just friends and not boyfriend/girlfriend anymore.

This scene was more of an important moment for Starfire as a character than for Dick because ever since her introduction Starfire has always been defined by Dick and has never been given the proper character development a character that has been around as much time as she has in the DC Universe. At least now there may be a chance that we will see Starfire start to develop from just the hot alien chick she has been into a more multi-dimensional character that she was shown to be in 52 when she was able to interact with characters outside of the Titans. Now just hopefully Winick does not mess this chance up and actually gives Starfire’s character some development but I doubt that.

I was also glad to see that Cyborg finally got rebuilt after sitting on the side lines for the past four issues as nothing more than a potato. Though I thought that Winick could have shortened some of the scenes with in order to see what new tech Cyborg has integrated into his parts.

Well that is as close to giving Winick praise for his writing as I could. Now how stupid are the kids at Raven’s school to not even ask about a big green polar bear in the middle of their school. I know that teenagers can act aloof sometimes, since it wasn’t too long ago I was a teenager, but I have to believe that at least one student would recognize that it was Beast Boy transformed since he has been a very public figure with all of the adventures he has had with the Titans and Doom Patrol. It is just an example of Winick’s dumbass logic that really doesn’t work for anyone other than himself.

Also I get that there are a lot of fans out there for Beast Boy and Raven being together but I am just not one of them. It wasn’t until the Teen Titans cartoon that DC started playing around with their relationship but I just think they should have more the brother sister vibe than boyfriend/girlfriend thing they are trying to do. But I guess I may be in the minority in this I guess since there are people that enjoy this couple.

This gets to my next point, Winick is just trying too hard to show how good of friends Dick, Wally, Donna, Roy, Cyborg, Starfire, Raven, and Beast Boy are. The whole dialog between Cyborg, Donna, Wally and Roy just seemed too forced and did not feel like natural dialog between these long time friends/family. And I know from interviews with Didio and Winick that they have said that they want the relationship between these characters to feel like Friends but I seriously hope they are just joking because if Winick tries to use Dick and Starfire or Beast Boy and Raven to act like Ross and Rachel “we were on a break” thing then I will blow my own brain out.

Also I could care less about Trigon’s three sons and Raven reverting into her demonic form. I understand that Trigon is probably the next biggest adversary to the Titans next to Deathstroke but there was absolutely no build towards this plotline. This story could have been much better if Winick and Didio decided to slowly build on Trigon and his sons’ appearance as a sub-plot to the first few arcs. But by using Trigon’s sons as the first villains for Titans just doesn’t give any weight to the story and the villains don’t feel as big of a threat as they should if Winick and Didio actually decided to build up these villains slowly as maybe background characters pulling strings behind the scenes before they made their move. Also having Raven revert back to her demonic form is just a lame try at making Raven the villain again is not very interesting at all.

The only thing that saves this issue and actually puts it in the average range is Julian Lopez’s art. Now I am not too familiar with Lopez’s art but he had some very nice art in this issue. The art was at its best in the Dick and Starfire scene and credit to Lopez and his inkers for giving some actual weight to a Winick scene. The only problem I had with the art is that there were some inconsistencies with some of the up close shots of characters’ faces because I don’t remember Raven looking Asian and Beast Boy looking more like a fifteen or sixteen year old than a nineteen or twenty year old he should be. But overall Lopez and his inkers art help make Winick story much closer to being average instead of horrible to mediocre it would have been.