Teen Titans #52 Review

TEEN TITANS #52
Written by Sean McKeever
Art by Alé Garza & Marlo Alquiza

Aside from a few minor speed bumps, this was another solid outing from McKeever in this month's Teen Titans. However, much like Countdown, there was a serious dip in the quality of the art this month. While the art is no where near as bad as Countdown, it's still a noticable drop from last month's issue.

The striking visual of Robin with a gun to his own head from last issue was quickly cast aside as Prometheus jumped back into the fight. The Robin / Bat-Tim scenes are the best of the present / future dynamics. I really liked the ending of their scene when Tim-Batman hands Robin the gun after saving him and walks away with the smile, confident Robin will kill Prometheus and embrace his future dickery self.

The other scenes played out in fairly predictable fashions, with each future self failing to persuade their younger self to do what needs to be done. It's nice to note, that while the future selves act like asses, they all still help their younger selves with the Starros and various villains. Even Conner saved Supergirl, who he has no vested interest in like the other heroes, since it isn't his past self. Bat-Tim even goes on to help the rescue workers after saving Robin. So, they are still acting like heroes despite their attempts to persuade their younger selves. As of right now though, I'm still curious as to what they are trying to accomplish here. All they've done is manage to push their younger selves further away from becoming who they want them to be. Maybe I'm missing something though and this is all some part of the plan by Tim-Batman.

The Blue Beetle fight with Bart was pretty good. The Beetle powers are fairly vague in that he can generate just about anything he needs for a particular situation using the scarab. So, while his 'energy bubble' was in tune with the way his powers work, it still came off a bit contrived and out of no where to end the fight. He then goes on to save the JLA.

Speaking of the Justice League, what was up with their just leaving after Blue Beetle saved them? They're confident the Titans can handle their future selves that single handedly took down the more powerful and experienced JLA? Am I missing something here or did McKeever just conviently write them out of this crossover? Hopefully this plothole gets picked up next issue.

I also missed Rose this issue. She had a few scenes, but came off mostly as a background character while Kid Devil debated and fought with his future self. She's one of my favourite characters and I enjoy her dialogue and snide remarks. She typically steals most scenes she's in in my opinion, so it was a bit of a disappointment to have her not play much role this issue.

Verdict - Check It. While not as good as the Must Read first part, this follow up is still good and it's always fun seeing future evil versions of heroes. While I feel the entire story will end up being great, this issue on its own came off a bit short of the bar set by the first part, so only gets a Check It rating.

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