It's Official, We Need Nicieza, Not Lobdell
Give me a minute.... I'm trying to figure out the cover..... Give me about 20 actually... IT'S DIESEL'S HELMET! Ok. It's a nice simplistic idea that falls extremely short with a horribly overcomplicated headpiece and a mediocre use of character positioning and view-angle.
You should be used to this by now, I won't say Brett Booth is a bad artist, I just don't like his style. However, I'm starting to think he might not be to blame for my general dislike of Teen Titans' artwork, because I ADORE the work of Ale Garza, but it really didn't do anything for me in this issue. I think it's probably the colorist, as the colors seemed to have the same awkward grainy look that most issues do, and I think that was dragging down Ig Guara's art when he filled in on this series as well.
At least Lobdell is willing to have everyone point out how dumb a name Diesel is, but it still doesn't excuse using it because there's literally no explanation, humorous or otherwise. That's just his real name. WHY? And then everyone else stats talking about names and Cassie's called 'Wonder Girl' again, which at this point is beginning to get REALLY forced. WHY is she called Wonder Girl? She never called herself that, nobody would assume she has ANY relation to Wonder Woman, she HATES being called it..... How did that name come about, and why does it keep getting used if she keeps refusing it? And don't tell me 'it's because she was Wonder Girl before the New 52.' THAT DOESN'T MEAN YOU GET TO NOT EXPLAIN IT WHEN YOU CHANGE THINGS. If her origin's completely rewritten, you need a REASON for her to have her name being Wonder Girl. Just like that terrible issue of Superboy where Lobdell attempted to force them into a relationship because of their previous incarnations' relationship without bothering to create actual reasons for them to be together.
Overall the dialogue in this issue is a LOT better than usual. Less bland exposition, and more realistic teenage interactions. Of course I have to credit that to Fabian Nicieza's guest work on this issue for the scripting. More proof that he deserves to be on this series more than Lobdell.
Cassie's new origin story is.... okay. There's some interesting bits to it, but overall it's pretty generic. There's a lot of ways it could've been better, but Lobdell decided on the straightest path for the plot, and the only interesting twist comes when we find out what ancient power the site of the armor was built as a shrine to. We don't really see enough of Diesel to really understand his motivations, and it really makes the final scene of the flashback awkward and hard to fully comprehend.
In Conclusion: 3/5
I liked Ale Garza's artwork more than Brett Booth's, but not as much as I had hoped due to the coloring. The facial expressions were nice, and the dynamism was much smoother. And overall the dialogue was much improved over most issues.... but the plot lacked even more than usual. And I'm really starting to have an issue with names in this series. Diesel? And why is Cassie 'Wonder Girl' here?
