Carefull Robin -- that sounds an awfull lot like teamwork.
It’s universally acknowledged that there is no harder time in a person’s life than that time spent at High
school, being judged by your appearance, friends, likes and dislikes. It is indeed a time of hardship (though all I can remember is lessons, long hair, loud music and constantly losing the ability to speak every time a girl was present) but just imagine what could happen in such an environment if one bullied kid had been given near god-like powers by a twisted mad scientist. Madness, revenge and an emo-esque view that nobody would ever truly understand him and should therefore suffer themselves because that’s what Barney, aka Headcase, has decided to inflict upon after the experiment of Doctor Caligan gave him Telekinesis and Knowledge absorption. So how can the Teen Titans deal with the situation? Let’s find out.
Caligan decides to open the issue declaring his reason for conducting his experiments, while showing us a scene from the twisted scientists childhood and one of his earliest experiments (and victims). We then move to Headcase and the Titans in the school gym as Headcase puts together a black hole machine to put an end to the school which tormented him for years as well as the Titans. The team in the gym attempts to stop him but the newly empowered “Jock” and “Doll Face”, as well as Headcases telekinesis, seem to be plenty enough to keep the Titans at bay. Meanwhile on the other side of the school Damien
and Rose go face to face with the rest of the school (now all converted into Feral Boys/Girls) while building up a *gasp* friendship (though I doubt weather wither one of them would admit it). So will the Titans be able to stop Barney and his Black Hole? Read Teen Titans #91 to find out.
J.T. Krulls writing for this issue, and current story on the whole has been great and really has breathed life back into the series after the last creative teams run. Caligan is a great villain for the story, always present to us the reader but operating in the shadows and unbeknownst to our heroes, preying on kids like Barney who’s own life problems prevent them from seeing Caligans true colours. He’s a villain we want to hate, which only adds more reason for us to cheer on the Titans. The Damien plot, which drew most of us back to the series, has progressed nicely as we see him and Rose getting along and joking with one and other, cementing a fact that there’s a place for any young hero in the Titans. He’s still the smug little, chip on his shouldered son of an Assassin that we’ve all come to love (he’s not running around shouting Holy-something team) and shows that you can make Damien play with a team without changing his charming personality. The artworks in this issue (and story)
is beautiful, and really what did you expect with Nicola Scott. We got two great two-page spreads not to mention a one-page spread of Caligan, his body acting as divide between the two locations in the school where the Titans are (plus she also shows how evil child-Caligan is…. Just look at his shorts and socks. They scream evil). Jason Wrights colouring for the issue is great, utilizing the entire colour palate and using it in the issue, so well done Jason Wright. One niggle, or unnecessary element that I thought really didn’t need to be shown was that the “Jock” and “Doll-face” got name boxes even thought, really, they didn’t have a large role in the story and really seemed less than glorified goons, plus their names didn’t really feel threatening or sinister but that’s just me.
In conclusion I awarded Teen Titans #91 a 4/5. Krulls’ writing and Scotts’ art has pulled the series back up from where the last team left it and have even brought back old Teen Titans fans, as well as new ones, to the series. For the Teen Titan fans I’d say pick it up as its Teen Titans done right once more. New readers I say go back and pick up issues #89 to this one (91) just to get the full story (because there’s no point starting at the end) and also because this current storyline was written to bring new readers into the popular series (not to mention that the next issue, #92, follows on from Red Robin #20, which for new readers would be confusing jumping from this issue to #92). So my final verdict is, Teen Titans #91:-
4/5
