Teen Titans #15

Beast Boy and Girls Part Three: Changelings

Written by Geoff Johns
Pencilled by Tom Grummett
Inked by Lary Stucker
Colored by Jeromy Cox
Lettered by Comicraft
Associate Editor Tom Palmer Jr.
Editor Eddie Berganza

Our cover by Ed McGuinness shows most of the Teen Titans battling a giant purple Tyrannosaurus rex. The dinosaur looks great, and so do all our heroes — except for their eyes. Once again McGuinness went with over-the-top, cartoony eyes, and it just doesn't seem to fit with the level of detail he puts in his art.

Our story begins at 6:45 p.m. Saturday in Sub Diego, which seems to be an abandoned underwater city, conveniently located near San Francisco. Aquaman and a girl sidekick named Lorena have picked up the distress calls from the child turned into a humpback whale. They decide to help out the child whale, but will otherwise let the Teen Titans deal with this crisis on their own.

In St. Luke's General Hospital, Gar Logan recognizes the numbing effects of the atraxotoxin from a Sydney funnel web spider in the tranquilizer dart Dr. Register shot into his neck. Register explains that he never meant to infect the children or himself. He stole a sample of sakutia from the CDC in hopes to duplicate the effects it had on Gar to create an army of animal men. But Register accidentally infected himself and Beast Boy somehow caught what he was spreading and was cured. He says the disease wasn't supposed to infect adults, and he can't explain what happened to him and Gar. So he's resolved to cut Gar open to solve this mystery.

Lucky for Gar, Cyborg was in the next room, and he came charging in at just the right moment. He asks Register if he wants to be remembered for mass-murdering children, and Register says he does, all in the name of science. He transforms into a large python, wraps himself around Cyborg and pulls him out the window.

We then check in on Wonder Girl in the Armory of Ares. She asks the god of war why he's been hounding her for months, and he gradually tells her that he's spoken with the Oracle and has learned of a great battle fast approaching. He says Cassie will play a critical role in this battle, so he is preparing her for it, particularly by teaching her how to be angry through the lasso (just as Bart suspected). Ares tells Cassie the lasso does more than channel Zeus' lightning, but he doesn't elaborate. After he sends Wonder Girl back to the real world, he gazes at an image of Donna Troy.

Wonder Girl rises to the surface of the San Francisco Bay, and Kid Flash quickly picks her up, saying they were worried after she suddenly disappeared underwater. They all meet up on a dock, near the suddenly content child whale. Apparently Aquaman didn't bother telling the Teen Titans he had calmed the whale down, leaving Raven scratching her head, as she knows her powers failed. Our heroes then hear an explosion coming from the hospital.

The explosion, naturally, was caused by Cyborg's fight with Register. By the time the others arrive, Register has transformed into the T-rex from the cover. Wonder Girl and Starfire use her lasso to topple the dinosaur, and Kid Flash gets the bystanders to safety (taking time to tell them exactly how much a Tyrannosaurus rex weighs, in both pounds and kilograms).

Cyborg orders Raven to help out Gar, while the rest of them will deal with the Zookeeper. So Raven teleports right next to Gar and pulls the poison out of his bloodstream. Gar watches his teammates' efforts to lead the T-rex to the docks, and he considers this all to be his responsibility. He conveniently finds a vial of sakutia and injects himself with it. Dr. Rovin warns him that there's no guarantee Gar's effects will be duplicated this time, but Gar gives a long, boring speech that concludes with him announcing that being "normal" is overrated.

Before too long, a green T-rex joins the fight and pushes the purple one into the water. The Zookeeper quickly turns into a shark, but Beast Boy becomes a dolphin and leaps back onto the dock. Register follows, turning into a sabertooth tiger, which Gar matches with a cougar. Register shouts at him for not only throwing away his humanity and potentially eliminating the cure he sought. Beast Boy says he couldn't turn away from what he is — a green-skinned kid who can turn into animals.

The shape-shifting battle continues, culminating in the Zookeeper turning into a mastodon and Beast Boy countering with an elephant. Beast Boy throws the Zookeeper back in the water, this time next to the humpback whale, which distracts Register long enough for Gar to turn into a Sydney funnel web spider and bite the villain on the cheek. Beast Boy pulls the immobilized Zookeeper back on the dock, and takes a moment to enjoy being a hero again.

We jump ahead to 8:34 a.m. Sunday, where the final transformed child has been turned into a human again and reunited with her parents. Apparently our heroes have spent the whole night inoculating all the children, working on a hunch of Gar's — that Register's blood could be used to cure sakutia, since that is what basically happened to him. Bart reports that despite the parents' anger, all the kids actually had a lot of fun being an animal for a day. Also, the Zookeeper has been locked in Alcatraz and, according to Dr. Rovin, is also immune to sakutia, like Gar. Cyborg tells Beast Boy he can relate to the experience of having and losing the chance to be normal. Raven says being normal is overrated and Bart agrees with her. Gar says, "The kid with big feet is learning," and Vic calls that scary.

We jump ahead again to 5:45 p.m. Monday in Gateway City. Cassie is preparing to drop her lasso in the water, but she just can't bring herself to do it. Raven suddenly appears next to her and apologizes for inadvertently taking away her emotions a couple of days ago. She also asks for fashion advice from Cassie, saying she's now going to enroll in high school.

We then have an even bigger jump to five weeks later in Smallville. Conner is begrudgingly helping out on the farm, even lifting cows over his head when needed. Ma Kent tells him he has a phone call from a friend named Tim. Just as Conner expected, Tim says he's resumed his identity as Robin.

We then get our biggest jump yet, all the way to the 31st century in Metropolis. Brainiac 5 hastily leads Superboy into a time machine, saying they need to avoid "the man with the axe." He warns Superboy not to interface with himself and wishes him luck, sending Superboy away in a lightning-laced explosion.



This wraps up what was a pretty good story with nice art. Unfortunately, this last part failed to answer  the questions I had last issue. Plus, it had a few of the clichéd weaknesses common in such stories. The Zookeeper lacked any kind of nuance — literally being introduced as pure evil and confirming that label with every word he spoke. And since this was Beast Boy's story, he was the only one who was capable of defeating the villain and finding the cure. Truthfully, Cyborg, Starfire, Wonder Girl and Kid Flash should be strong enough to take down a T-rex by themselves. Of course, Bart, as usual, spent all his time rescuing bystanders.

The greatest weakness of this story, though, was the rushed ending. After Beast Boy's abbreviated fight against the Zookeeper, a lot of crucial things happen off page, and we're only told about them through unnatural expositional dialogue. And this had to happen because the final four pages of this issue were devoted to three separate, unrelated epilogues. Maybe the Conner-Tim conversation could have been trimmed to one page, and maybe this issue could have survived without a teaser to the upcoming Legion story. Something needed to be done because this Beast Boy story was sadly robbed of a satisfying ending.

Next time, we'll return to the world of Identity Crisis with The Flash #214.