Teen Titans #27

Legacy Part One

Guest Writer Gail Simone
Guest Artist Rob Liefeld
Guest Colorist Matt Yackey
Letters Comicraft
Assistant Editor Jeanine Schaefer
Editor Joan Hilty

Our cover is by Rob Liefeld and I do not like it at all. Liefeld is one of my least favorite artists, and this cover is a good example why. Everything seems scrunched and strained and the proportions feel wonky. All the characters look like they're in pain, and I almost feel like I'm in pain by looking at them drawn this way. Normally I'd be upset that Kid Flash didn't make the cover, but in this case, I'm grateful to have Liefeld draw Bart as little as possible.

Our story begins with the Teen Titans heading out for a relaxing day of bowling. But first, they must deal with a group of amateur super villains, who have taken a few hostages on the top of a skyscraper. Midway through the fight, we cut to a strange scene in another dimension, where a man in a purple cloak is given a glowing cube by three large entities he addresses as the Lords of Chaos.

As the fight winds down, Wonder Girl tosses the bad guys' heavy-hitter, a big fat guy named Grouse, off the roof. Cyborg worries that Grouse won't survive such a fall, so Wonder Girl calls in Kid Flash, who catches the villain with a whirlwind, saying he's got it "old-school" and asks if they have any other huge guys for him to juggle. Cassie tells "Speedy-Pants" to stop showing off.

The Teen Titans hand off the wannabe crooks to a Commissioner Farrel, who apparently has a police force armed with inhibitor technology to negate the villains' superpowers. Even so, Cyborg offers to escort the criminals to prison, but the commissioner feels it's best the police take it from here, considering recent alleged metahuman events. As the bad guys are led past the TV cameras, they shout out a Happy Father's Day message. They were all rich, spoiled kids, who only staged this stunt to get their dads' attention. This is particularly painful to Robin, as this is his first Father's Day since his dad was killed, which is why the team is now going bowling.

Our heroes head to the subbasement rec room of Titans Tower, which includes a bowling alley, to try to have a relaxing afternoon while still wearing their full superhero uniforms (except for Beast Boy, who is wearing an obnoxious bowling shirt). Bart is having so much success with an overhand technique that Robin asks if he could miss for once. Bart concedes he could, but he won't. Robin thanks Cyborg for making the holiday enjoyable, and Vic responds with a speech about how they're all basically orphans, running down everybody's parental situation, noting that Kid Flash's mom is stuck in the future.

We then find out what happened to our purple friend with the Lords of Chaos. He's now a large mass of muscle, dressed in a purple version of the Hawk and Dove uniforms, and calls himself Kestrel. He attacks the armored truck transporting the lame villains from earlier, and kills the armed guards. But before he frees the four the villains, he tells them only two will survive. So the two girls kill the two boys and join Kestrel.

In Georgetown, Washington, D.C., Hawk and Dove see the news report of Kestrel's attack on the news, so they call up Cyborg, who's watching the same report. Cyborg says he'll fly out from San Francisco all the way across the country to pick up Hawk and Dove to take them to San Francisco to battle Kestrel. As they fly back to California in the T-jet, Robin and Cyborg reveal they somehow know a whole lot more about Kestrel than Hawk and Dove do, even though he's their villain. He draws his powers from the same source as Hawk and Dove, plus he can switch bodies and use his claws to slice through anything, including dimensions. And Kestrel can also smell Hawk and Dove's powers, which is mainly why Cyborg wanted to pick up Hawk and Dove. But he's worried Titans Tower won't be strong enough to protect them, so he asks Wonder Girl to call the JLA and Outsiders to act as a second line of defense just in case.

But when our heroes return to the tower, they see a big chunk of the building has been blown apart. And waiting for our heroes are Kestrel and his two female teammates. Cyborg vows that Kestrel will never get Hawk and Dove as long as the Titans are alive, and he orders his team to attack. Kid Flash calls dibs on the "Bird Guy."

But even though Kid Flash can run at the speed of light, he never makes it over to Kestrel, who gives a long-winded speech about how he wants to ascend to become a Lord of Chaos himself, and to do that, he needs Raven, not Hawk and Dove. So our issue ends with everybody standing by helplessly as Kestrel grabs and somehow ... absorbs? ... Raven.



I hated this comic. Geoff Johns was likely busy with Infinite Crisis, and Tony S. Daniel drew the Secret Files & Origins issue instead, so that left us with a guest creative team. No offense to Gail Simone, but it didn't seem like she had a full handle on these characters. For example, where's Speedy? Isn't she a full member of the team now? And how come Robin knew everything, literally everything about Kestrel? If he's had previous encounters with being of chaos, then it would have been nice for him to say so. As such, it felt unnatural and awkward. I also can't help but draw comparisons to the Teen Titans/Legion crossover that also involved a villain that can cut through anything, including dimensions, and attacked the tower.

Of course, my biggest complaint with this issue is the art. Liefeld's drawings rarely look good. He struggles with necks and feet. He only has so many facial expressions he keeps recycling. All women are hyper-sexualized. His backgrounds range from bland to nonexistent. And the fight scenes are dull and unremarkable. So many times he just doesn't draw all the people in the fight, so I was often left wondering where Beast Boy or Kid Flash was. That was especially bad at the end, when Kid Flash said he'd go after Kestrel, but then was nowhere to be seen on the last three pages of the comic. When Bart says he'll go after someone, we should see him at least attempting to hit that person in the very next panel. He can run pretty fast, after all.

Next: Impure thoughts.