Teen Titans #46

Titans East Part 4

Adam Beechen & Geoff Johns Story
Adam Beechen Script
Al Barrionuevo Pencils
BIT Inks
The Hories Colors
Rob Leigh Letters
Cover by Tony S. Daniel with Moose Baumann
Adam Schlagen Assistant Editor
Eddie Berganza Editor

Our cover shows Match battling Wonder Girl and Robin in an exact replica of the Fortress of Solitude. Of course, we left that room last issue and don't return to it in this issue. Tony S. Daniel also left us a couple of issues ago, but that's another matter. This is a decent cover — the only problem I have with it is the intentional blurring in front of Match's chest. It's as if they couldn't decide whether to give him the Superman shield or reverse it or have it ripped off his shirt, so they just cheated and went with "none of the above."

Our story begins with the reinforcements — Nightwing, Bart and Donna Troy — facing down Deathstroke and talking quite a bit. Bart, however, only seems to care about Inertia, coldly saying that this fight is going to be fun. With all the trash talk out of the way, the fight finally begins with Robin shouting out the cheesy rally cry. (Cassie is also astonished to see how old Bart is, completely forgetting that she saw him at this age a year ago during Infinite Crisis.)

Cyborg takes on Risk, Beast Boy and Duela Dent battle Enigma, Miss Martian fights Sun Girl (while saying she refuses to believe in the future Sun Girl and Inertia told her about) and Raven returns the demon essence from Kid Crusader to Kid Devil. Nightwing, Donna Troy, Jericho, Ravager and Batgirl all try to fight Deathstroke, who easily handles them. Match attacks Wonder Girl and Robin, who are having a hard time because Match reminds them so much of Superboy (even though he looks and acts nothing like him).

Inertia tells Flash he got lucky against him in Las Vegas, and Bart darkly says that Thad will never threaten anyone he loves again. The two speedsters clash in a big explosion, which puts Inertia flat on his back. Before he can get up, Bart breaks both his legs, saying he hopes this will all be over before they heal. Bart then throws Inertia at Match to get him off Wonder Girl, then helps Cassie and Tim take on Conner's clone.

Bart jokes that this wasn't the kind of reunion he wanted. Tim mistakingly calls Bart Kid Flash and starts to give him orders, which makes Bart pretty upset. He demands to be called the Flash and says just because he's here it doesn't mean he wants to be a Titan again. Cassie says she hardly recognizes Bart and laments to Tim that their "old days" are gone forever. They finally manage to damage Match when Wonder Girl reflects a blast of his heat vision off her bracelets and back to Match's chest.

Eventually the only villain left standing is Deathstroke, so everybody charges at him at once. Nightwing has to pull Batgirl back, who says she wants to kill Slade. Deathstroke rams his sword through Cyborg's sonic blast cannon, which he turns on the crowd of heroes, knocking everyone down. Match gets back up and almost blasts Ravager, but Wonder Girl again deflects the heat vision. Jericho then makes contact with Match and takes over his body.

And even though there's a dozen different heroes all around, Slade somehow eludes them all. The wooden tower suddenly collapses for no discernible reason, and once the smoke clears, Deathstroke, Deula, Batgirl and Inertia are all missing. Robin offers to help Bart track Inertia, but Bart refuses, saying he needs to handle Inertia alone. As he runs off across the water, Tim tells Cassie that she's right about the old days being gone forever, and he hopes Bart isn't, as well.

Epilogue

Inertia and Deathstroke are hiding in a dark alley as Flash zooms by. Thad boasts that he created enough fake trails to keep Bart occupied for weeks. Slade thanks him for helping him escape and he promises to make some calls to the Rogues to help with Inertia's grand plan. Thad worries about the Titans, who now have Slade's kids and Sun Girl — Thad's girlfriend, apparently. Slade tells Inertia to forget about Sun Girl and let him worry about the Titans and his kids. After Inertia leaves, Deathstroke indicates that this whole stunt — forming the Titans East, building that wooden tower with the perfectly themed prisons, and killing Bombshell — was merely a "final gift of love" to his children. Slade acknowledges he's a terrible father, so he created this overly elaborate ruse to push Rose and Joey away from him and toward the Titans, who he knows will take them in like the family he couldn't provide for them. Which is tremendously stupid because his kids already hated him and were part of the Titans family before he started this.




I think I see why Geoff Johns abandoned this story. In theory, it sounds awesome. Deathstroke forming a team of all the Titans' villains. Perfect, right? But how do you end that story? You can't let Deathstroke win (obviously) and you can't let him lose because he's just too darn popular. So it just has to fizzle out in a disappointing stalemate. Maybe it didn't have to be that way, but Johns obviously couldn't think of a better ending, and neither could Adam Beechen, who insisted on cramming in as much dialogue as possible on each page. And to fully make this comic as much of a letdown as possible, Al Barrionuevo provided some really clunky, ugly, difficult-to-follow art.

And can we talk for a minute about how much of a jerk Bart was in this issue? Timeline-wise, this story had to take place after Bart's fight against Inertia in Las Vegas but before Robin called him to ask him to return to the Teen Titans. I can see Bart having some pent up aggression against Inertia, and maybe it was just awkward seeing Tim and Cassie again after being apart for so long. But still! Dial it down a little, buddy!

Next time, we'll come one step closer to actually losing Bart in The Flash: The Fastest Man Alive #11.