Teen Titans #15

Teen Scream

Plot: Scott Lobdell
Dialogue: Fabian Nicieza
Pencils: Brett Booth
Inks: Norm Rapmund
Colors: Andrew Dalhouse
Letters: Tranis Lanham
Cover: Greg Capullo and FCO Plascencia
Asst. Editor: Darren Shan
Editor: Eddie Berganza

Our cover is an extreme closeup of Red Robin's face. It's incredibly boring, but it does grab your attention with its stark simplicity. It's also consistent with the rest of the Death of the Family covers. Consistent, but boring.

If you thought the regular cover was boring, wait until you see the black-and-white variant! I don't know why DC bothered making this one available. I mean, what's the point?

Our story opens on an incredibly bright night in Gotham City, thanks to the many searchlight in the sky and the full moon, which has somehow grown to roughly the size of the planet Mars. Batgirl comes swinging in, striking the sexiest, most gratuitous pose Brett Booth could muster. She is meeting with Wonder Girl, Bunker and Solstice on the top of a toy store because it was the only fun place Kid Flash could find in Gotham.

The first thing Batgirl says to Kid Flash is that she heard about him stealing the Statue of Liberty's plaque (how is that such a big story?). The first thing Kid Flash does is try to give Batgirl a big hug for some reason, but is repelled by these odd "blast pads" Batgirl has in her suit. And to make things even more obnoxious, Red Robin, who is being held captive by the Joker, is narrating this issue, perfectly predicting everything as it happens, including Bart's failed hug attempt.

Anyway, Kid Flash explains that Red Robin had left behind a "bat-phone-thingie" with only one number that wasn't in code, which was Batgirl's. So they sent her a text, pretending to be Red Robin, fearing that Batgirl wouldn't meet with them otherwise. Turns out, Batgirl already knows that Red Robin has been kidnapped by the Joker, and she agrees to work with the Teen Titans to rescue him.

Well, by "work with" I mean helping the Titans come up with a plan before taking off on her own. She asks for a map, so Kid Flash quickly grabs one along with a ball cap and sports foam finger for the Blades (presumably Gotham's hockey team). Batgirl marks eight spots on the map for them to check out, telling Kid Flash and Solstice to form one team and Bunker and Wonder Girl to be another. As Batgirl drives away on her motorcycle, she tells the Titans that luckily there's a good chance Red Robin is still alive, since Joker usually likes to talk a lot before acting.

Kid Flash takes Solstice to the first stop on their list, the Wayon Housing Complex, but only find homeless people inside. Kid Flash didn't notice the rising green smoke as he raced through the building, and the Joker actually reveals to Red Robin that this was part of his plan. With cartoons drawn on a chalkboard, Joker takes Red Robin step-by-step how he planted some of his gas on the ground where Kid Flash would step on it and spread it through the city on his search. And sure enough, Kid Flash inadvertently "jokerized" all the people he ran past, and they're now attacking him and Solstice.

Solstice is afraid of hurting the people, and Kid Flash also worries about vibrating through them, saying his powers feel out of control right now and he might accidentally blow them all up. (This is apparently due to a completely unrelated Birds of Prey plot that goes nowhere as far as this story's concerned.) Wonder Girl and Bunker arrive to help out, and so do Arsenal and Starfire, who are searching for the leader of their group of outlaws, the Red Hood.




I know Nicieza was credited with writing the dialogue for this issue, but I wonder if he also wrote Tim Drake's pretentious narration. He came across as an armchair quarterback, constantly saying, "I knew that was going to happen" after the fact. Also, what's the deal with Kid Flash suddenly being a hugger? Yeah, the original Bart is, and so is the Bart on Young Justice: Invasion. But I think this New 52 guy has only ever hugged Solstice.

Well, with that all out of the way, I do have to say this wasn't a bad issue. Joker brilliantly turned Kid Flash's search into a mechanism to spread his gas through the city. Of course, I have no idea how or why our heroes are immune to the gas. It actually would have been really cool if they were all jokerized. But the story we got was still pretty interesting.

Next time, we'll return to Young Justice: Invasion.