Teen Titans #9

The Culling Part 4: If this be Victory -- !

Scott Lobdell Plot
Tom DeFalco Script
Ig Guara Penciller
JP Mayer Inker
Andrew Dalhouse Colorist
Dezi Sienty Letterer
Brett Booth, Norm Rapmund & Andrew Dalhouse Cover
Katie Kubert Assistant Editor
Bobbie Chase Editor

Our cover shows Harvest standing triumphantly over the Teen Titans and Legion. But he has creepily singled out Wonder Girl, holding her by the throat, while she also tries to choke him. This story would have been pretty interesting had Wonder Girl somehow emerged as the victor of this Hunger Games-style contest, but that's not what happened.

The digital copy of this comic also includes two versions of the black-and-white cover — one in the more traditional vertical way (see above) and one in the obnoxious horizontal way they've been doing lately. I don't see the point of including both of those images here. With this non-colored variant, I'm actually able to tell the action takes place on a burning wheat field. And I'm reminded that the Crucible transitioned from a burning inferno to a snowy wasteland only to promptly turn back again.

Our story picks right up where we left off, with Harvest gloating after Wildfire's failed attack. Harvest claims he takes no joy in any death that occurs in the Crucible, but luckily, we learn Wildfire is not dead, merely exhausted. Red Robin begins arguing with Harvest about his motivations, and when Kid Flash takes over that conversation, Tim covertly works on a secret plan with the Legion. They agree to have the Teen Titans distract Harvest long enough to let the Legion escape back into the N.O.W.H.E.R.E. facility and destroy its central power core.

So the Titans begin their attack, with Kid Flash making sure to safely return Wildfire to Timber Wolf. Kid Flash asks Timber Wolf if they're good now, but Timber Wolf seems to have completely forgotten that he wanted to kill Kid Flash less than an hour ago for crimes he had committed in the future. Kid Flash is perplexed by this, but decides to not press the issue.

Harvest claims he saw through this plan, as Kid Flash saves Red Robin from a blast of the energy scythe. Harvest continues to drop vague hints that he knows about Wonder Girl's past, and easily deflects a combined attack from her and Superboy. As soon as Bunker rejoins his teammates, Kid Flash starts running him around Harvest, enabling Bunker to fire his bricks at the villain from all directions. But, just like every other attack so far, it doesn't get through Harvest's forcefield.

Eventually, the entire place begins to shake, prompting Harvest to announce that the Legion has destroyed his base right on cue. He starts to fly away, claiming that his Ravagers are currently enabling all the teenagers to escape and spread chaos throughout the world, which should drive up the public's demand for an organization like N.O.W.H.E.R.E. Superboy is shocked to see Harvest has conned them, but Red Robin refuses to believe this was actually Harvest's master plan.

Red Robin chases after Harvest, who claims that he is also a human caught up in the metahuman world, but before he can elaborate, Wonder Girl pulls Red Robin away. She, Solstice and Kid Flash convince Tim to let Harvest leave and focus on escaping before the Crucible collapses on top of them. Red Robin reluctantly agrees, but admits he has no plan. Suddenly, Superboy creates a protective cocoon of rock around Bunker, Solstice, Red Robin and Kid Flash. And with Wonder Girl's help, he flies the Teen Titans away from the impending blast above them. Rather than follow Harvest's path like a sane person would do, Superboy chooses to burrow down.

After what seems like an eternity passes, our heroes are spotted lying on a beach. Kid Flash is first to wake up, and promptly finds a feathery dinosaur snarling in his face.




Well, that was anticlimactic. This series has only had two proper battles so far, and both of them have been frustratingly lopsided. All the Titans could do against Superboy was put a few rips and tears in his costume. And even with the invincible Superboy — and the Legion and soon-to-be Ravagers — they couldn't even ruffle a single feather of Harvest's. Seriously, what's up with these unfathomably invincible antagonists?

This series is also good at adding multiple layers of frustration. After that four-part crossover, plus all the Titans issues before it, we still don't know anything about Harvest. And that's because when he's not speaking in riddles and half-completed sentences, the summation of his words and actions make zero sense. If he was really trying to save "quintillions" of lives, then you'd think he wouldn't have been kidnapping, torturing and killing dozens of teenagers. And if his ultimate goal was to drive public opinion against metahuman teenagers, then why did he need to bother doing anything at all? The very first thing we saw in this series was how much the public already hates meta teens, even when they're trying to help put out a fire. So why did Harvest allow the Legion to destroy his insanely enormous and powerful secret facility in the Arctic (or Antarctic, depending on the day)?

I think I agree with Red Robin — every time Harvest claims a victory, he's really just trying to mess with our heroes' heads by making his defeats sound good. But if that's the case, then this is still an incredibly frustrating read. Why can't we get any concrete answers on anything? Superboy's lucky to have his own series, and Red Robin has the Batman books to fall back on. But Kid Flash, Wonder Girl, Solstice, Bunker, Skitter and Danny the Street don't have that luxury. And this series has told us next to nothing about all those characters, opting to only drop annoying hints that don't go anywhere.

So yeah, the Culling sucked. Bad story, bad writing, bad art. Waste of a crossover.

But next time, we get to begin something really fun — the first appearance of Bart Allen on the Young Justice animated series!