Teen Titans #68

Origins & Omens

Story: Sean McKeever
Pencils: Ed Benes
Inks: Rob Hunter
Color: JD Smith
Letters: Sal Cipriano
Asst. Editor: Rex Ogle
Editor: Brian Cunningham

Our cover by Eddy Barrows shows a closeup of the mysterious Kid Eternity, whom we briefly met during the chaotic buildup to Infinite Crisis. Reflected in his glasses is Red Devil, who actually lost his powers last issue to Brother Blood (yeah, he came back again). It's a fairly decent cover, but it's for the main story that we don't care about. We're only here for the backup story.

The backup story features a former Guardian of the Universe, now known as Scar, reading a gigantic blank book. This book somehow helps her review the past, present and future of the Teen Titans. Scar notes how Wonder Girl was about to go down a dark path until Cyborg reformed the Titans, perfectly balancing the team with four experienced members serving as mentors to the four newcomers, who had been holdovers from Young Justice.

Scar deems that iteration of the Teen Titans to have been the group's apex. Now, the team is anything but. They're reduced to just three members, and one of them, Red Devil, is just an ordinary boy named Eddie. Wonder Girl, Blue Beetle and Eddie meet in the basement of Titans Tower, and Cassie tries to assure the two boys that they can keep the Teen Titans alive. Eddie, however, points out how their leader Robin just quit the team, as well as Ravager and Miss Martian. Not to mention what happened to Superboy and Kid Flash.

Jaime begins to agree with Eddie on the hopelessness of their situation, so Cassie suggests they not worry about recruiting any more members at the moment. Instead, she suggests they begin searching out the Dark Side Club, which has brainwashed many of their potential recruits into killing each other in fighting pits. Eddie worries about how much he'll be able to help without his powers, but Cassie assures him she values his input and says he's still a member of the team.

So Jaime and Eddie agree to keep the team alive, and as they put their hands together in a circle and Eddie says, "Titans together," Bombshell suddenly enters the cave. She mocks them for their cheesy display of affection, but she also says she wants to join the team, claiming she doesn't have anything else to do.

We then close our story with Scar, who notes that the Teen Titans will become great again, but that will only make their inevitable fall that much greater. She views the Titans' future, showing Wonder Girl kissing Blue Beetle, battling Ravager, and possibly becoming pregnant. Scar also sees the corpse of Eddie, the empty Kid Flash uniform and the arrival of Static Shock.




As far as I can tell, most of those visions of the future don't occur. Static Shock does join the team, and Kid Flash will return, although I'm not sure why his uniform was empty in this vision. Anyway, all this issue showed me was how boring and pathetic the Teen Titans are without Tim, Kon and Bart. Those three are kind of essential to any premiere team of teenaged superheroes. Luckily, those three will be back before too long.

Next time, we'll take an important, monumental step in that direction with Legion of 3 Worlds #3.