Teen Titans #78

Tortured Souls

Writer: J.T. Krul
Pencils: Joe Bennett
Inks: Jack Jadson & Ruy Jose
Colors: Rod Reis & Peter Pantazis
Letters: Sal Cipriano
Cover by Bennett, Jadson & Reis
Asst. Editor: Rex Ogle
Editor: Brian Cunningham
With special thanks to Geoff Johns

Our cover shows Ravager and her dad, Deathstroke, joining forces to take down a mostly unseen army of Black Lantern zombies. I've always felt it was weird that Rose Wilson supposedly hates her dad so much, yet continues to dress exactly like him. Anyway, this is a fine cover, but it does reveal something I can't stand about Bennett's work. He insists on giving Ravager an extremely pointy nose on her mask. It's even worse inside this issue, and it's very distracting.

Our story features a lot of fighting and a lot of complicated Wilson family drama. For our purposes, all that matters is that Jericho and Ravager have joined Deathstroke in fighting off the Black Lantern versions of their deceased friends and family. But after fighting these regenerating zombies for so long, Jericho finally decides he needs to try something new. He jumps into the body of his zombie mom, which gives him a glimpse of what the other Black Lanterns are doing at this moment — notably, Dove is fighting the zombie Hawk, the zombie Terra is tormenting Beast Boy, and Wonder Girl and Kid Flash are trying to help the recently bitten Donna Troy. In other words, everything that happened in the Blackest Night: Titans miniseries.

Joey manages to take control of his zombie mom and fight off the other zombies long enough for Rose and Slade to exit Slade's house. Once they're clear, Joey hits the self-destruct button, destroying the entire house. Of course, this still doesn't kill the zombies. They are drawn to Joey's willpower and attempt to remove his heart — even though he's in his zombie mom's body. Joey jumps out of that body at the last second, and notices that the other Black Lanterns actually destroyed his zombie mom, permanently severing her connection to the Black Lantern ring. So Joey begins hopping back and forth between the rest of the zombies, tricking them into destroying each other.




This was an OK issue. Lots of family drama I don't care about. Lots of gun shooting and sword slashing and wondering "Why isn't this working?" And I guess Jericho's solution almost makes sense, based on the Black Lantern logic we've seen so far. Powerful attacks of light and the emotion of peace can destroy them. But I guess having another Black Lantern pull out a Black Lantern's heart works. I don't know, I don't care that much. Let's check out the new ads:

Join millions of players online in a free virtual world! FreeRealms.

Batman and Robin by Grant Morrison and Cameron Stewart.

A new era begins. Outsiders by Dan DiDio and Philip Tan.

Green Lantern: Secret Origin by Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis.

The DC Nation page is just the cover of Blackest Night #6.

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers for Wii.

Next time, we'll begin another miniseries, Blackest Night: The Flash.