Teen Titans #82

The Taking of Dakota

Felicia D. Henderson – Writer
José Luís – Penciller
Mariah Benes – Inker
Sal Cipriano – Letterer
Marcelo Maiolo – Colorist
Rachel Gluckstern – Editor
Yildiray Cinar and Júlio Ferreira with Rod Reis – Cover

Our cover shows our entire Teen Titans roster in a classic triumphant hero team pose. The new guys, Superboy and Kid Flash, are front and center, right next to their old Young Justice teammate, Wonder Girl. Just as it should be. Kon's face and arms look a bit off, but Bart and Cassie both look pretty good. And everybody else behind them looks fine, too. I am, however, a bit worried about this crowded cast. Nine people is a lot to balance.

Our story picks right up where we left off last time, with Cyborg, Superboy and Kid Flash facing down Holocaust in his secret hole in Dakota. Cyborg offers Holocaust the chance to surrender, but the villain naturally refuses. Cyborg hits him with an energy blast, and Bart runs circles around Holocaust to get him dizzy, saying the offer was non-negotiable. Kon adds the words "... and binding" as he punches Holocaust in the face. Bart says that Static Shock is one of them now — a Teen Titan, and Kon makes sure to include the rest of Holocaust's prisoners, saying they're also off limits. And for good measure, Cyborg tells Holocaust the good people of Dakota also fall under the Titans' protection.

Holocaust then stomps on the ground, which somehow causes a blast of fire to erupt under Bart. Cyborg immediately extinguishes the flames, but this leaves him open to Holocaust, who jumps on his back and pounds him into the ground. As Bart recovers from the fire, he tells Kon to just give him a couple of minutes and he'll finish the jerk. So Superboy vows to merely do "a little prep work" for Bart, as he intercepts a fireball blast aimed at Kid Flash. Holocaust responds by punching Superboy in the face, and Cyborg hits Holocaust in the back with another energy blast. Holocaust turned to shoot a fireball at Cyborg, but Bart knocked him off his feet, causing the fire to shoot up at Wonder Girl's prison bubble, conveniently freeing her.

As Bart dances around Holocaust, dodging all his attacks, he tells Cyborg that he was initially hesitant to rejoin the Teen Titans, but now this battle has removed all doubt. Bart wants back in — if they want him. Cyborg asks Wonder Girl, the team leader, and she instantly agrees. Superboy asks if he can join, too, but Cassie hesitates, asking, "Personally ... or professionally?" While they were talking, everybody got a hit in on Holocaust, until Cyborg pulls out a pair of fancy-looking gold handcuffs. Bart quickly places these off on Holocaust, covering his entire hands, but Static Shock warns the others that those cuffs won't hold Holocaust long.

Our heroes work on freeing and reviving their teammates, and everyone seems OK, except for Raven, who ominously won't wake up. Everybody begins rounding up Holocaust's men, and Static tries to hack into his computer to find out about the epidemic virus he released on Dakota. During all the excitement, everyone somehow loses track of the main bad guy they're fighting. When Static spots the melted hand cuffs on the ground, he warns everyone to get out now, but he's too late.

Holocaust shoots a large fire blast at his hideout from the outside, causing the entire building to go in a massive explosion of flames. Holocaust immediately calls his accountant to begin the paperwork of writing off his now-destroyed warehouse, but he's suddenly attacked by Superboy. Apparently Kon got out in time, but he stupidly believes that blast killed all his teammates. He hits Holocaust with some heat vision, but that only makes the villain laugh. Kid Flash suddenly arrives and knocks Holocaust down with a flurry of punches. Kon was able to count 72 punches, but Bart says it was 74. And for some insane reason, Bart also believes everyone else died, and he tells Kon they need to find each of their fallen teammates, take their bodies home and give them proper respect. Bart and Kon then share a solemn fist bump.

Holocaust jumps right back up, and Bart lifts him up in the air with a whirlwind. Superboy then punches the airborne Holocaust into a nearby car. We then see that the rest of the Titans actually did survive, thanks to Beast Boy's new ability to transform into mythical creatures. He apparently turned into a large phoenix to absorb all the fire. Everybody takes turns getting in one more hit on Holocaust, and Kid Flash adds the finishing touch with a large whirlwind that created a vacuum strong enough to send Holocaust straight down to the Earth's core.

Cyborg offers praise to Beast Boy and Wonder Girl before checking on Superboy, who's forced to admit that Holocaust was pretty tough. Staring down the bottomless crater that Bart created, Static pessimistically believes Holocaust will still survive a trip to the Earth's core. But Cassie believes he'll have to climb out by hand, which should take him a very long time. Our heroes still aren't sure what, exactly, Holocaust was planning to do in Dakota, but they do have one of his men to question — a very fat man in a Superman T-shirt. So they take him on their T-jet and begin the flight home.

On the plane, Kon sits next to Cassie, who chooses to turn her back to him. He asks if she's purposely not talking to him, which she coldly confirms. Static asks the fat man who manufactured Holocaust's virus. The man says, "his silent partner," before flashing a wide grin and suddenly leaping out of the plane. Everybody immediately ejects from the destroyed aircraft, and those who can't fly (like Bart) beg for help from those who can. The fat man can fly, and he grabs Raven before anyone can react. Beast Boy turns into a dragon and even breathes fire at the fat man, but it's not use. The fat man appears to take Raven away into a large red ribbon in the sky that Cyborg describes as a dimensional rift that everyone should stay away from.




OK. Bart and Kon are officially back, thrown right into the middle of a chaotic and confusing battle. I never got a full grasp on what Holocaust's powers actually are — how is he resistant to psychic attacks? Can he summon fire anywhere? — and I really have no idea how Bart's "vacuum to the Earth's core" works. At the very least, could they have sealed up that giant hole to make it a little harder for Holocaust to come back? And don't even ask me about the fat man and dimensional rift at the end. But, all things considered, this was a decent action issue for Bart and Kon to get back into the swing of things and prove they belong.

The action scenes were easy enough to follow except for the part where Holocaust destroyed his base. First of all, how does anyone turn their back on this guy for even one second? Secondly, what was up with Superboy's and Kid Flash's incomprehensibly insane reactions to that fire? The smoke hadn't even cleared, and these guys are already planning out everybody's funeral. Was it just because these two have already experienced death that now they kind of expect everyone to die? In any case, calm down, guys! Give your team a little credit! Oh, and I also have no idea what's going on between Kon and Cassie. This sudden cold shoulder directly contradicts the emotional adventure they shared during Blackest Night and subsequent funeral scenes of the two standing arm-in-arm. I guess Cassie's just acting like a teenage girl.

I'm still having a hard time getting a read on Felicia D. Henderson. She has a lot of characters to juggle, and I'm jumping right in the middle of a story, so I can't really make a conclusive judgment until we finish it. But in the meantime, I will say her dialogue is quite clunky. She really likes to have people finish each other's sentences, which is not always natural. It's almost as if she has a specific one-liner in mind, but can't find a smooth way to set it up.

Ultimately, though, I am glad that Bart is still alive and active in the DC Universe. He easily could have ended up like Max Mercury or Wally West and his family — completely shoved to the side and never mentioned ever again. But I still wish we had a space somewhere to really explore Bart's head and personal life. He died as a 20-year-old and was brought back as a 16-year-old. It was implied that he remembered his time as an adult, but to what extent? Is he living with the Garricks or Max again? Is he going back to school? Has he attempted to reconnect with any of his old friends from Manchester, Alabama? Or, dare I say, his old girlfriend from his disastrous stint as an adult? These are questions that will never be answered. Geoff Johns won't explore any of these ideas in his Flash monthly series. And Henderson won't have time with all these other Titans to worry about. So, in a strange way, I almost feel like Bart never came after he was killed. This is just a shadow of Bart, running through the motions to provide the most basic impression of what a "Kid Flash" is.

Next time, we'll take a very quick look at Super Friends #27.