Teen Titans #86

Miss Martian's Wyld

Felicia D. Henderson Writer
José Luís Penciller
Mariah Benes Inker
Marcelo Maiolo Colorist
Sal Cipriano Letterer
Joe Prado with Rod Reis Cover
Rachel Gluckstern Editor

Our cover brings a hasty end to the stint of Luís drawing his own covers. This image by Prado finally puts Raven front and center — remember, she's the whole focus of this story, right? However, I can't tell if Raven is saving her teammates or causing them to writhe in pain. Of course, it wouldn't be a Teen Titans cover without some errors. Bombshell is still in the belly of a beast at the bottom of the sea and Miss Martian is back in Titans Tower. And, frankly, I don't think any of these characters look that good. They all seem a little off.

Our 75th anniversary cover by Michael Allred honors the original Teen Titans in all their glorious campiness of the 1960s. It's a cute, bright change of pace from this dark and dour journey to rescue Raven from the Wyld.

Our story picks up where we left off, with Miss Martian falling under control of the Wyld in Titans Tower. Although last issue clearly showed that Doctors Rochelle and Vincent Barnes were also possessed, in this issue, they are completely in control of their own faculties. The Wyld, for some reason, demands to have the helmet taken of Megan's head. Megan regains control, saying she always knew the Wyld was inside of her, which is why she didn't join the search for Raven. She then warns the doctors that she can't hold off the Wyld much longer. But instead of running, the doctors pull the helmet off Megan, at which point the Wyld takes control once again.

The Wyld promptly picks up Vincent by the throat, and when Rochelle tries to tranquilize Megan from behind, she drops Vincent and knocks down Rochelle in one smooth motion. Before Rochelle can get back on her feet, the Wyld jabs Vincent in the chest, killing him instantly. The Wyld then turns on Rochelle, who defends herself with a strange, green light that we can't clearly see. The Wyld is shocked by this power and notes that Rochelle isn't human. Rochelle says, "Guess that makes two of us," as Miss Martian collapses to the ground unconscious. Rochelle then drags her husband's corpse away, asking him to forgive her.

When Megan wakes up, she conveniently has no memory of her time under the Wyld's control. Rochelle chooses to lie to Megan, saying their first attempt with the helmet merely knocked her out, so they decided to take a quick break. Rochelle also unconvincingly says that Vincent suddenly had to go back to Cadmus. Luckily for her, Megan is too distracted to pick up on this obvious lie, and demands to put the helmet back on immediately. Rochelle secretly believes her little green energy stunt "blasted the Wyld back to its world for good," so she agrees to put the helmet back on Megan, only half-heartedly reminding her of the dangers involved.

This time, the helmet works perfectly, and Miss Martian is quickly able to locate Aquagirl and Bombshell inside the massive sea serpent. Sending out her astral-self, Megan uses her psychic powers to tell the monster to vomit out Aquagirl and Bombshell then go away. Our heroes then reopen the keyhole to enable Miss Martian's astral-self to journey to the Wyld's world. As she takes off, Bombshell reports that her armor has begun to crack under the strain of being under too much pressure for too long, which means her radioactive energies have likely poisoned Aquagirl, too. So Rochelle arranges for Cadmus to rescue them and get them the necessary medical treatment.

Miss Martian's astral-self soon arrives in the Wyld's world, where she promptly engages in a vague psychic battle with the Wyld. Megan calls out to Wonder Girl and tells her about the eclipse. Cassie smashes out of some rocks and rescues Superboy first and they share a romantic kiss. They then rescue Kid Flash, and Conner jokes about how Bart's always cranky after being knocked out. Beast Boy is fine, but Virgil is also still unconscious. So Megan wakes up Static and Bart, and Cassie tells them they have a time limit on rescuing Raven.

We're then given a rather unclear image of an impending eclipse. Is this the moon moving in front of the sun on Earth? Or on the Wyld's world? Nobody says.

Static Shock and Kid Flash hop onto the back of the pteranodon Beast Boy, and they all begin flying toward Raven. Beast Boy begs Wonder Girl and Superboy to fly on ahead, but Cassie insists on staying all together. Suddenly, everyone is ensnared in giant spider webs, and Gar can't help but say they should have listened to him. And once again, the elements of this world have a dampening effect on our heroes' powers — Bart can't vibrate free of the webs, and Static can't even generate a spark.

We then finally check in with Raven, who is buried up to her neck in rocks. Megan wakes her up, just in time for Raven to see essentially a male version of herself walking toward her. Naturally, this is the Wyld, who ominously greets Raven with a "Hi, Mom."




I feel like Felicia D. Henderson wrote herself into a corner last issue and she only got out of that corner this issue by merely ignoring the problems she introduced. The doctors and Miss Martian are possessed?! Never mind, only Miss Martian is possessed. The tower has lost all contact with the outside world?! Never mind, we can call up Cadmus and the Titans on the radio just fine now. And how do we free Miss Martian from the Wyld's control? By doing something incredibly vague and magical just off panel that will never be explained. I'm serious. There's a 99% chance we will never find out what was going on with Dr. Rochelle Barnes.

The bit about the eclipse is too underdeveloped to add any real tension to this story. But it does serve the purpose of explaining why the Wyld hasn't killed Raven yet. Sort of. I mean, I don't know exactly how the eclipse is supposed to make the Wyld any stronger, but there you go. At this point, everything has become incredibly tedious, and I'm more than ready for it to end.

Next: Family issues!