Teen Titans #2

Underground and Overwhelmed!

Story by Scott Lobdell
Pencils by Brett Booth
Inks by Norm Rapmund
Colors by Andrew Dalhouse
Cover by Booth, Rapmund and Dalhouse
Letters by Carlos M. Manual
Assistant Editor Katie Kubert
Editor Bobbie Chase

Our cover features one of our new Titans (at least new for us), Skitter. Of course, we know she's not evil since we saw her proudly posing with the team on the cover of last issue, completely negating any sense of drama this cover might have had. However, this is indicative of the main story of Red Robin (yes, he still has that horrible name) building up the Teen Titans one hero at a time. Last issue, he recruited Wonder Girl (more or less), and this issue, the two of them have a confrontation with Skitter. But Kid Flash wasn't involved in any of that, so we won't go into much detail here.

Our story once again opens on Kid Flash, and this time, we're told his name is Bart Allen. He's currently locked in a cell with an old-fashioned ball-and-chain attached to his ankle, with nothing but a cot to sit on and a piece of chalk to entertain himself with dozens of doodles of lightning bolts on the walls. Kid Flash appears to have recovered from his injuries, although he's still dressed in his homemade outfit, which has been reduced to shreds (even one of his shoes is gone). He estimates an hour has passed since he was knocked out by the backdraft he accidentally caused, and he has no idea who captured him or why.

Kid Flash has become rather contemplative in his cell, wondering whether he should have become a villain instead, named Kill Flash. Or perhaps he should have sought an apprenticeship with the Flash, but he feels sidekicks have already gone out of style and that people would have called him Not Flash or Mini Flash. (Ironically, he's still has no problems with calling himself Kid Flash.) Distracting him from his thoughts is his next-door cellmate, Danny. Kid Flash boasted to Danny of an escape plan he's currently "working out the kinks" on, but it's all a lie. He doesn't even have half a plan and really doesn't like being a superhero right now.

We don't see Kid Flash again until the end of the issue, when two armed guards come to his cell, presumably to move the metahuman teen to another cell, or even a lab for testing. Regardless, as soon as they deactivate the door's force field, Kid Flash knocks the two guards out with his ball-and-chain and grabs their keys to free himself.

Kid Flash checks on the cell next to him to rescue Danny, but is shocked to find it empty. So he starts running down the hallway, which is filled with an alarming amount of cells. One of the cells, labeled "Solstice," has a bright light emanating from it, which Kid Flash can't turn away from. He peeks inside and sees a young woman with blue light pouring from her eyes and mouth, while dark shadows surround her. When she sees Kid Flash, she begs him to help her.




So what have we learned? This Kid Flash apparently lacks the ability to vibrate through objects, making him significantly weaker than the original Bart Allen. We learned that he calls himself Bart Allen, but I will refuse to call him that, since he's not the real Bart. We learned that Lobdell isn't quite sure whether the Teen Titans have existed before this group, or even the concept of sidekicks. And we learned that Booth believes Tim Drake has the face of a 12-year-old boy on the body of a 300-pound weightlifter. But so far, the story is ... fine, I guess. There's nothing too terribly offensive going on with this new Bart — Dalhouse is even making sure to give him brown hair, so that's a plus.

Next time, we'll have our Year in Review for the rather momentous year of 2011.