Teen Titans #4

Danger Squared!

Story by Scott Lobdell
Pencils by Brett Booth
Inks by Norm Rapmund
Colors by Andrew Dalhouse
Letters by Travis Lanham
Cover by Booth, Rapmund & Dalhouse
Assistant Editor Katie Kubert
Editor Bobbie Chase

Our cover shows Wonder Girl battling Superboy in Times Square on New Year's Eve. And it's actually a pretty cool cover with the massive TV screen right behind them — I need to give Booth some credit every once in a while. True, Wonder Girl's cleavage-exposing costume is ridiculous, as is Superboy's Tron-inspired look (which is completely different from what he was wearing on the cover of issue #1). But this is still kind of fun. And, for the first time in this series, accurate. These characters really do fight just like this in the comic.

For the first time, our story does not open on Kid Flash, but Wonder Girl being chased by Superboy in Times Square. Meanwhile, Bunker and Skitter are hanging out at Red Robin's second Lextower penthouse (Tim destroyed his first penthouse to escape N.O.W.H.E.R.E. agents). When the doorbell rings, Bunker answers the door, believing it to be the takeout he ordered. But to his surprise, the door opened to a snowy, cobblestone street, instead of the 30th-floor hallway. Even more surprising is who's on that street — Kid Flash and Solstice.

Kid Flash is so cold and tired and hungry, he can barely stand, and is almost rambling incoherently. Luckily, Solstice seems to have regained some of her energy, and doesn't even need to worry about the firehose from last issue to hold up Kid Flash. Bunker and Skitter are naturally perplexed by this, but Red Robin immediately notices Kid Flash is suffering from hypothermia and lets them in. He tells Bunker to gather all the blankets from the spare rooms, but Kid Flash thought Tim was talking to him, so he grabs the blankets before finally collapsing to exhaustion. Tim asks Kiran if he's always like this, but she says she wanted to ask Tim the same question.

Before too long, Kid Flash is back on his feet, wearing some of Tim's clothes and eating donuts. He boasts of his super fast healing but tells Tim he doesn't know where his powers come from. Kid Flash claims to have no memories from beyond six months ago, when he showed up on the steps of Mother Bernice's Home for Wayward Boys. Tim references Kid Flash's "debacle" in Westchester — the fire that led to him being captured — then asks Kid Flash if he wants to help him take down N.O.W.H.E.R.E., to which Kid Flash heartily agrees.

With that business out of the way, Tim then begins berating Kid Flash for wearing his sweatshirt. Kid Flash points out how his costume was literally torn to shreds, so Tim says he should have asked first. The two boys keep fighting until the sweatshirt is torn and Skitter finally interrupts them with the Superboy-Wonder Girl fight playing out on live TV. Red Robin knows they need to intervene, but also acknowledges that once they do, they'll completely be public and forever change the nature of their war against N.O.W.H.E.R.E. Solstice, Bunker and Kid Flash agree to join Red Robin, but Skitter chooses to remain behind. Soon, the Teen Titans make their first public appearance, with Kid Flash wearing one of Tim's old Robin uniforms, minus the cape and with a lightning bolt drawn over the R.

So here we are. The team has come together at last, amid another slightly intriguing, but often contradictory story. First up is the nature of time in these past four issues. Kid Flash's story — from the fire to his escape — feels like it's only lasted a couple of hours. Red Robin's story, however, feels like it's lasted several days, if not weeks. He's been traveling all across the country, hunting down these meta teens one-by-one. And he didn't start his quest until after he saw the report of Kid Flash's "debacle." So the timing doesn't match up at all, unless you reason to yourself that the street that transported Kid Flash and Solstice through space, also transported them through time, dropping them off at Red Robin's doorstep a couple of days in the future. Which is actually a pretty neat idea, but I wish it was actually in the comic, not in my head. Kid Flash could have done a classic spit-take once he realized it was New Year's Eve and he lost a whole week of his life.

My next complaints have to do with the lack of consistency between each issue. In issue #2, Kid Flash says he doesn't know who kidnapped him or why. In issue #3, he knows exactly who took him and what their mission is, although we don't know how he learned that information. In issue #3, Kid Flash suddenly decided that he couldn't touch Solstice without wrapping a big firehose around her. In issue #4, Solstice is touching everybody just fine — it's no big deal. And in issue #2, Red Robin bemoans that this is likely to be the shortest stint of the Teen Titans in history, but in issue #4, he acts like he came up with the name and concept of the Teen Titans on the spot. Were there Teen Titans before or weren't there?

And besides, can we really call them teens? Teenagers typically aren't able to rent apartments themselves, but Wonder Girl had her own place and Red Robin (who bizarrely has an unlimited amount of cash) owns at least two lavish penthouses. All our heroes seem a bit older than we're used to, but it's impossible to tell if that's just Booth's insistence on drawing everyone freakishly tall, or if they are supposed to be 18–20 instead of 15–17 like before Flashpoint. I don't know how much of this is to blame on Lobdell or the chaotic nature of the New 52 itself, but it sure is annoying.

I will blame Lobdell for the weak attempts at humor here. That "fight" over the sweatshirt was painful. I also guess I need to address Kid Flash's "backstory." Amnesia isn't creative. It's lazy. There's no grand mystery behind Kid Flash — this is just DC admitting they don't know what they want to do with the character yet. They don't want to connect him to the Flash (for some strange reason), but the very concept of a Kid Flash without the Flash is a contradiction. Robbed of this necessary foundation, this character cannot stand on his own. And we'll see before too long how he will fall and DC's attempt at a "fresh" origin story will be too little too late.

Next issue: Vs. Superboy!