Teen Titans #6

By the Light ...

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

Our cover shows Red Robin battling a new villain named Grymm, while Virgil Hawkins, aka Static Shock, attempts to jumpstart Kid Flash's heart. This is a rather loose interpretation of the story inside — Red Robin does not actually battle Grymm, and Static doesn't directly use his powers on Kid Flash like that. However, I am glad that we've finally stopped the trend of having future teammates fight each other on the cover. But I cannot wrap my head around this villain's design. Is he wearing a mask covering half his face with crayon drawn on it? Sadly, and unsurprisingly, none of the inside artwork clears this up.

We have the sideways black-and-white variant once again, and not even this version helps me understand Grymm's face. But I am impressed with how Booth can make even baggy clothes — Grymm's pants, Static's lab coat — look skin-tight.

Our story picks up with the Teen Titans slowly picking themselves up after their disastrous fight with Superboy. But just as soon as they get up on their feet, they're surrounded by a swarm of policemen, led by Detective Jocelyn Lure, seeking to hold the teenagers accountable for destroying that battle cruiser in the Hudson River. Red Robin tries to argue they were only acting in self defense, when suddenly Skitter shows up in her spider form and spits grotesquely green webs over all the officers. A well-timed batarang from Red Robin prevents Skitter from killing any of the cops, and Bunker manages to calm down the rather animalistic teenage girl.

But things take a turn for the worse with Kid Flash, who had been complaining of not feeling well since the fight with Superboy. He's suddenly vibrating out of control and is in an outright panic, begging for help. Each of our previous issues used the characters' internal monologue as narration, but this one has a generic, omniscient narrator, who tells us that when Kid Flash first discovered his super speed, he had no one to turn to. This, of course, contradicts previous issues, where Kid Flash said he could have reached out to the Flash, but actively chose not to because he didn't want to become a sidekick. But hey, what would this series be without at least one contradiction each issue?

Anyway, Red Robin says he knows someone who can help Kid Flash, and 10 minutes later, they all arrive at the Manhattan offices of S.T.A.R. Labs. The sun is shining bright, despite it being 1 a.m. on New Year's Day (this art team is notoriously bad at accurately conveying the time of day), and Red Robin somehow found time to change his clothes while leading the team across town. Red Robin introduces the team to Virgil Hawkins, a brilliant intern, who builds robotic dinosaurs in his spare time and also designed Red Robin's ridiculous battle wings. Conveniently, Virgil also happens to be the only one in the building.

Wonder Girl and Kid Flash both believe they should have called in the Flash, but Tim vouches for Virgil and claims he couldn't reach the Flash. Virgil, for his part, at least acts like he knows what he's talking about by diagnosing Kid Flash as being in a state of hyper-spatial acceleration, and has Wonder Girl carry him to the auxiliary bio-lab.

We then check in on Detective Jocelyn Lure, who is studying a tablet in her office. From a caption box, we learn that Jocelyn Lure is not her real name, and that she's speaking to herself in Interlac, the language of the future. She realizes she recognized Kid Flash from somewhere, and is studying an image of him with shorter hair and wearing a black-and-blue outfit. Jocelyn says some very odd, cryptic things, like "this isn't supposed to happen yet" and "how did he even get here." But one thing is clear: Kid Flash is a wanted criminal from the future. And Jocelyn believes someone "authorized a new identity" for him. My Interlac is a little rusty, but that image she's looking at appears to have the word "Wanted" across the top, followed by the words "Allen, Bart," and some numbers that could be 15 and 5-9. Presumably, that's to say Bart Allen is 15 years old and 5 feet, 9 inches tall, which seems about right.

Back at the diagnostic lab, Solstice tenderly takes Kid Flash's hand to calm him down. He opens up to her about his fears of his powers and his missing memory, so Kiran promises to help him find those answers. Virgil then places Kid Flash in a jury-rigged M.R.I. scanner to study his paraquantum vibratory patterns. As he and Tim look over the readings, Virgil also asks why they didn't bring in the Flash. Tim once again claims that he did call the Justice League (during that 10-minute walk across New York and changing his clothes), but all he got was a message saying they're out. But Tim insists that Virgil was the right choice for this job because he's too young to know the difference between the possible and the impossible.

Tim theorizes that Kid Flash is suffering from cellular deterioration, but Virgil believes he just needs to be realigned — like tires on a car. So he throws together a special suit for Kid Flash, while Wonder Girl, Bunker and Skitter get into a rather boring and inconsequential fight with Grymm. Luckily for Kid Flash, Virgil had been doodling up variant costumes for the Flash, so it didn't take him too long to create this suit. He says he based the science of the suit on a thick textbook about quantum speed theory and its effect on human physiology. Kid Flash reads the book in one second (as if that's supposed to help him know how to wear the suit, or something?) then puts on his new costume. Kiran can't help but call it sexy, and Tim is just happy Kid Flash won't be stealing his clothes anymore.

This last page was supposed be a huge moment, and it was ... until you examine the art too closely. Kid Flash's waist is unbelievably narrow, his torso is bent in half in a most painful way, and all his muscles and ribs are just random globs, scattered around everywhere for no rhyme or reason. The costume itself isn't that bad. I'm glad his hair isn't quite the mohawk like it was on the cover of issue #1, but the red eyes do make him look evil. I'm annoyed that the mask only covers half his nose, but I do think the suit being one solid, connected piece is nice.

It also is nice to finally get some background information on Kid Flash. Of course, everything is incredibly vague at this point, and I would hazard a guess that many of those details will be contradicted by the time we get to his real origin story. If this was the real Bart Allen, I'd probably be upset to learn he was a wanted criminal, but since this isn't, I'm rather ambivalent with the whole thing.

Next time, Teen Titans #7.