Teen Titans Annual #1

The Culling Part One

Story by Tom DeFalco & Scott Lobdell
Pencils by Brett Booth
Inks by Norm Rapmund, Sal Regla, Marlo Alquiza and John Livesay
Colors by Andrew Dalhouse
Letters by Rob Leigh
Cover by Brett Booth, Rob Hunter and Andrew Dalhouse
Assistant Editor Katie Kubert
Editor Bobbie Chase

Our cover shows the Teen Titans battling the stars of Legion Lost, a series about a group of Legionnaires from the future trapped in the 21st century. This cover (and story) follows the hallowed tradition of this series by having any and all heroes immediately get into a big fight whenever they meet each other. Two simples sentences could prevent all these needless fighting, but, hey, it's the New 52! We have to be "edgy!" The only thing I'll say about this cover is that it demonstrates Norm Rapmund's skills as an inker. True, there's only so much he can do to salvage Brett Booth's art, but he does actually improve the work.

Chapter One

Red Robin wakes up in a hellish world, separated from his teammates and surrounded by Artemis, Thunder and Lightning. They explain to him that Leash dropped the Teen Titans off in a place called the Colony, which houses roughly 100 teenagers. Periodically, Harvest will conduct the Culling, a ritual that pits groups of teens against each other in a fight to the death, with the survivors earning the honor of becoming his Ravagers. Before too long, Red Robin is reunited with the Teen Titans, who have located Superboy, and, thanks to Solstice, have convinced him to join their team.

Chapter Two

The Legionnaires have no idea who trapped them here, where or when "here" is, or why they're suddenly wearing white uniforms. They make several attempts at escape, but all for naught.

Chapter Three "The Battle"

The Culling officially begins with the arrival of Leash, who starts ensnaring our heroes with his psionic tendrils. Solstice actually demands to be taken, and when Kid Flash tries to free her, she warns him that she'll die if he interferes. Kid Flash gets electrocuted for his efforts, and is taken away, as well, alongside Red Robin, Bunker, Superboy, Wonder Girl and Lightning. Thunder and Skitter were left behind.

Leash brings the Titans to the isolated area called the Crucible, where the Legionnaires are. And for no apparent reason, everybody immediately begins fighting. Kid Flash and Solstice take on Gates and Dawnstar. Kid Flash ironically calls them amateurs, before immediately being given a lesson in how well-trained and coordinated his foes are.

But although there is a lot of fighting going on, neither the Titans nor the Legion are actually trying to kill each other — a fact that is lost on our heroes, but not Harvest and his crew. So Harvest has Leash send more teens into the Crucible, including Artemis, Thunder, Terra and Beast Boy (who is inexplicably red in the New 52). But this time, Leash also uses a bit of mind control to send this new wave of kids into a rage of blind fury.

Chapter Four

Faced with a common enemy, the Titans and Legion finally start working together. Kid Flash helps Superboy knock out Thunder, but Red Robin is unable to save Artemis from a guy called Fist Point. Red Robin mourns the first casualty of the Culling and vows vengeance against Harvest.

Chapter Five

Confusingly, Red Robin warns his teammates not to make the war against Harvest all about revenge, saying that doing so would cause them to lose focus. Bunker finally notices that Skitter is missing, so Kid Flash speculates that she was too fast for Leash, and is currently helping others in the Colony.

Luckily, Leash's mind control didn't last too long, and Beast Boy, Terra and Thunder join the Teen Titans and Legion. Kid Flash and Dawnstar whip up a couple of whirlwinds to thin out the crowds, and in no time at all, our heroes have defeated all the violent teens who actually wanted to keep fighting. Unbeknownst to them, Harvest claims that this is exactly what he wanted.

Once all the fighting has calmed down, the two teams finally decide to talk to each other. The Titans have a hard time believing the Legion is actually from the future, and, according to the Legion, the Titans shouldn't have formed for another 40 years. Kid Flash tries to find a way out, but instead finds that Harvest has sent in the rest of his troops, naturally led by the New 52 version of Ravager.




When people speak despairingly of the New 52, the Culling is often one of the first things they mention. It's horrible! Well, at least the first part was horrible. Tons of fighting for fighting's sake, even though we all know there's absolutely no reason for these heroes to fight each other. And it's all orchestrated by some incredibly vague and supremely powerful villain with limitless resources, a secret organization with an acronym that doesn't stand for anything and no real clear goal other than tormenting teenaged heroes because he's evil!

This issue is also infamous for it's handling of Artemis, a character who had recently risen to popularity thanks to the Young Justice animated series. Why bring in someone like that only to kill her as soon as possible? I get the desire to actually show someone die here, but did it have to be a fan favorite? Also, making Beast Boy red is incredibly lame. But, it actually could have been worse. This issue includes some behind-the-scenes features and concept art by Brett Booth. He originally wanted the New 52 Beast Boy to be able to change individual parts of his body to those of other animals — the body of a gorilla with the legs of a bird and wings of a butterfly. Seriously. Thankfully we dodged that bullet.

And speaking of dodging bullets, we also have a house ad for the Teen Titans ... even though this is an issue of Teen Titans ... Anyway, it appears to be a rejected version of Booth's cover for issue #1. Solstice is black and red, instead of black and blue. Superboy stupidly has piece of paper with the Superman logo taped to his back, even though he has a big barcode-like tattoo of the logo on his shoulder. And Kid Flash is running all around, but DC didn't bother to finish those "after images" of Kid Flash for this ad. DC also didn't mind covering up Skitter with the old DC logo. You'd think they'd at least swap in the new logo here — shouldn't be too hard with everything being digital.

Next time, Part Two in Superboy #9.