Teen Titans #19

Trigon-ometry

Plot by: Scott Lobdell
Dialog by: Scott Lobdell & Tony Bedard
Pencils: Eddy Barrows
Inks: Eber Ferreira
Color: Alex Sinclair
Cover: Barrows, Ferreira and Sinclair
Mad Variant by Ward Sutton
Assistant Editor: Anthony Marques
Editor: Mike Cotton
Group Editor: Eddie Berganza
Superboy created by Jerry Siegel
By special arrangement with the Jerry Siegel family

We have now reached the post-Siegel lawsuit era, meaning all comics with Superman, Superboy or Supergirl will be forced to carry that obnoxious "By special arrangement" line. I don't know how that benefits the Siegel family in any way that the "created by" credit doesn't. And while we're here, why does Lobdell frequently need someone to help him with the dialogue? Was DC unhappy with his writing or was he just lazy?

Our cover is actually one of the surprise covers that worked. You can't get much bigger than Trigon! Plus, he has an evil Raven and Beast Boy at his side. Yes, Raven's New 52 design is horrible. And yes, Beast Boy being red is inexcusable. But his monstrous, gigantic tentacles reminds me of Bart's very first adventures with the New Titans way back in the early '90s. So I guess that's a nice callback. I just hope Lobdell doesn't butcher Marv Wolfman's work too much.

We have also entered the era of DC not digitizing their variant covers. Luckily, this policy will eventually be reversed, but it's going to be a bit rough for a while. I went to comicvine.com for this fun homage to Mad magazine. Yeah, the characters look a bit rough, but that's the Mad style. And I love how it features the "Big Four" — Bunker and Solstice are superfluous characters who won't survive the next reboot. In fact, it's a minor miracle they haven't already gone the way of Skitter.

Our story opens with Wonder Girl justifiably furious with Red Robin for lying to them and needlessly endangering their lives with a fight against the Suicide Squad. Cassie has Tim by the throat, but he's not backing down. Kid Flash is trying to pull Wonder Girl off him, but failing miserably. Luckily, everybody else is able to calm Wonder Girl down by politely asking her to let Red Robin explain himself. Unluckily, Red Robin refuses to answer any questions and angrily gives his teammates an ultimatum to follow him or quit.

Before anyone can figure out how to respond to this, Wonder Girl senses the arrival of Trigon (her armor is apparently connected to him). The gigantic demon is riding a three-headed horse through Times Square, New York City, when Wonder Girl catches up to him. She gets in one hit, but he shrugs it off and hints that he knows Cassie's real father, but doesn't say who it is because this is a Lobdell comic. Superboy and Bunker coordinate a strike, and Kid Flash whisks Kon away before he's hit by Trigon's eye-beams.

Trigon then somehow turns Bunker's own bricks against him, while grumpy Red Robin has chosen to merely observe Trigon for now. When Kid Flash moves against Trigon, he's shown memories of his past that still don't explain anything, and for some reason cause Kid Flash to collapse in teen angst. Solstice comes across the New 52 version of Psimon, and tries to comfort him. Beast Boy and Raven show up, and Beast Boy turns into a tentacle monster to capture the Teen Titans and Psimon. Some soldiers show up, but Psimon promptly kills them all with a psychic blast. Psimon then tries to kill Beast Boy, but Beast Boy crushes the air out of Psimon, so they both end up just knocking each other out.

For the first time this issue, Red Robin demonstrates an iota of compassion over the deaths of the soldiers. But then he (and Superboy) immediately turn this into a conspiracy theory, believing that Trigon's plan all along was to goad Psimon into killing a crowd of people in order to slander the reputation of the Teen Titans.




Well that was an underwhelming entrance for one of the most powerful villains in the DC Universe. Everything just felt ... blah. I was no more engaged in this fight than that nobody Grymm. Heck, Harvest was more engaging than Trigon, and it pains me to say that. And a big reason for that is Barrows' art. He doesn't do a good job of staging fights or conveying size and scale. The death of the soldiers was clearly supposed to be a big moment, but we barely saw them — just little blips in the background. Why can't we get some decent creators on this book?

Channel 52 reports on Trigon's appearance, incorrectly saying he battled a green grizzly bear. Don't you just love how nobody at DC knows what's going on?

Next: Nevermore.