Teen Titans #12

Rogue Targets Part IV

Written by Scott Lobdell and Will Pfeifer
Pencils by Ian Churchill
Inks by Norm Rapmund
Colors by Tony Aviña
Cover by Ricken
Green Lantern 75th Anniversary Variant Cover by Mike McKone and Dave McCaig
Associate Editor Paul Kaminski
Editor Mike Cotton
Group Editor Eddie Berganza
Superboy created by Jerry Siegel.
By special arrangement with the Jerry Siegel family.

I'm always frustrated by a lack of consistency on art teams (this is now our fourth straight issue with a new artist), but I am happy Bengal isn't doing the covers anymore. Granted, this isn't a particularly compelling cover, either, but Superboy does look nice, so I'll give it that. Story-wise, it's completely deflating. We've been gearing up for this big battle between the Elite and Teen Titans over Superboy, but then he just ... surrenders? Even Wonder Girl and Power are disgusted by this turn of events.

The Green Lantern variant isn't anything special, either. An angry Hal Jordan is standing in front the Titans, who all look as bored as I am. Also, why does everybody keep putting Power Girl with the Titans? She's been actively fighting against them as a member of the Elite for quite a while now.

Our story begins with Superboy crashing into the supermax prison called the M.A.W. to demand that Despero give him back his life. Suddenly, Superboy, Wonder Girl, Kid Flash and Red Robin are standing in the ruins of one of Tim Drake's old penthouses. Cassie and Bar initially blame Kon for this, and Bar even threatens to scramble Kon's brains before wishing they could ask Manchester Black for advice.

Cassie calls Bar "Bart" and tells him to conduct a speed check of the perimeter, but Kid Flash quickly discovers he's lost his super speed. Wonder Girl and Superboy also report being powerless, leading Bar to speculate that Kon is messing with their minds again (although I have no idea when he first messed with their minds). Kon retorts by blaming Bar for almost getting them all killed in his revolution in the future (even though I thought this Kon, the real Superboy, didn't go to the future with the others and was instead replaced with a fake version of himself). Tim, as usual, is the only one with any idea of what's going on, saying with absolute certainty that this manipulation was not caused by the villain they spent all last issue trying to get to, Despero. Tim's only reasoning is that Despero would have killed them by now.

For some strange reason, Tim removes his mask and engages in a heart-to-heart with Kon, who finally admits that he did kill those Durlan refugees. He explains that the aliens somehow shut his mind down, leaving his body to rely on its lethal programming to protect itself. As he talks, the environment changes to show a flashback of Superboy's actions. Kon didn't realize he did this at first, but the memories gradually came to him. Bar says he can relate to that selective amnesia, and Cassie promises to give her ex-boyfriend the help he deserves.

Bar's costume suddenly turns into the yellow-and-green one we saw in a couple of his flashbacks, and he melodramatically says that he's worse than Kon. Bar seems to imply now that he was fighting on the wrong side of the war and says both he and Superboy need to pay for their crimes. Cassie interrupts him to shout about her boring backstory, before Tim urges them all to think of something positive. So Scott Lobdell returns to what he clearly thought was the funniest moment of his run — Bar stealing Tim's shirt.

Except Bar has black hair in the flashback? I guess that's what happens when your artist draws all the characters to look exactly the same. Anyway, Cassie's favorite memory, as disturbing as it sounds, was her first fight against Superboy in Times Square. Kon's favorite makes more sense — it was the Titans rescuing him from H'el. Tim's is also horrifying, though — Trigon's attack in Times Square.

The environment suddenly shifts, though, to show the giant screen of monitors Tim used to track down the original Titans. For some reason, Cassie, Kon and Bar all see this as some kind of betrayal, but Tim logically explains that he wasn't going to let a group of super-powerful strangers live in his house without first conducting a background check. He then randomly decides that now is the time to strike out against their foe, because, as usual, Red Robin is the only one who ever knows what's going on.

Turns out it's Harvest. Seriously.

The former leader of the organization known as N.O.W.H.E.R.E. (which never was revealed to stand for anything!) has somehow teleported these four heroes away to some secret lab of his, all just so they could say goodbye to Superboy. Harvest tells Kon it's time for him to return "home," and even though Cassie, Bar and Tim strenuously object, Kon agrees with his creator. Well, actually the only one who seriously objects to this is Tim. Bar readily concedes that he never trusted Superboy, and Cassie doesn't object to Kon telling her he never loved her. But Tim slices open Kon's chest with his wings and impotently pounds on him while collapsing to the ground in a sobbing mess.

Kon kneels down next to Tim and thanks him for everything he's done. And I 100% expected him to kiss Tim here. But he didn't, instead whispering, "And everything you couldn't do." Kon abruptly flies off somewhere, leaving Tim behind to scream his name. Harvest gives a long lecture full of revisionist history and how he always intended for Tim to gather the Titans and train them before they would decide, one by one, to join Harvest. And then he teleports away, I guess.




As if things couldn't get worse, Scott Lobdell is back. And he helped yank this story away from its promised conclusion with Manchester Black, the Elite and Despero to randomly force Harvest into this story and make a very poor attempt at telling an introspective story of the Big Four (as I like to call them). This felt like a filler issue, except it wasn't because we learned that Superboy really is a murderer and he left the team to ... I don't know, join Harvest or something? Such crucial details needed to be revealed with everybody present, not in some stupid dream room.

It's such a shame that an issue all about Kid Flash, Red Robin, Superboy and Wonder Girl was so boring and unsatisfying. This would have been the perfect opportunity to reveal how and why Bar Torr came back to the 21st century, but not one word was said about that. In fact, this issue didn't even mention Solstice once. Bar's favorite memory really is stealing Tim's shirt? Guess that goes to show you how phony his romance with Solstice was. But what really gets under my skin was Bar's defeatist attitude toward his rebellion. He was fighting a good fight against a horrendously evil government that maliciously slaughtered people just because they believed in religion. All of Bar's actions were completely justified, and it drives me insane that everybody around him, and now he himself, decided that was wrong. I can't wait till we're done with this series. In the meantime, here are the house ads:

Superman: American Alien by Max Landis. Fun fact, Landis was accused of rape and sexual abuse earlier this year. Please do not support his work.

The Multiversity deluxe edition hardcover graphic novel by Grant Morrison.

The creator spotlight is on Jeff King and Carlo Pagulayan, the creative team behind Telos.

Next: From the ashes ...