Teen Titans #16

The Sum of its Parts

Written by Will Pfeifer
Pencilled by Miguel Mendonça
Inked by Dexter Vines
Lettered by Corey Breen
Colors by Tony Aviña
Cover by Jorge Jiménez and Alejandro Sanchez
Adult Coloring Book Variant Cover by Timothy Green II
Associate Editor: Paul Kaminski
Editor: Mike Cotton
Group Editor: Eddie Berganza

Our cover is by two-time Best Artist winner Jorge Jiménez, and I am so happy to have him back, if only for one cover. He always drew Kid Flash in such a fun and dynamic way. And everyone else looks great, too, although I don't understand why Bunker, Red Robin, Power Girl and Beast Boy look so angry. Oh well. It's just nice to finally have something that looks halfway decent for a change.

The adult coloring book variant is a fun reminder of that fad a couple of years ago. I own the Batman: Hush and Flash coloring books, myself. This cover itself isn't anything too fancy, though. And it, like almost all the variant covers we've seen, suffers from the Titans' constantly rotating cast.

I skipped issue #15 because all we saw of Bar Torr was his legs diving into a pool of a mansion that Wonder Girl apparently broke into to give some the Titans a place to crash while Red Robin was busy with the Robin War. Anyway, they're all back in the Robin's Nest in Gotham City, listening to the few of them who tried, and failed, to stop Professor Pyg last issue. Bar quietly mutters to himself that this team is a bad idea, while the news continues to blast the Titans as fugitives.

But Bar perks right up once Red Robin returns, racing right to his side and begging him for a plan. But before Tim can get started, Raven tells him he was followed back to his secret base. Right on cue a couple of cloaked figures break in and aim a futuristic gun at Red Robin. Kid Flash takes the gun apart and Tim says, "Bart ... I could kiss you." Bar responds with, "Right back atcha, chief." Wonder Girl begins to beat up the intruders, making it clear that she has no intention of kissing either one of them (even her former boyfriend), no offense. Bar casually says no offense was taken.

As soon as our heroes reveal the intruders to be Durlans, a spaceship arrives, tearing open the entire hideout, and bringing several more Durlans to the party. Surprisingly, the Durlans recognize that Kid Flash is possesses the Speed Force, and they have just the weapon to neutralize him — some sort of random frequency algorithm that he can't vibrate out of.

And that's the last we ever see of Bar Torr. I'm serious. The rest of the issue involves a lot of fighting, before it's finally revealed that the Durlans are just here to take Chimera back home. And she readily agrees, giving Red Robin a goodbye kiss ... while she's transformed into a copy of Tim. Anyway, once the aliens are gone, we learn that not only had Bar conveniently escaped off-page, but he also wrote an enormously long note on the ground.

We only get bits and pieces of the note, which basically says that Chimera's decision to return to her planet reminded Bar that he left Solstice on the prison planet Takron-Galtos in the 30th century. Power Girl reads aloud that Bar plans to "do something" about this and for whatever reason, only he can do it on his own. Does this mean Bar always had the ability to return to the 30th century? Did he just come back because he got bored? Who knows? Pfeifer doesn't. Who cares? Again, Pfeifer sure doesn't, so you shouldn't, either.

Doomed also decides to leave the team for ... reasons. And so our issue ends with a bit of an epilogue one week later, in Heaton, Pennsylvania. And the Teen Titans lineup has now been reduced to Red Robin, Wonder Girl, Bunker, Beast Boy, Raven and Power Girl. And that's the last we'll ever have to endure of this tortured series.




I don't know why DC brought back Kid Flash only to dispose of him in the most unsatisfying way possible just half a year later. We don't know how or why he got here. And we have no idea how or why he left. How much of this was Pfeifer's fault? How much blame goes to the editors? I don't know. And I don't even know what kind of a story Pfeifer was trying to tell. This whole series has felt like a desperate attempt to just churn out anything for the sake of saying DC still has a monthly Teen Titans title because DC should always have a monthly Teen Titans title. A different art team each month, characters coming and going without rhyme or reason. An incomprehensible plot. Ugh. It's 2016 now. DC knows better than this.

On the plus side, I did have a lot of fun pretending that Pfeifer was implying that Tim, Kon and Bar were all gay. Frankly, that would have made a much more interesting story than the drivel we got. Well, let's close things out with the new ads:

A threat so epic it will take more than one Man of Steel to handle. Superman: The Coming of the Supermen.

Uncover the event that ended Batman's war on crime! Dark Knight Returns: The Last Crusade.

The DC All Access page features Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice statues.

And that is almost it for the year 2016. As if 2015 wasn't bad enough. I was only able to find two real comics a version of Bart Allen appeared in. That's not including the free KFC comic that had an Impulse cameo. Unfortunately, it seems that DC and KFC have pulled that comic. It was a rather clever advertisement that made Impulse a member of the Legion of Super-Heroes for whatever reason. I downloaded it for free via Comixology, but I can't find it anymore. Oh well.

So next time, we'll do a quick review of another continuity-changing event, DC Universe: Rebirth #1.