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Mild Mannered Reviews - Teen Titans Comics

Teen Titans #9 Teen Titans #9

Teen Titans #9

Scheduled to arrive in stores: May 23, 2012

Cover date: July 2012

"The Culling" - Part 4

Writer: Scott Lobdell & Tom Defalco
Penciller: Ig Guara
Inker: JP Mayer
Cover: Booth, Rapmund, & Dalhouse

Reviewed by: Shawn Morrissey

Click to enlarge


Members of the Titans and the Legion battle Harvest in the gross bowels of the Crucible. They use the powers of Tellus to speak psychically with one another so Harvest doesn't catch on to their plans. A whole lot of big talk gets tossed around from both sides as the Titans tackle Harvest, leaving the Legion to head into the core of the Crucible.

Meanwhile, the rest of the two teams are scurrying to get the injured meta-teens into escape pods. They're helped by Red and Terra, former supporters of N.O.W.H.E.R.E. Skitter is still missing and Bunker is hesitant to leave without her. The building tensions force him to leave and hope that she got out safely on her own.

The Legion gets to work and destroys the central core. This gives the Titans fighting Harvest the advantage they need. The crippled core begins debilitating the Crucible, sending Harvest, now revealed to be human, fleeing.

Those left in the compound begin their hurried escapes. For the Legion, the discovery of a Time Bubble appears to be the ticket home to the 31st century they've been searching for.

With Harvest escaped, the Titans rely on the combined efforts of Superboy and Wonder Girl (I don't care what she says, I'm calling her that) to get them all safely to the surface. When they come to, they find themselves on a beach in the midst of dinosaur-like monsters.

1Story - 1: First, I have to be honest: I didn't read parts 2 and 3 of "The Culling". I just didn't care what happened. I got the gist of what happened in Superboy #9 from Adam Dechanel's review of that, but otherwise, I didn't follow what went on after Teen Titans Annual #1. Therefore, there were a couple things that were new to me, like Red returning to the good side of things, Terra, and Skitter missing. None of them were concerning enough to make me jump and get the issues I skipped.

The big moment of the issue is the reveal that Harvest is human. It's a nice touch but it comes so casually among a story so uninteresting that I didn't really care. It wants to be a Darth Vader-telling-Luke-he's-his-father kind of reveal, but it feels more like Milli Vanilli-don't-sing-their-own-songs. This conclusion, if we can call it that, was just as half-baked as the build up to the Culling story, and the Culling story itself. I enjoyed one thing about it: the scene where Kid Flash runs around holding Bunker while the latter whips his psionic bricks at Harvest was great. The rest was forgettable.

I've said for eight issues and one annual how poorly this story is put together, so it would be redundant to go on about it again here. I just want to comment on the ending... There is no ending! It's a rushed explosion that leaves the Titans on a beach with dinosaurs. Some closure would be nice. After nine issues and an annual, the Titans are still bouncing around aimlessly with no definitive team structure. It's just awful.

3Art - 3: The art is much of the same. It's a decent looking book and while I prefer Booth's pencils at work, Guara is more than capable of putting together some nice action sequences.

3Cover Art - 3: The cover doesn't really strike me. We've seen this kind of scenario before: one member of a hero team in the grasp of danger while the others are KO'ed. It's not very inspiring but at least it looks good.

Mild Mannered Reviews

2012

Note: Month dates are from the issue covers, not the actual date when the comic went on sale.

January 2012

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