Titans: Beast World #4
Scheduled to arrive in stores: January 9, 2024
Cover date: March 2024
“Titans: Beast World – Part 4”
Writer: Tom Taylor
Artist: Lucas Meyer
Cover: Ivan Reis, Danny Miki and Brad Anderson
Variant Covers: Bjorn Barends, Serg Acuna, Clayton Henry and Marcelo Maiolo
Reviewed by: Craig Boehmer
Peacemaker extracts Chester Runk from a hostile environment by killing his children turned beasts. Chester expresses displeasure for this by and starts to create a blackhole to get his revenge, but is subsequently knocked out by Peacemaker. Meanwhile in Ivy Town, Giganta is confronted by the beasts and turns into her giant self. The beasts then infect her, turning her into a giant bear, and yes it is as cool as it sounds. The bear rampages through Ivy Town until Jon Kent and the Teen Titans arrive. After a brief fight, Jon goes blue and carries her into the sky. When she is far enough away, Cyborg booms her to a separate location where she falls unconscious, all of this is coordinated by Nightwing. The media, as prompted by Waller, begins to blame the superheroes for the destruction and demanding the immediate execution of Garro before more innocents are hurt. During the fallout of the Ivy Town rampage, Luthor shows Waller his Watchtower teleporter. While Dr. Hate distracts Raven, Chester is teleported to Garro and creates a black hole, sucking himself in and killing Garro in the process.
Story – 4: There is a lot going on in this issue. The plot to kill Garro, the rampage in Ivy Town, and the anti-super hero propaganda. At times this issue feels choppy with Taylor trying to juggle these different plot points in different locations. For the most part though, it is a fun read. Seeing Giganta turn into a giant bear may be the highlight of the month in comics. Also, this is the second issue in a row where Jon flies in to save the day against a super powered individual who turns into a beast. I don’t mind it, but I am still waiting for Jon’s potential as a character to be realized.
Art – 4: The art is still serviceable and exciting. But it is a noticeable step down from the first few issues. The figure work isn’t quite as dynamic, and there are significantly fewer details put into each image. Meyer is proving to be a very good artist, but having him follow up on Reis was unfair of DC.
Cover Art – 4: This cover is fun. It has a great premise, fantastic positioning, and it promises an exciting issue. The only issue that keeps this from being a 5/5 is the coloring, using browns and oranges together causes the beasts in the background to wash out. Normally this would be ok because the primary focus would be on the hero in the middle of the image, however with Waller being dressed in a business outfit, her image is not striking enough to offset the oranges and browns.
Variant Cover – 3: I didn’t mind this cover, it didn’t excite me, but I didn’t hate it. It was a little weird to juxtapose Raven and Garro facing off in the background, with the two bordering that image with a close up.
Variant Cover – 1: This might be the worst variant I have seen for this series. Starfire’s face looks ugly, and overall the whole image looks like poorly done AI art.
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