Titans 23

Spoilers.

Uh, who are these people? In some panels, they're definitely the Teen Titans of old, but in others, I'm not so sure. Because, as well written this is (when compared to Cry for Justice, which admittedly, wouldn't take much skill to achieve), there's a whole lot of retconning going on. And for this longtime (as in 45 years or so) Titans fan, it was disconcerting to say the least. The group didn't know about Roy's addiction until after the fact. I'm at work and can't root through my comics boxes, but there was a panel in the revival of the TT book in which one of them says that GA mentioned Roy's "trouble" at a JLA meeting (as I recall). And Roy took up heroin because Ollie pretty much abandoned him to travel the country with Hal. So, yeah, retcon in Donna rejecting him (and he would've been around 16 then, though various estimates put that time in the 14-17 age range) as a contributing factor, but Roy had a lot of other problems back then. There was one flashback, I think in a Titans book, showing him being obnoxious at TT headquarters and Dick (probably) giving him hell, but never was there a sign he was shooting up.

I also never got the sense that Roy went into rehab. That's such a modern-time concept. I suppose since he's not really in his 40s or 50s now, we have to move the timeline up a few decades, but he kicked cold turkey with Dinah's help and then went out on his own. I had the sense of a character as independent and stubborn as Ollie. I had the sense that Roy was not someone to go into rehab. He'd kicked heroin and he figured he was in the clear, that he could keep fighting the urges on his own.

And while Roy and Wally had their differences, I never got the sense that Roy and Dick had strong disagreements. Different temperaments and goals, but those weren't causing antagonism between them. Wally and Roy were competing for Donna, while Dick was never really more than a brother to her.

The Titans, the original members, were about family. They admitted as much in the revival of the Titans book. That's how Devin Grayson wrote them and that's the version that felt right. To keep putting in "revelations" about past problems in their relationships is just piling more crap on the crap pile of Cry for Justice.

Yet, Donna saying that Roy wanted family was dead on, because if there's one constant in Roy's life, it's that he's continued to lose family. Also, Wally rushing home to hug his kids was a nice touch, something much missing from the Rise and Fall Special last week.

The art didn't stand out. Not awful, not all that interesting. Serviceable. The present-time was better looking than the flashbacks/dreams which just made everyone look weird with squared or angular jaws. The cover was nice, however.

Bottom line: I have no idea why this needed to be written, other than to slam the door, again, on a past, that gets revisited and reworked every decade, if not sooner. It didn't further the storyline and it didn't evoke much emotion in me. And that's a shame.