I admit freely I picked up this book only because Sean Gordon Murphy had drawn it. I had seen on his Devart Blog about the artwork and it piqued my interest, so I picked up the book.
My perspective on this is that I’ve never read a Teen Titans book and I know nothing of them other than that they’re a superhero team up that seems to involve younger versions of heroes or sidekicks. A fair premise, Marvel has it’s Avengers and what not. I was surprised however at the quality of the story.
I cannot say with certainty whether this is indicative of a Teen Titans book (Anyone with feedback?) but what I read was high quality with a well thought out storyline and excellent artwork. I’m certain that some background information about Tim Drake (Robin) would be helpful however most of it is compressed nicely into a nightmare sequence at the start.
The story revolves around the idea of vengeance and retribution with a healthy layer of mistrust. My previous perceptions of DC books have changed over the years, from tales of perfect heroes to interesting plots involving flawed individuals. My preference has generally been for Marvel stories because of this very feature – imagine a perfect Peter Parker and suddenly Spider-Man loses all his charm. This book works because of it’s deliberate imperfections within the team, it’s the mistrust and the foibles which make this an enjoyable read.
Also, the handling of the action sequences must be commended, Sean Gordon takes a difficult thing to craft and makes a clear and concise battle landscape, easily describing all the action with Zen-like qualities.
Previously I wouldn’t think twice about reading this book. Now I’m going to have to look long and hard at my pull list – I think it just got a lot longer.