Teen Titans #30

Overview:

Following the events of Forever Evil and the Trial of Kid Flash, the Teen Titans (well some of them) are able to finally come back to the current DC Universe timeline. Unfortunately, what they come back to is a big fight with Bunker and Beast Boy (they’re back!) taking on The Light and The Way (yeah those are their names…) right in front of the Teen Titans’ yacht. There is no time for a “welcome home” because the Teen Titans have to act quickly to defend their base of operations. We get some surprise visits from past allies, an additional villain gets thrown in the mix, and we get some more details about how Kid Flash and Solstice are doing after deciding to stay in the future. This issue closes with a short story that explains what Beast Boy and Bunker were up to while the rest of the team was in the future.

The Good:

Scott Lobdell’s run on Teen Titans is coming to an end and so with this issue we are starting to wrap up any loose strands in the story throughout the thirty issues. One of my favorites involved a previous Teen Titan that disappeared earlier in the series and we never found out what happened until now.

I thought that the artwork for the main story and the side story at the end of issue were really good. Tyler Kirkham’s pencils were consistent throughout the issue and Arif Prianto’s colors worked well with the style. Together I think they both brought the different panels to life. Though it had a different tone, Scott Kolins’ pencils and Brian Miller’s colors in the Beast Boy/Bunker story at the end was also quite good. Normally having two different artists in the same issue can be a bit jarring, but I feel as though it worked well here.

The Bad:

Now I know I said we get a lot of answers to some questions that were left unaddressed (some of which is good), but this also turns out to be a bit of problem with this issue. We have some of the team reuniting, defending their base (twice in the same issue), an old member rejoin the team, an unexpected character connection to another famous character in the DC Universe, more information about Kid Flash and Solstice, and a side story regarding what two Teen Titans were up to during the previous stories. For me, that is a bit much. I feel as though this would have read much better if spread between a few more issues. I understand that Lobdell’s run is ending, but this had a very rushed feel with lots of different plots and information.

This issue was also villain crazy. It felt as though every few pages a new villain was popping up to terrorize the Teen Titans. There was a lot of strange dialogue moments that would pop up in the middle of the fight scenes that kind of took away from the action.

I wasn't the biggest fan of the direction that was taken for the back story of our previous Teen Titan that showed up in this issue. The connection that was made in their past also seemed a bit unnecessary and a little random.

The Verdict:

Overall, I felt this issue had some good elements and also had the potential to give us some good stories for the Teen Titans if it could have been spread out over more issues. Unfortunately, it just came across as rushed with too many plot points. This is definitely not a jumping on point for new readers since it is more so focused on answering any unanswered questions that came up throughout the previous thirty issues of the series.