Teen Titans #1 A Kid’s Game

ISBN: 1401203086

I bought this book.

I’m a huge fan of the cartoon series, as well as a huge fan of the superhero genre in general. I expected some changes, even major changes, between other series and this one and wasn’t disappointed. So let’s start there.

If you, too began with the popular cartoon series then you’ll find that this graphic novel is a sort of sophomore class version of your starting place. (Except that Robin, Starfire, Beast Boy, Raven and Cyborg weren’t actually the first class either, but a reboot of the Titans.) And while the cartoon does touch on darker places that one would expect (especially with new shows like Superhero Squad popping up) the graphic novel delves even deeper. Really, despite its title you probably aren’t going to want to let your younger kids read this book. (Just in case the almost nude Starfire on the front cover wasn’t enough to tell you that.)

DC and Marvel have both been throwing in kid/teen versions of superheroes into their books for a while in an effort to continue to engage with a younger audience. But in this series instead of being sidekicks or temporary plot points (or add-a-kids) the teens get to try to find their own place in the comic-verse. In A Kid’s Game Starfire (she of little clothing), Cyborg (the emo-est robot outside of Marvin) and Beast Boy (who is a complete letch, surprise surprise) set out to give the teen superheroes a place of non judgment where they don’t have to hide their identity or powers and can be with people who, like them, understand (where the adult heroes have become so focused on adult matters that they’ve forgotten much of what it was like to be a teen, or just don’t have the time to fight evil and be there for the super kids). It’s a kind of Boy Scouts for super-teens, complete with character dying juxtaposed with helping old ladies cross the street. Teen-dom is a rough time, between being an adult and not really being ready to be an adult, and the writers of Teen Titans keep this (as well as all the sulleness and brattitude teens can hand out) in mind.

The new Titans consists of Starfire, Beast Boy, Cyborg, as well as Superboy (a semi-clone of the Man of Steel), the third Robin, Impulse/Kid Flash and Wondergirl. And it starts out dark, both with the teens still shaken from the death of the first Wonder Girl (which happens before this series starts, but comes up a lot) and with Slade, perennial Titans psycho-bad guy determined to discourage the Titans from reforming—by killing one of their own to prove kids shouldn’t wear costumes.

There is a lot of stuff going on this in book, and at times it led to me feeling confused. Certainly like I’d missed out on some important threads in the hero-verse for starting here instead of…well I don’t know where one would start, which is the biggest downside of comic-reading. It’s not unlike soaps in that you can miss a lot real easily.

Also there’s no real cadence to this team yet (and a lot of complaining, both on the kid and adult side of things), since some members flip flop on whether they want to be a Titan at all, others know each other (which might not be a good thing) and some only have preconceived opinions of each other. Even by the end of A Kid’s Game the team hasn’t really gelled together into something cohesive, but that should be expected. It does lead to an off balance feel in the book ( as does the whole chock full of plot seeds that literally don’t have time to go anywhere in such a short space.)

As a reader I do want to see more of these character though, and see if they’ll manage to grow into their own as people, or just remain shadows of the superheroes they started as. Slade is without a doubt one of the most interesting bad guys, but whether that will be enough to hold a reader’s long term attention or not will remain to be seen. (Which means I’ll keep picking up the graphic novels for now, but I don’t consider myself won over as a fan yet.)

P.S. Starfire is six foot four and a hundred and forty pounds and still build like German stripper? Really DC? I mean I know comics are about as physically accurate as a Tom and Jerry cartoon, but can we at least pretend that real proportions might exist?