It's no secret I dig Geoff Johns. The man just
gets the DC universe. He understands what people like about these characters and this universe, and he touches exactly those notes when he writes.
So when he took over the relaunch of the Teen Titans, it's no suprise to anybody that he started doing stories steeped in the history of the Titans comics, but also staying true to each of the characters that populate the new team.
Naturally, the villian in this one is Deathstroke, but it's Deathstroke as you don't expect. Yeah, I'm not going to say more than that--so I still care about spoilers, so what?
So who's in this version of the team? Playing the "mentor" parts are Cyborg, Starfire, and Beast Boy. At this point in the continuity Donna Troy and Jericho are dead and Dick Grayson is leading the Outsiders. Playing the "Teens" in Teen Titans are Tim Drake as Robin, Conner Kent as Superboy, Cassie Sandsmark as Wonder Girl (she's the blonde one), and Bart Allen as Impulse.
If you read any of
Young Justice
, you remember that it was a fairly lighthearted look at the Titans. This book isn't like that at
all. Not only is the tone serious, but the story depends on you taking what's happening really seriously.
And for me, at least, that isn't hard. Johns gets what I dig about DC as well as anybody, so he plays the characters right.
That's not to say the book's perfect. There's a bit of a scuffle between the Justice League and the Titans that seems more like it was worked in because it was a cool concept than that it actually grew organically out of the characters.
But the Deathstroke story works great and good foundations are laid for some of the conflicts that come up in some of the later books in the series.
