Raven: Daughter of Darkness #11 – Marv Wolfman, Writer; Pop Mhan, Artist; Lovern Kindzierki, Colorist
Ray – 6/10
Ray: The penultimate issue in Marv Wolfman’s year-long Raven saga turns out to be a bit of a disappointment, as it seems to set up that Raven’s story will be coming to an abrupt reset. When we last left off, her attempts to balance her new family with her secret superhero life had hit a massive roadblock. She was about to come clean with her family and try to work things out, but then a crisis in the new Night Force led her to make a rash decision – erasing her aunt and uncle’s memories of the conversation so she could head off to the battle without any consequences to her personal life. Of course, that’s not how it works out – while she’s off fighting shadow monsters, this issue reveals that her spell backfired, erasing not just the memory of the conversation but any memory of her existence from the family’s mind. They wind up calling the police because a mysterious person has moved into their house!
So it seems clear that Raven’s going to be losing her human support system, once again becoming a character who’s completely bound up in the Titans. That’s not appealing, given how the Titans title is at the moment. Of course, she also has her Night Force team, but they’re a dysfunctional alliance at best. Baron Winters is manipulative, Black Alice is treacherous, at least one member just wants to go home, and everyone seems to hate Zach Zatara – giving him the nickname “barf boy” this issue. It’s all pretty caustic, and drives home that the world Raven has built for herself over the course of these two miniseries is falling apart again. The ongoing subplot of Skye and her ties to the mysterious shadow riders comes to a head this issue, with a shocking conclusion, but the large cast hasn’t given her nearly enough time to develop for this to have an impact. Overall, this last act isn’t looking as strong as the rest of the series.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
