Titans: Beast World Tour – Waller Rising #1 – Chuck Brown; Writer; Keron Grant, Artist
Ray – 8.5/10
Ray: The Beast World event is just starting, but in some ways it’s been building for a while. Amanda Waller’s plot has been in the background since the start of Infinite Frontier and took center stage with the conclusion of Dark Crisis—along with her alliance with Doctor Hate, the mysterious masked being who has now gone rogue. Hate is out of control, seeking to open the doors to a mysterious realm known as the Kingdom—and he’s acquired a powerful weapon to do it from Black Manta. Brown was the one who built up Black Manta’s character in a solo series, giving him a team of fellow pirates to work with, and he soon realizes that Hate isn’t any sort of a reliable ally. But he’s not the first hero or antihero Hate has come calling for—and the masked villain is taking out one after another, starting with Val-Zod, who we last saw teaming up with Jon Kent almost a year ago.
This is almost a jam issue with how many characters it has in it, even though it has the same artist and writer for the entire issue. The cast is almost entirely Black, focusing heavily on Waller and her assassin nephew Deadeye, who is desperate to get out of his aunt’s clutches. Other characters who factor in are more obscure—including the first return in close to a decade for David Zavimbe, the unique African hero who was the first Batwing before returning to civilian life. I always found him more original than Luke Fox, and his team-up with Vixen here is great. The plot is chaotic, taking the heroes into another dimension, and I’m not sure it seamlessly balances all the plots with the event tie-in it’s trying to pull off. Keron Grant’s art, which I haven’t seen before, is gorgeous but the action can be a little unclear at points. Overall, it gives us a few more intriguing details about the overarching plot, but what it sets up for its many leads is more intriguing for the DCU’s future.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
