Titans #7 – Tom Taylor, Writer; Travis Moore, Artist; Tamra Bonvillain, Colorist
Ray – 9/10
Ray: While the Beast World event is raging, this tie-in concludes the battle against Brother Eternity. This takes place before Beast World #4, which saw some… major changes to the Titans team courtesy of Amanda Waller and her new Suicide Squad. But as dangerous as Garro and his spores are, they’re nothing compared to the Necrostar—which Brother Eternity, now revealed as the Tamaranean traitor Xand’r, is still trying to resurrect. Tempest is still under his control and hunting the Titans, while Dick has been transformed into a fox mutant courtesy of the green spores. This is a rare crossing-the-streams of two very different threats, and it’s up to the remaining members to contain the chaos within Titans Tower. Complicating this for Starfire, it’s revealed that Xand’r played a very key role in what happened to her family—making this an extremely personal battle for her.
This might be a smaller-scale battle than the one raging outside, but Taylor manages to infuse it with maximum tension due to how quickly a team member can be transformed. A lot of credit goes to Travis Moore, whose guest art manages to make the Necrostar spores truly disgusting. The battle to free Nightwing is a key part of this issue, and there’s a great little detail about how Cyborg’s body works and affects the spores. However, the two stars of this issue are undeniably Raven and Starfire. Raven displays some unique new powers that no one saw coming and potentially hint at a major crossover with Superman down the line. Then there’s Starfire, who finally gets the chance to shake off the grief and pain of her childhood trauma and reclaim her story. This retcon about how it all began also makes me wonder if Taylor will be digging into her relationship with Blackfire anew soon.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
