Titans #14 – Tom Taylor, Writer; Lucas Meyer, Artist; Adriano Lucas, Colorist
Ray – 9/10
Ray: Ever since Beast World, this title has been dominated by one terrifying subplot – Raven is not actually Raven. Her demon side has the real Rachel Roth imprisoned, and the villain has been gaslighting her team, manipulating her boyfriend, killing their villains, and planning a takeover of the world in the name of Trigon. Nightwing performed a very Batman-esque maneuver by segregating a part of his mind so he could gather intelligence without Raven even knowing there was anything to discover in his brain, but now he’s ready to gather the team and show them the truth. They’re plotting their next move – but they don’t have time to debate, because they’re not the only ones looking. Spectre and Raven’s two demonic brothers show up to begin the hunt – but they’re not looking to save Raven. They’re looking to kill her before it’s too late and she unleashes hell on Earth.
This is a pretty compelling hook for the series, with the team torn between saving the world and trying to see if there’s a way Raven can still be brought back from oblivion. Unfortunately, this plot (Raven at war with her demon side) has been done so many times that it inevitably feels somewhat familiar. Most famously, she interrupted Dick and Kory’s wedding way back when to steal Kory’s soul. But this one might be the biggest-scale example of this yet, with Raven starting to transform in terrifying ways as she consumes more and more power by targeting her enemies. This plot will be wrapping up next issue, I assume, as Taylor will be departing both this and Nightwing to begin a new run over in Gotham City. I don’t think this run was quite as successful as its sister book over this short run, but it is easily the best run we’ve seen with these characters as a team ina very long time.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
