Teen Titans Go! #1 – Sholly Fisch, Writer; Dario Brizuela, Artist; Franco Riesco, Colorist
Ray – 8/10
Ray: I’ll be honest – I was never a fan of the Teen Titans Go cartoon. Its over-the-top parody and…unique characterization doesn’t quite work for me, especially as someone who’s a big fan of the original series. But I was willing to give this series a chance for one reason – it’s by the creative team of the Scooby-Doo Team-Up comic, who have a great handle on offbeat DC satire. So coming into this, I was expecting the characters to be their usual strange parody selves but hoping for some funny beats. And that’s what I got here – with a very meta story that finds the Titans discovering that their comic was canceled. They try to barge into DC editorial and get it uncanceled with no success and a lot of pratfalls. While Raven suggests that they don’t really need a comic, Robin won’t have that – and so it’s time for one of the character’s trademark ridiculous schemes that always go badly.
The story is funny, but the real star here is Dario Brizuela’s art. The man does great with cartoony figures, but he’s also a chameleon, and his art shifts dramatically through multiple “reboots” as it mimics other books like zombie thrillers, slice-of-life indie books, and Japanese manga. These self-referential bits are a lot of fun, but they don’t win over DC, so Robin comes up with another idea – DC will have to publish them if there are no other heroes to publish stories about. So the Titans set out to sabotage the Justice League, with Beast Boy and Cyborg turning off the Bat-signal, Robin convincing Superman that Krypton is still out there, and Raven and Starfire distracting Wonder Woman with an opportunity to talk about Amazon philosophy. Of course, there will be no negative consequences to removing the DCU’s most successful heroes from the playing field. It’s a fun, silly start that worked better for me than what I’ve seen of the show.
To find reviews of all the DC issues, visit DC This Week.
GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
