Sean McKeever introduces a new era of the Titans with Teen Titans: Titans of Tomorrow. In comparison, this new Titans run already seems weaker than the one before, and a number of false starts hasn't helped; that said, McKeever's script doesn't have many egregious problems, and a couple of bright spots do give hope for Teen Titans going forward.

In one of DC Comics's strongest recent eras, the early lead-in to Infinite Crisis, Geoff Johns revitalized what seemed to be a terminal DC franchise, the Teen Titans, mainly by populating it with A-list characters. Gone were the alien Titan clones and even the newer New Titans like Pantha and Baby Wildebeest, in favor of characters more in line with the classic Titans and even the Justice League: Superboy, Robin, Wonder Girl, and Kid Flash. The first new Teen Titans collection, by Johns with Mike McKone, A Kid's Game, deserves its place as a new classic.

Post-Infinite Crisis, however, Teen Titans lacks much of that star power. Robin and Wonder Girl remain with the team; however, new members included the Blue Devil-sidekick Kid Devil, Deathstroke's children Ravager and Jericho, and the J'onn J'onzz-inspired Miss Martian. They're each interesting in their own right, but overall Titans lacks the verve of Johns' initial run. Now in Titans of Tomorrow, we find the team line-up changing again, with Jericho out and Blue Beetle and Supergirl in. The latter are popular characters in their own right, but the number of changes so soon into the One Year Later era make it feel like this title's still trying to find its equilibrium.

None of this is necessarily the fault of writer McKeever, though this repetitive story (which McKeever apparently inherited from Johns) does little to excite the franchise. As with Teen Titans: The Future is Now, the present-Titans encounter a team of their doppelgangers from the future, and for the most part there's not even the moral ambiguity of the first tale; it's pretty clear the Titans from the future are bad and the Titans from the present are good. As with the earlier tale, the future Titans spout vague warnings of the next DC crossover (then, Infinite Crisis; now, Final Crisis), though it's even less clear here than before what the future Titans need of the past ones, or why the future Titans former enemies, Titans East, now fight alongside them.

Additionally, it's quite tiring that McKeever splits the Titans to individually fight their future selves, much as Johns just did having the Titans fight their evil counterparts in Teen Titans: Titans East. (This, as I understand it, is the second in an unintentional string of three-such stories, followed by a fight with the Terror Titans in Teen Titans: On the Clock.) Also as with Titans East and Titans Around the World, Wonder Girl appears as a weepy, dramatic stereotype, mourning the loss of Superboy, a far cry from the strong leader Peter David wrote in Young Justice. McKeever offers some closure on Wonder Girl's mourning in this story, hopefully for good. It's OK for the characters to miss Superboy, but it all borders heavily on melodrama.

What I did like, and what I look forward to in the next trade, is the budding dynamics McKeever creates between the characters. Kid Devil steals nearly every scene he's in, and his affection for Ravager makes both his character more appealing, and hers. Blue Beetle rounds out the trio, and the running gag where everyone treats Beetle as a Titans member even though he hasn't actually been invited is very funny. As well, that Blue Beetle are destined to have the same kind of legendary friendship as the former Blue Beetle and Booster Gold is apparent from the moment the two hit the page together, and I'm eager to see where this goes (the only difficulty is that it seems Robin is slowly becoming the least interesting character on his own team). McKeever also picks up Miss Martian's voice perfectly from Johns, and she fills well the supernatural role previously held by the Titan's Raven and Young Justice's Secret.

Titans of Tomorrow sports a number of art teams, not even counting guest spots by George Perez, Mike McKone, and Todd Dezago in the issue #50 tribute scenes. Of these, I liked Ale Garza's youthful, cartoony art the best. I liked least the heavy, dark, sketchy art of Eddy Barrows, though I enjoyed what I've seen of upcoming issues better than what I saw here. Unfortunately, the inconsistent art only reinforces my sense that Teen Titans still struggles to find itself post-Infinite Crisis; I can only hope it all gets figured out soon.

[Contains full covers]

Connected with Titans of Tomorrow, we'll now turn to Blue Beetle: Reach for the Stars, and then maybe some Trials of Shazam from there.

Number 387


Let's have a cheer for ol' P.U.


The college football season has been upon us for a few weeks, and like a lot of fans I'm following my team's progress. Of course the guys on my college football team aren't like these football players from Crazy #3, 1953. They wouldn't accept money or favors for being spoiled, pampered, coddled football stars. Oh, noooooo, I'm sure that isn't happening on my team.

The story is drawn by Joe Maneely. Following up is a 3-pager by, I believe, Howie Post. Yesterday I guessed the artists of two Fiction House stories, and today I'm guessing again. Whatever, the artwork on both stories depends a lot on penwork, one of the trademarks of both Maneely and Post.

After the stories check out another comic artist mystery.

**********

This past weekend I found a 78 RPM record album with a cover signed "Sinnott". The copyright date on the album is 1948.

According to a biography, Joe Sinnott was attending school at the time and assisting Tom Gill on Western stories. He began soloing at Atlas in 1950. I'm leaning toward this artwork as being "our" Joe Sinnott based on the signature. The capital "s", the tilt of the lettering and curvature of the signature is the giveaway for me. The top example of his signature is from a 1956 comic book story, and the bottom is enlarged from the album cover.

Number 386


Werewolf Hunter/Ghost Gallery


Today we've got two stories from Fiction House's Ghost Comics #3, and based on the artwork they're reprints from the 1940s.

I get in trouble when I try to identify artists, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that "Werewolf Hunter" is drawn by Lily Renée and "Ghost Gallery" by Jack Kamen. Anyone out there agree/disagree?

Number 385


"You're big...and ugly...and crude...but I love you!"


...and speaking of love, I really love the breathless Mickey Spillane-styled prose in these Johnny Dynamite stories. You just don't read this stuff anymore, like the caption of the panel above, or the panel on page two: "He moaned as the flesh was laid open to the bone and fell in a stupor as his teeth crumpled under the impact."

How about, "What was left of his face slobbered and drooled as I pumped a bullet into his guts."

Has a certain poetic quality to it, don't you think? There's probably a pretty good reason you don't read stuff like that anymore.

The story is from Dynamite #4, November, 1953. Patterned by writer William Waugh after Spillane's popular Mike Hammer series of paperback best-sellers, and drawn by Pete Morisi. Waugh's violent and turgid descriptions and dialogue are more interesting than Morisi's workmanlike drawing. I posted the first story from this issue in Pappy's #264.

You may want to skip Supergirl: Beyond Good and Evil and the following trade, Supergirl: Way of the World, and just start with the Sterling Gates creative team that comes along after. After Joe Kelly's madcap, just-so-wrong-it's-right take on Supergirl in Supergirl: Identity, writer Kelley Puckett and artist Drew Johnson offer a more traditional take on Kara Zor-El that ultimately has less controversy ... but also seemingly less substance.

I firmly believe that Kelley Puckett's run on Batgirl, along with art by Damion Scott, should be listed as a definitive Batgirl (Cassandra Cain) creative team. It was obvious Puckett understood the character, writing a series of nearly-silent one-shot issues that developed Batgirl while remaining true to the core of the character. To this end, I expected very much to enjoy Puckett's work on Supergirl; he's shown he can write young, female characters in an even, unexploitive, interesting way.

The difficulty is that Puckett writes Supergirl here almost as if she were Batgirl. There's great, great swaths of silent pages here, as Supergirl exchanges knowing glances with Superman as she looks back into Krypton's past, or fights the classic Supergirl-villain Reactron (in a new, fairly generic form). This silence only reinforces the plainness of Puckett's Supergirl story; as opposed to Joe Kelly's bad-girl Supergirl, Puckett's Supergirl has an equal stranger-in-a-strange world vibe, but shows it only through the generic superhero tropes of saving civilians and battling bad guys.

Puckett, to his credit, is moving toward a larger tale where Supergirl, bucking traditional superhero tropes, tries to cure a disease-ridden boy instead of just stopping robbers. This is not new territory, though Puckett does imbue it with some suspense, as in the final pages an alien whisks Supergirl off to a future she's destined to destroy by aiding the boy in the present. Unfortunately, this glimmer of uniqueness comes only at the end of this tale, and it takes a while (a long, silent while) to get there.

Indeed, the middle of the story has Supergirl looking back on Krypton such that she sees her father sending her to Earth -- an origin story that conflicts with Joe Kelly's origin just one trade earlier. I understand the thematic reason for this, as Supergirl's seeing Krypton die again makes her that much more determined to save the dying child, but again it's a far less edgy, more "vanilla" origin for Supergirl than what DC Comics recently established. Over in the Superman titles, Geoff Johns has slowly rolled out a new vision of Krypton, and my guess is that Supergirl needs to be revamped to go along with that; it's an awkward post-post-Infinite Crisis retcon (a la the current second revamp of Hawkman) that would no doubt confuse more casual readers.

While we're on the topic, I also continue to be bugged by how writers portray Superman in the Supergirl title as this worrying fogey. I distinctly remember a conversation between Superman and the Kon-El Superboy where Superman talks about his love for Metallica albums and dance contests; Kon saw Superman as a friend and mentor, not as a third wheel. I don't mind some conflict between Superman and Supergirl, but as a fan of both titles, it's tiring to see Supergirl groan about Superman over and over, when the reader's supposed to relate to Superman elsewhere in the DC Universe. It makes me glad Supergirl will be a greater part of the Super-family with the next creative team, as maybe things will be more aligned.

I was glad, by the way, to see Action Comics #850 reprinted at the beginning of this trade. While it suffers from some of the same "fogey Superman" troubles I mentioned above, the completist in me is glad to have it. I like the watercolor-like art from Renato Guedes here; Drew Johnson, who's work I liked on Wonder Woman, does an nice job on Supergirl, though she looked much older here than with Ale Garza or Ian Churchill.

Kelly Puckett's Supergirl isn't bad, insulting, or embarassing by any stretch ... it's just slow. I'm eager for a team that can find a balance on the character where she's not over the top, but also has interesting adventures.

[Contains full covers.]

Up next, a bit of Teen Titans (also featuring Supergirl) and then some Blue Beetle.

Number 384


Zakka's Debt


Here's a tale of the high seas, mutiny, mayhem and a gentle giant's friendship with a young boy. I probably should've posted this last Friday on Talk Like A Pirate Day.

It's from Buster Brown Comic Book #33, published sometime in the mid-1950s, and drawn by Reed Crandall.


Last time I posted a Reed Crandall story from Buster Brown #30, George Freeman wrote a comment to tell us it was inked by Ray Willner. As George pointed out, Willner's inking was more angular than Crandall's. Willner has a signed story in #33, one of his Indian elephant boy Gunga stories. I think he did not only the pencilling and inking on Gunga, but the inking over Crandall's pencils as well.

If there's anything about this comic that bugs me it's that the Zakka character on the cover--drawn by Willner?--doesn't match at all the character on the inside. The guy on the cover looks like he's older, shorter and leaner, and a lot less capable of hoisting a mast than Crandall's giant. When you see a glaring discrepancy like this you wonder where the editor was.