New Titans Breaks the Cycle of the Teen Titans
Until the recently launched New Titans, the Teen Titans, since the groundbreaking Marv Wolfman and George Perez run, has felt like one of the most cyclical comic teams in the DC Universe. The cycle is close to as follows:
- Fearsome Five
- Deathstroke
- Terra
- Trigon
- Brother Blood
- Raven Turns Evil
- Nightwing and Starfire Will They/Won’t They?!?!
Rinse and repeat across all their media versions. The original animated TV show, the subsequent animated film adaptations, and everything in between, minus Teen Titans Go, have followed a formula that just doesn’t lead to anything worth reading for the most part. But the machine is broken! Smashed to bits by Tate Brombal and Sami Basri’s debut on New Titans #33 with the quick right hook of #34. The only way out of a broken cycle in this case is straight through.
New Titans #33 tackles the cyclical nature of the title by directly using the issue’s metaphor to kick off a new era. What if the Teen Titans were stuck in Groundhog Day, forced to relive the same adventures over and over without major change? That is the world we find ourselves in with our POV character, Dick Grayson. Each cycle starts with a fresh pot of everyone’s favorite bean water, coffee. But that coffee is essentially the Kool-Aid of comfort to live the same handful of storylines over and over.
Throughout the text, Brombal and Basri aren’t afraid to admit that what came before was stuck in a loop and needed to change. One of the things I loved through this entire repeated sequence was Basri’s use of Beast Boy to show the small tweaks we have seen over time. He goes from his Doom Patrol red costume to the purple suit general audiences know him for, and then from his actual green body to red. It’s just little nods to what has changed while keeping the essential parts the same, at the expense of something new. Something new is exactly what Brombal and Basri are bringing to the team.
When the New Titans burst through the wall of the virtual reality that the few original Titans are stuck in, things change. Even if #34 relies on the old faithful misunderstanding of fist fights that superheroes love, it sets the stage that this book isn’t going to stick to the formula. It defines itself as a bold new era, just as the rest of the DC Next Level line has. The confrontation of the monotony of stories that came before is something you can’t walk back from in the best possible way.
Brombal is one of the best writers working in the space, full stop. His work focuses heavily on carving an uncharted path in storytelling, which is why the first issue feels like such a fresh start. Brombal works so well when flipping a familiar narrative to tell a deeply character-driven story. For example, Everything Dead and Dying is a zombie comic that on the surface could look like any Walking Dead book on the shelf, but defies everything we have seen before in so many other stories. Instead of focusing on the large group of survivors, it focuses on someone others would see as a villain in control of a zombie-controlled town. It’s a heavy-hearted, emotionally resonant story with real weight to its characters, making it one of the best zombie comics to hit shelves. When faced with the familiar, Brombal breaks the mold, rebuilding it into something so much more, using the pieces people love.
If you have noticed, I haven’t even needed to discuss who’s on the New Titans yet because in the long run it could be anyone. Brombal and Basri present ideas and a story that stand on their own, even before we get to see the extremely cool team line-up. It’s a comic whose narrative is enough to make me recommend it as a 10/10 book only after two issues. Confronting such a large trope about the Teen Titans only having a handful of stories is a bold move that makes this book a must-read. I look forward to seeing how the mold continues to be shattered, creating a new generation of essential Titan stories, because it’s been far too long.
