Friday, January 9, 2015

TEEN TITANS: EARTH ONE by Jeff Lemire

DC COMICS

In the vein of Superman: Earth One and Batman: Earth One, DC is publishing an updated take on its angsty adolescent heroes, the Teen Titans.

For the Superman and Batman Earth One titles, DC brought out the big guns, using all-star writers J. Michael Straczynski and Geoff Johns respectively. Unlike the two flag-ship character origin stories of EARTH ONE, Teen Titans is scribed by Jeff Lemire, a writer known for standing on the edges of the traditional DC story-lines (i.e. Animal Man, Green Arrow).

Lemire's creator-owned work has established him as the go-to-guy for stories about young adults with a dark twist (see his award winning series Sweet Tooth). So readers familiar with Lemire's previous work might carry and expectation of weird into these pages.

Though reader's expectations may be different than what is delivered between the gutters. While this is a very different take on the origin of the Teen Titans, it feels as though DC editorial had a strong idea for the story before it was given to Lemire when compared to his creater-owned comic book titles.

Without spoiling the experience of reading, what is a well-written, well-drawn teen-angst super-hero origin story, I'll say that the story feels like the Superboy origin was put into a blender with MARVEL's The Runaways.

The art is great. Dodgson's work is perfect for the story. His style has just a hint of anime to it, that I think many young-adult readers will feel comforting, especially if they aren't regular tights-and-capes comic readers.

Most Teen Titans fans are die-hards. I doubt that this book will please the uber-fanboys and fangirls. This is an original take on a group of characters that have forever been haphazardly thrown together. What Lemire and his team did right, is give these characters a reason to be together, a reason that stands independent from the "put all the sidekicks on a team" reason of the past.

Buy Teen Titans: Earth One from Death Ray Comics.

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