Ame-Comi Girls Volume 3: Earth In Crisis Is Too Fractured To Be Worthwhile!

The Good: Moments of character, Some fun panels
The Bad: Inconsistent artwork, No real character development, Plot falls apart.
The Basics: Ame-Comi Girls Volume 3: Earth In Crisis starts strong, but then becomes a mess as the series it anthologized abruptly came to an end.


When it comes to questionable ideas in comic books, I will be the first to admit that I thought Ame-Comi Girls had hit the conceptual jackpot for terrible ideas. The entire comic book like was created around the DC Collectibles statue/toy line that reimagined popular female characters from the DC Universe in more of an anime style for the costumes and, frankly, overt sexuality. But somehow, Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray made it work with Ame-Comi Girls Volume 1 (reviewed here!) and its sequel, enough that I felt the desire to actually complete the saga, picking up Ame-Comi Girls Volume 3: Earth In Crisis, the final compilation of the Ame-Comi Girls comic books.

Ame-Comi Girls Volume 3: Earth In Crisis picks up in the middle of the story begun in Ame-Comi Girls Volume 2: Rise Of The Brainiac (reviewed here!) - in fact the abrupt ending to the story was one of the problems with the prior volume. Ame-Comi Girls Volume 3: Earth In Crisis is a compilation of, essentially, three stories - Hawkgirl's entrance to the narrative, Sinestra's attack on Earth, and then vignettes featuring the Teen Hellions, Space Pirates and random heroines (White Canary and Mera) fighting as "auditions" to join the Justice League. The end of the book is a tremendous departure for Ame-Comi Girls Volume 3: Earth In Crisis and in addition to losing narrative cohesion, it is there that the book loses its charm. There is an abrupt quality to the fight involving Sinestra and the resolution is hardly a satisfying one; so the transition away from the (now) familiar characters is jarring. In some ways, the last portion of Ame-Comi Girls Volume 3: Earth In Crisis feels like the equivalent of test marketing for the new characters!

Opening on Thanagar with Shayera Thath at age ten is rapidly becoming a streetbrawler, much to the dismay of her stepmother and father. Five years later, she is married to Katar, the boy she was protecting while fighting off older boys and the pair work together on the Thanagarian police force. The two are working together when Sinestra and her forces attack Thanagar, killing Katar and making him into a Black Lantern. While fighting against Sinestra, Shayera is rescued by Alana Strange from Rann, who reveals to her the weapon built to try to stop Sinestra - Metra, a manufactured godess.

Alana teleports the newly formed Justice League to Rann to brief them on the impending fight with Sinestra. While all life on Earth is teleported to a safe planet, the Justice League witnesses Alana awakening Metra, which evaluates them and makes them into ringbearers of her light. As Sinestra's ship draws near the abandoned Earth, Supergirl, Green Lantern, Hawkgirl and Alana Strange bring the fight to space where they are beset by Sinestra's Lantern Corps. The battle is going surprisingly well until Black Lantern Katar arrives and kills Hawkgirl, converting her to a Black Lantern and Sinestra blasts the women fighting on Earth, converting some of them. With the battle turned impossibly against the heroes, Metra enters the fray finally, resolving the fight in an unexpected way.

What follows is the Black Lantern Flash trying to adapt to life after being killed and running around as a Black Lantern, stopping crimes. She is patrolling Keystone City one night when she encounters Red Raven, a vampire, and Red Raven tries to recruit her to the Teen Hellions. Red Raven wants The Flash to accompany her, Cyborg, Starfire, Beast Grrl, and Tempest on a mission to thwart her demon father, Trigon. Protecting Raven's physical body, The Flash helps the team send Trigon back to his own realm.

Big Barda leads space pirates against Empress Darkseid, which leads to Barda being reunited with Miss Miracle. Back on Earth, White Canary fights Pinky Violence and Mera and Black Manta fight one another. And then the book abruptly ends.

Alana Strange and Shayera are given backstories that are extensive enough to allow readers to care about them, though Alana's especially kills the narrative flow of Ame-Comi Girls Volume 3: Earth In Crisis. Obviously, the only way readers are going to care about Alana Strange is by getting her personal history, but it is revealed through several pages of exposition at a time when the main plot narrative is picking up steam. Similarly, Red Raven's sudden backstory in the middle of a fight is distracting from the flow.

Following the battle between Metra and Sinestra, Ame-Comi Girls Volume 3: Earth In Crisis falls completely apart. The vignettes that follow are packed with obscure characters and the artwork is very inconsistent. In fact, it becomes a labor to continue reading short stories of characters who then go nowhere.

Ame-Comi Girls Volume 3: Earth In Crisis is a disappointing ending to a series that started as a pleasant surprise.

For other big team-up books, please check out my reviews of:
Justice
Kingdom Come
The Brave And The Bold Volume 1: The Lords Of Luck

3/10

For other graphic novel reviews, please check out my Graphic Novel Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Teen Titans: Beast Boys & Girls Is Divided Between The “I Don’t Care” And “Necessary Evil” Storylines.

The Good: Moments of character, Moments of plot, Moments of artwork
The Bad: Lousy character development in the first story, Light on development in the second, Unclear time for first story, Dismal plot for first story
The Basics: Teen Titans: Beast Boys & Girls focuses on Garfield Logan and, truth be told, it’s virtually impossible to care.


Despite how I seem to select a pretty major superhero each year for my yearly study of a different character from graphic novels, I am actually a big fan of obscure, but cool, heroes. I am, for example, a huge fan of Justice League: Generation Lost (Volume 1 is reviewed here!). So, I was not at all adverse to the concept of the Teen Titans when I first picked up A Kid’s Game (reviewed here!). In fact, that book proved to me that in the right hands, Teen Titans could be entertaining and worthwhile.

But, I always had a little fear that theTeen Titans books would be simplified and droll, a fear that really came alive for me – despite having read two volumes of the series – when I saw the cover to Teen Titans: Beast Boys & Girls. The cover was animated and looked ridiculous with cartoon versions of the characters from the first two books I read. Fortunately, inside, the book was quite a bit more substantial on the artwork front than that. Unfortunately, the stories were – in many ways – overly simple, containing silly moralistic bits, and resulted in the first real dud of a graphic novel since I started reading Teen Titans.

Teen Titans: Beast Boys & Girls is actually two stories, though both focus primarily on Garfield Logan. Gar Logan, Beast Boy, is arguably the character I care about least since I started reading the Geoff Johns-era Teen Titans. He is a washed-up child actor who can shapechange into any animal he knows of. Unfortunately, his green skin keeps him from getting a lot of acting gigs, so he has been working to raise the new generation of Teen Titans.

The first story in Teen Titans: Beast Boys & Girls finds Garfield visiting Hollywood and whining about how he can’t get work. Staying with his loafer cousin, he is shocked when he is implicated in a series of acts that make it appear that he has lost all control of his abilities. While Gar freaks out and rots in prison, his former teammates, Nightwing and Flamebird, come to town to figure out just what is going on. When it becomes clear that another shapeshifter is at work, Gar comes face to face with the consequences of his own prior bad choices.

This first story is a real lemon. It rapidly becomes a mystery, but the mystery is pretty obvious because there has really only been a single stand-out guest character in the book. So, lacking a real mystery, the first story in the book is basically Gar complaining a lot and it is filled with ancillary characters who are anything but interesting. Flamebird is a pretty generic teen girl hero who seems very out of place in Gar’s attempt to seriously refocus his life. Gar’s slacker cousin seems utterly ridiculous and Nightwing’s appearance seems mostly to harken back to a series of events I have not read.

While the artwork in this section is at least fair, this whole plotline reminded me of “Assignment: Earth.” “Assignment: Earth” (reviewed here!) was an episode of Star Trek that Gene Roddenberry was using as a launching point for a new program he was trying to sell to the networks. It basically had the crew of the Enterprise back in the late 1960s meeting up with a guy whose mission was to save the planet and see Earth through the tumultuous end of the Nuclear Arms Race. The show mixed the recognizable characters in with new characters who were clearly struggling for a sense of identity and the resolution was basically the hope for a tangential project. This first section of Teen Titans: Beast Boys & Girls feels like that. But, given that I don’t much care about Gar, his cousin, or Flamebird, I’m not even looking into any follow-up to this series.

The title half of Teen Titans: Beast Boys & Girls is a bit better, but the more I considered it, the more it felt like a “necessary evil” storyline. “Necessary evil” storylines are those where the basic premise of a book or series invites a specific type of story to be executed. In the case of Gar Logan, because he is afflicted with an incurable disease, it makes sense that at some point there would be a story where someone tries to cure him. The latter half of Teen Titans: Beast Boys & Girls is that story. Unfortunately for Gar, the results are decidedly mixed.

Following the incident with Brother Blood in Family Lost (reviewed here!), the team is working on recovering. This includes Gar, who pretty much loathes doctors. As he begins to exhibit the signs of having a common cold, residents in San Francisco are alarmed when their youth begin turning into giant green animals! As Gar is mysteriously reverted to the full appearance of a human, the young people in San Francisco fall to the dreaded virus. Gar must work to restore the children and come to understand how, or by whom, they became infected!

Unfortunately, the moment the villain is revealed, the book is pretty much all over. With the villain having shapeshifting abilities as well, Teen Titans: Beast Boys & Girls gets to feeling extraordinarily repetitive. Gar fights one shapeshifter, Gar fights another, nothing really changes. Teen Titans: Beast Boys & Girls did not make me love the character.

However, the b and c plots in Teen Titans: Beast Boys & Girls are actually surprisingly decent. Connor Kent discovers that Tim Drake has given up the mantle of Robin after he finally “comes out” to his father! At the same time, while Raven gets acclimated to life on the mortal plane again, Cassie Sandsmark learns more about her lasso. An encounter with Ares foreshadows the return of Donna Troy, but Teen Titans: Beast Boys & Girls is actually more memorable for the scene between Wonder Girl and Ares than it is for the a-plot with Gar!

Ultimately, though, Teen Titans: Beast Boys & Girls has the pretty trite “it’s important to be yourself” message and it falls pretty flat as a result. The book is not terribly engaging and given how both feel like they are more in the middle of other stories than standing on their own, it is easy to pass by Teen Titans: Beast Boys & Girls.

For other books with outsiders in the DC universe, check out my reviews of:
Justice League: Cry For Justice
Birds Of Prey: Blood And Circuits
Amazons Attack!

3/10

For other book reviews, check out my Book Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Resurrecting Raven, Teen Titans: Family Lost Is Too Self-Referential To Stand On Its Own!

The Good: Decent story, Good artwork
The Bad: Light on character development, Heavily references events not in the book.
The Basics: On their first true mission as a team, the Teen Titans struggle with confronting a former member of the Titans that relies heavily upon prior volumes for any real sense of catharsis to it in Teen Titans: Family Lost.


As I await my next batch of Flash graphic novels, I have been opening myself up to other works by graphic novel authors whose past works I have enjoyed. In the case of the Geoff Johns library, this has compelled me to read Teen Titans and while I began, sensibly enough with Teen Titans: A Kid’s Game (reviewed here!), I have obviously moved on to Teen Titans: Family Lost. One of the things I am actually enjoying about this (so far) brief exploration of Teen Titans is that it does not feel like much of a departure from my Flash Year, because this generation of Teen Titans features Bart Allen – whom I was introduced to earlier this year in Flash as the character Impulse – as Kid Flash, so this series of stories seems to be tangential to several others I have read lately.

Teen Titans: Family Lost is a very average graphic novel: decent plot, good artwork, light on character. In fact, the most significant aspects of the character elements in Teen Titans: Family Lost remain without resonance for me as they reference heavily the prior incarnation of the Teen Titans and several characters and struggles with which I have no direct experience. As a newbie to the Teen Titan corner of the DC Universe, this strikes me as more than just a little flaw.

Having made a spectral resurgence within our realm, Raven appears to have been resurrected in some form. After the Teen Titans encounter Ravenger, who is promptly killed by Deathstroke’s newly recovered daughter, Rose, they find themselves embroiled with trying to get supervillains transferred to Alcatraz Island (which is part of the deal Kory and Victor worked out with San Francisco for allowing them to build the Titan Tower there). While Robin moralizes obsessively about what it means that he has to lie to his father, the Teen Titans are drawn into a conflict that involves a cult of blood.

There, Brother Blood is resurrecting Trigon, Raven’s biological father. As the semi-spectral Raven moves to stop Brother Blood and the Teen Titans infiltrate the cult and take down the skeletal version of Trigon, Deathstroke and Rose arrive to put Raven down once and for all. Between our world and a demonic pocket dimension within Raven, the battle rages for her body, mind, and soul, a battle the Titans may not be able to win!

On the character front, the most accessible aspect of Teen Titans: Family Lost is the Tim Drake arc. While Connor Kent continues to whine about detention and Krypto and Bart Allen has pretty much been reestablished as actually smart, Tim Drake faces the very real internal conflict of what it means to him to have to continue lying to his father about his secret identity. It was only as I continued to read Teen Titans: Family Lost that I excitedly realized that I actually know how that whole conflict resolves itself as it is a secondary plot in the wonderful Identity Crisis (reviewed here!). Here at the outset of the conflict, though, Tim is very easy to empathize with as he struggles with who he is and who he wants to be in relation to his father.

Teen Titans: Family Lost puts most of its emotional eggs in the basket of Raven and Deathstroke/Rose for much of the book, though. Raven’s background is encapsulated in convenient paragraphs at the beginning of the book, but her relationship with Brother Blood, the cult, and all of the emotional nuances of her character are not present there and Geoff Johns (smartly, on the one hand – for the fans) does not belabor the retelling of Raven’s full story in Teen Titans: Family Lost. Unfortunately, it means that on its own, Teen Titans: Family Lost stands up less well for one of the major characters and arcs of the book.

Moreover, the whole nature and relationship that Brother Blood and his cult have in the DC Universe is treated more like something a reader might already understand. Alas, as this is (to the best of my recollection) the first time I have encountered the character, the seeming history of him and his conflict with the Teen Titans remains elusive to me.

On the art front, Teen Titans: Family Lost features vibrant colors and well-penciled artwork. All of the characters are recognizable and there is a very clear delineation between reality and the demonic world inside Raven and the Temple of Blood. Visually, the story is very easy to follow.

But, because so much of Teen Titans: Family Lost focuses on the psychopathic Deathstroke and his daughter Rose, large parts of the book lack real emotional resonance. While the end is absolutely creepy and comprehensible, the impact of that moment is gone because this is only my second or third experience with Deathstroke. As a result, his emotional struggle rings pretty false, especially for a hired, trained killer.

Ultimately, Teen Titans: Family Lost is very average; it is worth the read, but not superlative in any way I could find. It will, however, entertain most readers at least while they are reading it.

For other graphic novels that follow secondary characters in the DC Universe, please be sure to check out my reviews of:
Justice - Volume 2
Justice League Of America: Cry For Justice
Brightest Day - Volume 1

5/10

For other book reviews, please check out my Book Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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A Very Average Beginning, Teen Titans: A Kid’s Game Puts Geoff Johns In The Driver’s Seat.

The Good: Adequately sets up the characters, Good voice, Generally decent artwork
The Bad: Little development in this volume, Very limited plot, Character conflicts are too quickly resolved.
The Basics: Geoff Johns being attached to the Teen Titans was the impetus for me giving Teen Titans: A Kid’s Game a fair shake and I found it to be on the underwhelming side of average.



The last superhero team I began whose works I began reading without any conception of who they were or what they stood for was Barbara Gordon’s Birds of Prey. The all-woman team appealed to me, but it was largely the fact that Gail Simone – who had written many of the Wonder Woman graphic novels I enjoyed - had written the series that I gave Birds Of Prey a chance. Having exhausted all of that series I could find through my local library system with Blood And Circuits (reviewed here!), I had been casually looking for other graphic novels to read while I waited for my library to get me in more Flash books.

I picked up Teen Titans: A Kid’s Game largely because Geoff Johns was the author, not because I had any particular interest or knowledge of the characters, though Bart Allen had been prominently featured in many of the Flash books I have read as part of my Flash Year. Bart Allen, like Cassie Sandsmark (who was much, much younger in the Wonder Woman books I read that had her in them!), is present in Teen Titans: A Kid’s Game and Bart actually has more of a character arc than the other characters in the book.

So, it was Geoff Johns’ name that got me to pick up and read Teen Titans: A Kid’s Game and coming in with no expectations and no history, Teen Titans: A Kid’s Game is okay. Johns is starting at the beginning with Teen Titans: A Kid’s Game . . . only it’s not a beginning, it’s a new beginning. As a result, the character mix is new and the concept is that this is the first time this particular incarnation of the Teen Titans has been brought together, but there is a history to the Teen Titans and villains motivated by that past that makes Teen Titans: A Kid’s Game a little less accessible than I would have liked (I like true beginnings).

That said, Teen Titans: A Kid’s Game is not bad and it is an interesting beginning at the very worst.

Teen Titans: A Kid’s Game opens with the essential crew being introduced. Superman, disappointed at how Connor is slacking off at school, encourages Superboy to join the Teen Titans as a weekend activity, while Batman encourages Robin to join the Teen Titans so he will have a positive social outlet and actually make friends. Wally West and Jay Garrick see Bart joining the Teen Titans as a way to give the boy who has been Impulse a sense of focus and give the Garrick’s the weekends off. When Wonder Woman refuses to deliver the invitation to the Teen Titans to Cassie Sandsmark (Wonder Girl), Starfire makes a personal appeal to the girl. Exploring the Titans Tower in San Francisco, Cassie continually feels the ghosts of Donna Troy and is resistant to joining. But as the young people debate who might stay and who will go, Deathstroke the Terminator shows up to leave a message (by shooting out Bart Allen’s kneecap) that the Titans should not reform.

The hunt for Slade Wilson and the attempt to stop him quickly takes a turn for the weird when it appears that Deathstroke is actually possessed by his dead son, a former Teen Titan who Wilson killed. While Robin and Connor work to discover who Connor’s human DNA belongs to and Cassie tries to move out from under the legacy of Donna Troy, Bart reforms himself as Kid Flash and reads an entire library. Guided by Cyborg and Gar, the new Teen Titans confront Deathstroke, aiming to put an end to his conflict with them and let Jerico rest!

Following the tussle with Deathstroke, the heroes converge upon the Titan Tower because Wonder Woman is annoyed at Starfire for bringing the offer to Cassie. Wonder Woman’s annoyance only grows when she learns that Wonder Girl’s lasso comes from Ares, her immortal enemy. When the Justice League intervenes, they establish boundaries between the two hero teams.

Teen Titans: A Kid’s Game closes with the story of Clark Kent giving Connor his Kryptonian dog, Krypto.

Teen Titans: A Kid’s Game is very much an establishing story, so while it establishes the heroes, it does very little to develop them. Of course, because it is a beginning, Geoff Johns has to lay the framework for the stories that will follow and he does that with both the Robin/Superboy and Wonder Girl/Ares subplots. Within Teen Titans: A Kid’s Game, Bart Allen has a pretty solid arc as he makes the transformation from Impulse to Kid Flash, in the process maturing more than he did as Impulse. Geoff Johns does create an intriguing mystery with the revelation of Connor’s genetic origins and with Ares expressing an interest in Cassie Sandsmark.

More than any of the other reboots or early ventures from DC Comics that I have read, Teen Titans: A Kid’s Game featured decent artwork. Most of the reboots I have read so far seem to have a break-in period where DC is not investing their top artistic talent, but Teen Titans: A Kid’s Game had solid artwork and a decent sense of coloring to it.

Even as a beginning, Teen Titans: A Kid’s Game lacked a hook or punch to make me truly care about what came next. Johns does a decent set-up, but it is a set-up that feels like what it is. As a result, despite the quality of the artwork, Teen Titans: A Kid’s Game is thougher to recommend on its own and is much more average than it is extraordinary.

For other works by Geoff Johns, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Blackest Night
Justice League, Volume 1: Origins
War Of The Green Lanterns
The Flash: Wonderland

4.5/10

For other graphic novel reviews, be sure to check out my Graphic Novel Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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