As far as DC’s big-name titles go, Titans hasn’t been one that has impressed me in a long time. It seems that DC’s 20-something heroes suffer something of an identity crisis. They aren’t “Teen” Titans anymore, but the older generation is still around so they can’t really graduate to Justice League status. As such, they exist in a limbo. One writer after another has tried for years to do something with them, and nothing has really worked.
So how is it that Blackest Night: Titans #1 kicks so much ass?
J.T. Krul, who also wrote the wonderful prelude in Titans #15, presents us with members of both the Teen and adult Titans teams, past and present, coming together to remember their dead (as seen in Blackest Night #1). Several of our heroes are focusing on specific people they’ve loved and lost — Beast Boy remembers the disgraced traitor, Terra, whom he loved. For Donna Troy, she remembers her dead husband and child. The current Hawk and Dove remember the first siblings to carry those names… well, you get the picture.
As the dead begin to rise, the Titans find themselves targeted by some of the most cruel Black Lanterns yet, toying with their emotions to a degree unseen in many of the other tie-ins.
We also see some development of a plot thread that began in Blackest Night #2, when the corpse of Don Hall — the first Dove — could not be raised from the dead. When we see Dawn, the current Dove, through “Black Lantern Vision,” she doesn’t register in any of the emotional colors we’ve seen thus far. She appears as white, and the Black Lanterns don’t record an emotion. Dawn, and Don before her, is an emissary of the forces of peace. Up until now, I’ve been theorizing that is there is indeed a “White Lantern Corps” to counteract the Black, they would represent Life. But is it possible that the White Lanterns could actually represent peace? Is it possible that the reason Don cannot be raised by the Black Lanterns is because he is literally “At Peace,” and has been recruited as an agent of the White?
Rating: 9/10
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