Review: Teen Titans Vol. 2- The Culling

Quick Summary

Pros: The characters’ friendship is well-written and their interactions are entertaining.

Cons: The volume opens with a crossover that is collected poorly and not that interesting. A number of jumps in logic hurt the narrative.

Overall: Unfortunately, much of the potential from the previous volume is lost here and this book ends up being a rather disappointing affair overall. It starts with a host of problems and steadily improves as the volume progresses, though not quickly enough to fix the damage that was already done. The characters are still entertaining but their story feels more secondary than it did earlier. This volume may appeal to those who loved the characters from the first volume but it won’t appeal to those looking for a solid standalone storyline.

Story

Though the first volume in this new Teen Titans series was promising, Teen Titans Vol. 2: The Culling is a mess that only starts to redeem itself toward the very end. The opening storyline presents poorly collected chapters from The Culling: Rise of the Ravagers (Review), an event that was bad on its own and even worse when presented in pieces. The volume improves as it progresses but still has a number of problems with maintaining a logical narrative. Every now and then, there are wonderfully written character focused moments that allow readers to see what this book could have been, but these are weighed down but the book’s many negatives. It is disappointing to see the series take a turn like this but, hopefully, it will be able to recover in the future.

(spoilers start here)

The volume starts out with a few chapters from The Culling (Review). This crossover received a lot of buildup in Teen Titans Vol. 1 (Review) so many readers will likely be disappointed in how poor the end product plays out. Instead of being an exciting story all on its own, The Culling (Review) is more of a chaotic setup for a completely separate series. In addition, the way it is collected within this volume leaves out large portions of the story and makes the narrative pretty hard to understand.

After dealing with this event, the Teen Titans end up taking a quick breather on a mysterious island. This portion of the story sees the writing get significantly better, mostly because it allows Lobdell to show off his affinity for creating charming character interactions. Watching the Titans pal around with each other is great and one of the more rewarding pieces of the volume.

However, this same section of the book is also riddled with a number of illogical story elements. No explanation is given for how the Teen Titans were transported from the middle of nowhere to a tropical island, the mysteries of the island are left completely unexplored, and Superboy suddenly acts like the team’s close friend, despite having only one positive interaction with them. None of this fits in well with the overall narrative of the series and raises additional frustrations for anyone trying to enjoy everything that is going on.

The final piece of the book sees things get back to an overall average level of quality. It follows a plotline that details Wonder Girl’s origin and has her overcome pieces of her own past. This gives Wonder Girl plenty of time to shine while still reserving moments for the rest of the team to develop. If the entire volume was like this, the book would be far easier to recommend. However, this final positive ends up feeling like too little, too late.

(spoilers end here)

Art

Teen Titans Vol. 2: The Culling features a couple of different artists, causing the quality level to experience a few ups and down. Brett Booth’s chapters tend to dominate the upswings in quality. His work here is highly detailed and filled with life. Whether drawing a tropical locale or harsh city streets, he manages to make the environment look beautiful. Specifically, he does fantastic work in drawing the power of Wonder Girl’s armor and presenting it in a creative fashion.

Meanwhile, Ig Guara and Alé Garza’s chapters look more average. Though there is little wrong with these chapters structurally, they simply lack the detail and power present in Booth’s chapters. They still look alright visually but are a bit of a downswing for the volume’s quality.

Continuity

Teen Titans Vol. 2: The Culling continues the story started in Teen Titans Vol. 1: It’s Our Right to Fight (Review). In addition, this volume contains a piece of The Culling (Review), a crossover event through three comic series.

The story here continues in Teen Titans Vol. 3: Death of the Family (Review).

This volume also makes references to other comic books, detailed below:

• The events of Superboy Vol. 1: Incubation (Review) play a significant role in the beginning of this volume.
• The Legion Lost’s origin is detailed in Legion Lost Vol. 1: Run From Tomorrow (Review).
• Superboy and Wonder Girl have a short adventure before showing up in the “Saur Feelings” chapter. Their adventure takes place in Superboy #10, which is collected in Superboy Vol. 2: Extraction.
• The final pages in this volume appear to be a reference to Batman Vol. 3: Death of the Family (Review).