Review: Teen Titans Vol. 5- The Trial of Kid Flash

Quick Summary

Pros: Some moments are entertaining and show off the Teen Titans in a meaningful way.

Cons: Both the storytelling and the characterization is inconsistent. Abrupt endings lead to some bad story arcs within this volume and also damage arcs started in previous volumes.

Overall: Instead of fun adventures with compelling characters, this volume presents an unstructured narrative with characters whose inconsistency destroys their appeal. This is a rough volume from beginning to end, one that jumps randomly from chapter to chapter without building on any of the most interesting elements. Even fans who enjoyed the previous volumes are likely to be disappointed here, as a number of storylines fail to live up to their potential. Overall, this is not a book that many fans will enjoy.

Story

The final volume in this Teen Titans series is a disappointment through and through. Teen Titans Vol. 5: The Trial of Kid Flash, by Scott Lobdell, presents an inconsistent and cluttered end to a series that had a decent amount of promise. Characters change emotions at random times, multiple new storylines pop in to disrupt the narrative, and a number of series’ loose ends are rapidly concluded in ways that feel unsatisfying. In various places, this volume shows a great deal of promise, as a few individual moments are entertaining. However these moments are quickly swept away in the chaos of this narrative.

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The biggest flaw throughout The Trial of Kid Flash is how cluttered the overall narrative is. The volume starts with the Titans being randomly tossed through time, then abruptly drops this storyline to kick off the plot of Superboy Vol. 5: Paradox, then jumps into an extended flashback featuring Kid Flash, then has the Titans face random enemies back in the present, before finally ending by dealing with Harvest. Each one of these plotlines had potential on its own but none received enough time to actually expand on this potential. Instead, the story is dropped and a rough transition takes place to move things forward.

These abrupt endings contribute to the volume’s other major problem, poor conclusions. Plotlines involving Trigon’s return, Bunker’s boyfriend’s tragic accident, Wonder Girl and Superboy’s romance, and the threat posed by the evil Superboy are concluded or dropped with almost no fanfare at all. Even Harvest, who has been the most prominent villain in this entire series, is dealt with in a handful of pages, rather than in the epic showdown that earlier stories implied was coming. In this way, this volume damages itself and retroactively damages earlier volumes, whose pages were wasted in setting up storylines that never fully panned out.

Going hand in hand with all of these inconsistencies are the volume’s inconsistent characters. Moods, decisions, and personalities change in strange ways within this volume and in relation to earlier volumes. For example, Bar Torr goes from barely caring about his time as Kid Flash to saying it was one of the only times in his life where he was truly happy. Meanwhile, Wonder Girl goes from admitting she never cared for Robin in the previous volume to starting a relationship with him in this volume. When characters are this inconsistent, it becomes hard to get involved with the story or even care about what is happening, which significantly damages the volume’s appeal.

The only real positive here is that there are brief, meaningful moments scattered throughout the collection. Bart’s goodbye and the Teen Titans’ final sendoff are emotional scenes that remind readers how great these characters are. These moments don’t last long and are often diluted by other aspects of the story, but can provide some brief entertainment.

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Art

There are a number of solid artists who contribute to The Trial of Kid Flash. Tyler Kirkham’s pencils are detailed and give the work a feeling of intense action, while Kenneth Rocafort’s work in the final chapter is incredibly creative. On an individual basis, this gives the chapters in this book a pretty average feeling overall.

However, complications arise when viewing this volume as a complete work. Different chapters present characters in ways that have a great deal of variation. For example, in some chapters, Superboy looks like a child, while in others he looks like a fully-grown adult. Variations like these make an already inconsistent volume feel even more so and help exacerbate the book’s faults.

Continuity

Teen Titans Vol. 5: The Trial of Kid Flash continues the story from Teen Titans Vol. 4: Light and Dark (Review).

This Teen Titans series ends with this volume. However, a new Teen Titans series begins with Teen Titans Vol. 1: Blinded by the Light (Review).

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

• The beginning of this volume directly continues the Teen Titan’s story from their appearance at the beginning of Forever Evil (Review).
• The history behind the Jon Kent version of Superboy and the origin of Harvest are told in Superboy #19, which is collected in Superboy Vol. 3: Lost (Review).
• Kid Flash references meeting the Flash and Vibe recently. He met the Flash in issue #21 of The Flash, which is collected in The Flash Vol. 4: Reverse. He met Vibe at the beginning of Justice League of America’s Vibe Vol. 1: Breach.
• Beast Boy’s friend Ridge last appeared in The Ravagers Vol. 2: Heavenly Destruction (Review)