Teen Titans #8: It took me some effort to get through this issue, because DeFalco fails to provide the reader any sugar as Lobdell forces down a spoonful of exposition. We're treated to "Omen" using her "womb" to reveal the image of the Titans' darkest selves, though the result is muddled at best in terms of the lessons we learn from it. For example, with Red Robin, Omen lays bare his "greatest fear:" becoming who he wants people to believe he is. (He's afraid of becoming himself?) But, with Cassie, Omen merely states information that Cassie already knows, that her powers come from her armor and her lasso is apparently killing her. (This moment feels completely expository, given that Cassie, as I said, already knows the information that Omen "reveals," making it news only to the reader.) Omen fails to learn anything, really, from Skitter, who tells Omen that life on Earth is doomed if she doesn't undo her splitting of Skitter into her Celine and Skitter personnas. Finally, Kid Flash gets stripped of his power-controling uniform and escapes, so we only get a chance to see Omen confirm what, in this case, both we and Bart already know, that he's hearing voices. Looking at these moments, I'm left to wonder how they have anything to do with one another. Sometimes Omen is revealing fears, other times truths, other times secrets. It makes you wonder what her power really is, other than exposition. Moreover, we never learn what she was doing in using her powers of exposition. She's in theory preparing the Titans for some event that Harvest is planning, but Lobdell never draws the line between Omen's actions in this issue and how they prepare the heroes for said event. It just feels like a vague attempt to torture them for no real purpose (other than exposition for the reader), particularly since Harvest has his lackey, Leash, merely grab them and disappear at the end.
Teen Titans Annual #1: OK, so, even with the "Hunger Games" parallels doing a lot of the work for me, Lobdell doesn't do much to resolve some of the questions I had from last issue. In fact, he only adds questions (and not in a "ooo, the plot thickens" kind of way). We learn that the children held in the Colony are not only meta-humans, but also regular humans and infected victims of the "hypertaxis virus" (something apparently explained in "Legion Lost" #8). But, we aren't even given a hint of Harvest's plans for any of these groups. First, we don't learn why he chose regular humans (like Artemis) to participate or why he felt the need to use the hypteraxis virus to add to his Colony numbers. (Moreover, his use of this future virus raises questions in the Legion's mind about his connection to the 31st century, as does his use of advanced technology that manages to block Gates' power.) We also still haven't learned the point of the Culling. Yes, he's separating the strong from the weak with his gladiator competitions in the Crucible, but we don't learn what he intends to do with the victorious strong, other than turn them into "Ravagers." What does he plan on doing with the Ravagers? For me, personally, the addition of the "hypertaxis virus" and, in fact, the Legion itself were distractions, a clear attempt to create an arbitrary connection to avoid this event "just" happening in "Superboy" and "Teen Titans." Other than the mandatory "superhero team fighting another superhero team thanks to the machinations of the mysterious villain" sequence, the Legion doesn't really do anything here that couldn't have been done just by the Titans, except expand the scale of the conflict. In so doing, Lobdell cuts off areas of characterization, leaving the fact that Superboy has joined the Titans essentially ignoreed in the chaos. I'm hoping that, when the dust settles, we successfully leave behind this N.O.W.H.E.R.E. business for a while and focus on the Titans themselves. Given what Lobdell is doing in "Red Hood and the Outsiders" with the All Caste, unfortunately, I'm doubtful that it's going to happen.
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