So, I'm going to be dropping Teen Titans after what's happened in this latest issue. Why? Well, click behind "Read More" and you'll find out.
(WARNING: SPOILERS FOR TEEN TITANS #62)
The exact pages in question can be found here.
For those that don't want to slog through it, I'll explain the problem:
Marvin and Wendy, the two teenage Superfriends carryovers who run maintenance on the tower, discover a strange dog that's landed on the island and they decide to take it in. In the same book, they're discussing how they should leave, since they serve no purpose there. After getting reassurance from Cyborg and Red Devil that they are in fact wanted around there, the Wonderdog they adopted turns into a giant monster and kills them gratuitously on panel.
Let me be even more accurate: Wendy discovers the monstrous dog eating her dead brother, only to have said dog start chasing her through the tower. She cries out for help through the intercoms, but since they're still under repair, she can't get to them, and then, while crying and continuing to try to escape, she's eventually cornered by the monster and killed off-panel.
...
You know, I gave McKeever a lot of credit last time for the team-up issue with Red Devil and Blue Beetle. I thought it was funny, entertaining, and I thought things might actually be turning around in this book. But now, McKeever has apparently decided to fall back on a horrible shock tactic of murdering two teenage supporting characters to show... what, exactly? That comics aren't for kids? That he's not writing Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane anymore?
People gave a lot of trust to McKeever because of his previous experience in writing teen heroes. Even I gave him that trust. That trust, I can see, is unfounded. His stories have been lifeless, the characters have been moody, unnecessarily dark, and just plain unlikeable. Beyond Issue #61, I see no reason why any of these teens feel like they'd want to hang around with each other as friends or as a team.
I got into comics because of Devin Grayson's run on Titans. I loved that book and I've stuck with it through hard times and good times, but this is it. I don't buy comics so I can read about a teenage girl fleeing for her life and crying the whole time without hope of rescue until she's slaughtered by some monster. This isn't a slasher flick, Sean - it's supposed to be a positive book, giving hope for the future of heroism. I am dropping Teen Titans and until McKeever either shapes up or we get a better writer on the book, I'm not looking back.
And don't even get me started on Eddie Barrows' artwork, and this is coming from a guy who usually doesn't notice bad artwork unless he's actually looking for it.
In any case, I think I'll leave Martin Sheen to sum up my feelings on Sean McKeever right now:
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Wherein I give up on what was my favorite book
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5 comments:
I'm so glad you were as disgusted by this issue as I was (more here, although I'll warn you - I swear when I'm mad). I had dropped McKeever's run a while back when it became clear that he could somehow make Blue Beetle a miserable character, let alone formerly perky Miss Martian. But taking what sounded like a vintage style "day in the life" story judging by the summary and turning it into a gross mess is just the last straw. And that's not getting into the dog lover part of my brain; that's just the comic dork part.
I agree with you that he seems to be trying to prove something, but if anything, it's proving his charming Mary Jane stories were an odd fluke. And that's not a good thing to prove.
Yeah, I read this too. It was not good...
For starters, I just don't buy that something like that could happen without ANY of the Titans knowing about it. If those twins had been wearing costumes, you can be damn sure some mcguffin would have come into play to save them.
Needlessly graphic and brutal.
Side note - I thought the "real" Wonder Twins were already introduced back in Extreme Justice? Any connection? Is EJ still in continuity or are people just choosing to ignore it cos of all the awful?
~GQ
I felt he did an okay Blue Beetle and Miss Martian, melashaan, it's just compared to how they were written previously it's just a noticable drop in quality (though Miss Martian's mental puppy attack is still awesome).
Well, GQ, the Wonder Twins are different from Marvin and Wendy. The Wonder Twins were aliens who could transform their bodies into a myriad of shapes and sizes by putting their hands together and shouting, "Wonder Twin powers activate!" Wendy and Marvin never had any actual powers. They were kind of like the Scooby Doo gang hanging out with actual superheroes.
it'd be pretty easy for that green guy to start choking plastic man in last last picture . .
U
You should give "Teen Titans" another chance. It's gotten tons better. By issue #73, it got awesome. Ironically, that issue involved another character death, but it was a death of a HERO not some prissy wimp.
Honestly, is being a Titan a death sentence or something?
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