The Stop Button

blogging by Andrew Wickliffe

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Category: Teen Titans

  • Teen Titans (1966) #50

    Teen Titans (1966) #50

    Bob Rozakis (script) Don Heck (pencils) Joe Giella (inks) Jerry Serpe (colors) Milt Snapinn (letters) E. Nelson Bridwell (associate editor) Julius Schwartz (editor) Writer Bob Rozakis—and I mean this statement as a compliment—has a wonderfully juvenile vibe for Teen Titans. Their dialogue is very groovy, maybe a little too groovy for 1977 (though they are…

  • Wednesday Comics 12 (23 September 2009

    One should never hope for too much from finales. Especially not from an extremely uneven anthology series like Wednesday Comics. Batman’s bad. Kamadi flops. Superman apparently only remembered after twelve installments he had a wife at home. Deadman is okay. One of the better mediocre strips. Green Lantern is bad. Metamorpho is lacking; Gaiman tries…

  • Wednesday Comics 11 (16 September 2009)

    Azzarello writes Batman as a rube while Risso tries to ape Sin City as a Batman. Gibbons once again summarizes the action too much on Kamandi. Sook’s barely got anything to do. Superman is bad. As usual. Deadman’s okay, Green Lantern’s awful. Ditto, respectively, for Metamorpho and Teen Titans. Hope respectively, in that sense, means…

  • Wednesday Comics 10 (9 September 2009)

    Batman versus dogs, Azzarello’s inspired and Risso can’t even draw a cool Batmobile. Kamandi comes back a little; there’s a big battle scene, lots of panels. Arcudi misses a great Superman: The Movie homage on his dumb Superman strip. Deadman’s okay, though all the action seems inappropriate. Green Lantern is lame; Busiek doesn’t understand weekly…

  • Wednesday Comics 9 (2 September 2009)

    The art on Batman’s good. Risso’s aping Frank Miller, but it’s a stylish fight regardless. Kamandi continues to have story problems and poor Sook has nothing active to draw. Crap Superman. Nice Deadman. It might be Comics’s underdog strip. It’s the best Green Lantern, which says little for the strip. Metamorpho‘s periodic table gimmick is…

  • Wednesday Comics 8 (25 August 2009)

    Batman’s bad; Azzarello’s desperate to make it a noir and he just can’t. Kamandi’s mediocre. Still nice art but the story’s stalling. Superman has no story and is bad too. Deadman’s got some great art. Oh, Green Lantern. It’s weak again. Metamorpho’s fun, with a periodic table gag, but there’s no story. Teen Titans is…

  • Wednesday Comics 7 (19 August 2009)

    Batman is a little better than usual. Not the art, but at least Azzarello writes two scenes. On the flip, this Kamandi strip is probably the weakest. Still good, but pointless. Superman’s crap, Deadman’s pretty but slight, the Green Lantern is pointless. The Metamorpho, however, is weird in a good way. Crappy Teen Titans, but…

  • Wednesday Comics 6 (12 August 2009)

    Let’s get started. Batman–Risso’s artwork is weak. It’s loose when it needs to be strong and vice versa. Fun Kamandi but Gibbons isn’t giving Sook enough room for the content. Superman’s the opposite. Too much room, too little content. Deadman’s mediocre, probably its worst strip (it’s a wee trite). Green Lantern’s continuing to sink too.…

  • Wednesday Comics 5 (5 August 2009)

    Lame Batman, good Kamandi (Sook does a good Planet of the Apes), lame Superman (though Bermejo’s a little better), okay Deadman (one of the book’s steadiest strips), lame Green Lantern (after always being mediocre before)…. I’m trying something different since these comics usually provide so little to really talk about. Metamorpho’s a little better, Teen…

  • Wednesday Comics 4 (29 July 2009)

    Baker gets awkwardly jokey on the Hawkman, which is otherwise all right. He’s got a great looking space battle involving the JLA satellite. Speaking of art, Bermejo’s Superman is particularly awful this issue. He’s apparently incapable of drawing Ma Kent. He draws her for three or four panels, each worse than the last. Metamorpho makes…

  • Wednesday Comics 3 (22 July 2009)

    This issue has even less good strips than before. Sgt. Rock in particular falls off, with Joe Kubert’s art getting way too loose. Gaiman and Allred’s Metamorpho doesn’t recover either. In other words, at issue three, Wednesday Comics is already downhill. Azzarello and Risso’s Batman manages to be worse, as does Arcudi and Bermejo’s Superman.…

  • Wednesday Comics 2 (15 July 2009)

    So even some of the better ones from the previous issue are losers this week. Specifically Neil Gaiman and Mike Allred’s Metamorpho. They flop on the format. Still strong are Pope’s Adam Strange, Baker’s Hawkman, Dan Didio and Jose Luís Garcia-Lopez’s Metal Men (no, really) and Catwoman by Walt Simonson and Brian Stelfreeze. Oh, and…

  • Wednesday Comics 1 (8 July 2009)

    Wednesday Comics really needs a stronger editorial hand. While some of the creators get the concept, others completely fumble it. The successes (and the mediocrities) make up for the bad patches. In the “no idea how to do the format” section, the issue has Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso on Batman, John Arcudi and Lee…

  • Teen Titans 3 (January 2012)

    Lobdell’s gay superhero makes his first appearance this issue and… wow… he could not be more flamboyant. Not sure Lobdell’s aware all gay men aren’t Jm J. Bullock. It’s some terrible writing. But there’s actually a really fun page in the comic. I couldn’t believe Booth had it in him. Kid Flash–let’s not forget, Kid…

  • Red Hood and the Outlaws 3 (January 2012)

    Unbelievable. Lobdell has this all knowing kid god look into the histories of the cast because they’re so “curious.” Nothing like the writer creating characters who tell the reader the lame characters are really, really interesting. Also interesting is a detail about Starfire’s memory. I thought Lobdell had given interviews she and Jason are just…

  • Teen Titans 2 (December 2011)

    I assume Lobdell had to turn in his terrible script for Teen Titans early (so Booth could draw it poorly), which means his constant references to objectifying women aren’t some breaking the fourth wall reaction to the response to the misogyny in his writing. Too bad. It might be funny. Wonder Girl can’t shut up…

  • Red Hood and the Outlaws 2 (December 2011)

    Now, I know Lobdell explained the whole “Starfire is a nymphomaniac” thing as something subversively feminist or whatever, but why are all the other female characters in Red Hood nymphomaniacs too? Maybe even more so than Starfire, who Lobdell here portrays as a dumber, more insipid version of Paris Hilton. He also seems to really…

  • Teen Titans 1 (November 2011)

    I thought there was supposed to be a flamboyantly gay superhero in Teen Titans. There’s not. There’s nothing here except some awful Brett Booth art and the writing stylings of Mr. Scott Lobdell. One must admire Lobdell’s consistent incompetence. I mean, one example is his narration from Tim Drake. Lobdell writes it like he’s got…

  • Red Hood and the Outlaws 1 (November 2011)

    With Red Hood and the Outlaws, I feel like DC is drawing a line in the sand. Female readers need not apply. While Lobdell is an awful writer on every level possible, he also gets to be the one to reveal Starfire is a mentally impaired nymphomaniac. She’s genetically incapable of forming long term memories…

  • The Uncanny X-Men and the New Teen Titans 1 (September 1982)

    I’m hard-pressed to think of a worse comic than The Uncanny X-Men and the New Teen Titans. Besides the Chris Claremont writing, which is atrocious, laughable and so on, there’s the Walt Simonson art. I’m not a big Simonson fan, but I’d never thought he was capable of being terrible or incompetent (he’s got some…