State of the Multiverse 24

Friday, Oct. 2 2009 | Author: darrren

Blackest Night - Titans #2 A mothers love

Zombie Watch returns today with full effect!

By far the greatest of the Blackest Night crossover series so far is Blackest Night: Titans. I said this after reading the first issue, and now the second issue has hit the stands, that claim has only been reinforced.

Now my judgement might be biased, I have been following the Titans in all their incarnations for over twenty years. That fact however qualifies me to say that this is a good Titans story. It has been said elsewhere in Blackest Night that the hosts for the

Black Rings were chosen for their emotional impact, and this issue has it in spades. This was what I felt was missing from the Superman tie-in series, but then team books are more disposed to emotional interaction, especially if you have been following the characters for a long time. Basically, this mini is not to be missed by Titans fans.

I started reading the Titans at the time of the Judas Contract, where Terra, (Tara Markov, Geo-Force’s younger sister) infiltrated the Titans at the behest of Deathstroke, captured Changeling’s heart and then proceeded to betray them all.

Of course then there was the Terra who was a member of the Team Titans, and not a creation from an alternate timeline due to the machinations of Monarch/Hank Hall/Extant in the lead up to Zero Hour (and no, I’m not going to try and explain that one here!). She was not the original Tara, but an innocent girl genetically sculpted by a virus to become a duplicate of her. She was later killed by Black Adam in World War III

But now, we see the original back, again after Gar’s heart, accompanied by Lilith, also known as Omen, who makes some very good points about the Titans history, if a little skewed in perspective. Still, one has to admit, the Titans have left a trail of bodies behind them over the years.

The highlight for me however has to be the return of Donna’s late husband and son, Terry and Robert. That was one comics death that really hit me, I had watched the romance blossom between Donna and Terry over the years, and despite the fact it first seemed like the wish-fulfillment of a middle aged man (did I read you wrong Mr Wolfman?), the relationship grew, exhibiting a depth that caused me to become very fond of Terry. When Terry and Robert were cast aside by the writers, in a meaningless car accident, I confess, I was actually upset. It seemed like such a waste, and served only to emphasise how little connection Donna had with the life around her, after numerous continuity re-writes that were nothing to do with her per-se, but she fell victim to them. Wonder Woman rescued her from a burning building. Then she never existed, so it was the Titan Rhea. Then it wasn’t. Then she was a shard of Donna’s soul housed in a mystic doppelganger.

It took John Byrne in the pages of Wonder Woman to make it all make sense. Thanks to the evil Dark Angel, all of Donna’s histories are true, as she was sent ricocheting through time to live a life of misery and loss again and again and again.

So now, Donna is given a connection back to her old life. Her first instinct is to give her baby a hug, after all he will never grow up to be the megalomaniacal Lord Chaos now.

But of course, her baby is hungry, and wants to feed.