Review by Ian Keogh
When Geoff Johns and Mike McKone relaunched the Teen Titans it was a sparkling and refreshed concept drawing on golden times without imitating them. However, the rule of thumb became that if McKone was involved the standards were considerably higher, and the project seemed on the verge of disintegration with Titans East.
Due to multiple creators contributing to an anniversary comic that’s part of this collection, the credits alone provide a muddy picture. However, the creative impetus comes from new writer Sean McKeever who’s responsible for the character touches of the opener, and for the four chapter title story, and he’s the writer who continues into On the Clock.
In this period Tim Drake is Robin, Cassie Sandmark is Wonder Girl, and Bart Allen has just died, enabling the creative teams of previous Teen Titans iterations to provide brief memorial interludes to McKeever’s wake. Further interludes of the Justice League lead into the title piece. Seeing the likes of McKone and George Pérez draw the team one more time is crowd-pleasing, but it’s only a page for Todd Nauck.
The main story concerns what the Titans become in the future, or a future, but not any future the current Titans want a part of. Their older counterparts disable the Justice League, and then demand the Titans face a threat beyond their power levels to prevent their future coming about. McKeever creates resolutely unpleasant older counterparts, and doesn’t bother concealing from readers that something completely stinks about the whole affair.
Editorially something does as it takes five different artists to draw the four chapters of ‘Titans of Tomorrow’. On the first Alé Garza provides angular figures and grimacing close-ups, leaving Jamal Igle on the second chapter the best of the four, telling the story well, moving the viewpoints, delivering the action and defining the people. The sample art is from Eddy Barrows on the basis of him just about drawing more pages than anyone else, with Joe Prado and Greg Tocchini also contributing pages to the final chapter. It all means a lot of rushed looking pages and eventually no consistency.
It’s a shame as McKeever may over-egg the story a little, but he escalates the threat to keep the suspense high, adds the wild card of the Blue Beetle, and provides viable reactions from each Titan to the revelations of their adult counterparts. He even ends with a very creepy epilogue. There is a lot of good here, just not enough of it artistic.
