Titans #12 - DC Comics

TITANS No. 12, August 2024

For those bibliophiles who like to be emotionally moved by a comic, Tom Taylor’s uber-sad script for Issue Twelve of “Titans” will undoubtedly pull on their heart strings, courtesy of poor Vanadia’s merciless fate. Sure, the homicidal cyborg constructed by S.T.A.R. Labs initially doesn’t appear worthy of any reader’s pity as she savagely strikes down meta human after meta human inside Titans Towers. But by the time the Australian author’s twenty-page plot has dramatically concluded, there arguably won’t be a dry eye in your friendly local book shop; “Everything I’ve done was to be like you. Everything I’ve become was because of you. You… All of you. You’re my heroes.”

Much of this poignancy is generated by the New York Times bestselling writer’s ability to weave into this publication’s high-octane action a clever flashback to a time when as a fourteen year-old girl Vanessa stood up to some school bullies as she felt that would be what Donna Troy would do. This backstory should strike a strong chord of sympathy with the audience, and once associated with the orange-hued mechanical monstrosity pulverising an octopus-shaped Beast Boy, adds an extra element or two to the supposed villain’s motivation – i.e. she is so determined to kill this comic’s central characters because T.O. Morrow’s tricked her into believing they’re evil fakes. Not because the brainwashed young woman is a criminal herself.

Cleverly however, just as everything appears to be about to pan out for the better, Taylor reintroduces the genuinely wicked Dark-Winged Queen into the mix, who wastes absolutely no time in undoing all the good her ‘team-mates’ have just achieved with the Bureau of Sovereignty’s latest walking weapon. The utterly irreprehensible behaviour of Trigon’s daughter should have many an onlooker screaming at the printed page with just the same anguish as Troy does whilst trying to shatter the sorceress’ energy shield, and whilst the likes of a befuddled Garfield Logan might point the finger towards S.T.A.R. Labs, many will still surely see his demonically-possessed lover as being largely responsible for Vanadia’s tragic demise.

Endearingly adding some extra pathos to this book is also Lucas Meyer, whose marvellous menagerie of Beast Boy transformations alone makes this periodical worth its cover price. Furthermore, the artist does a cracking job in showing the entirely innocent realisation upon Vanessa’s face that she’s been duped into fighting her idols, and the barely controlled fury of Wonder Girl following Raven’s aforementioned rash behaviour.

The regular cover art of "TITANS" #12 by Chris Samnee & Matheus Lopes