Titans #17 - DC Comics

TITANS No. 17, January 2025

Having rather unconvincingly incapacitated the titular characters' entire roster due to suddenly suffering some “bizarre growth” in the centre of his brain, it probably came as quite a surprise to many of this comic’s readers that the Clock King would subsequently be so easily outwitted just twenty pages later. In fact, William Tockman’s defeat occurs so abruptly at the hands of Donna Troy, that much of John Layman’s storytelling in Issue Seventeen of “Titans” has to heavily rely upon artist Pete Woods padding the book out with a series of lengthy flashback sequences, rather than depict the protagonists making some complicated counter-attack; “No. I- -I didn’t plan for this. I - -I should have anticipated this.”

In addition, just how the former Suicide Squad member is even able to utilise Arsenal’s memories in order to mentally overwhelm the rest of the archer’s team-mates is never explained or explored. Instead, the American author expects his audience to simply accept that the villain has inexplicably gained some sort of extra-sensory, time-manipulation ability following his explosive exposure to Amanda Waller’s stolen super-powers, and is able to almost immediately use it to seek his revenge.

Similarly as unfathomable is debatably Troy’s ability to resist her fears and turn the tables upon Clock King using a shared memory. All the other Titans, including Nightwing, are subconsciously thrown back in time to repeatedly face their greatest nightmares over and over again. Yet somehow Wonder Girl manages to return to a moment “just a few hours old”, and subsequently relive it long enough for the likes of Cyborg, Beast Boy and Starfire to cross over into the recollection too.

Far more successful at entertaining any perusing bibliophiles, though just as bemusing as this publication’s penmanship, are Woods’ aforementioned layouts. The illustrator is very good at bringing some much sought after dynamic energy to Tockman’s dialogue-heavy scenes whenever the criminal is lecturing his helplessly bound prisoners. Furthermore, his splash pages showing the heroes getting beaten up by their most ferocious foes from the past are prodigiously pencilled – such as the horror on Dick Grayson’s face when he witnesses the android Failsafe mercilessly murder Batman with a giant bat-a-rang.

The regular cover art of "TITANS" #17 by Pete Woods