Titans #18 - DC Comics

TITANS No. 18, February 2025

Initially focusing upon Roy Harper’s numerous complaints about Donna Troy’s decision to house the titular characters three hundred feet underground in New York City, as well as the gripes and groans of the archer’s fellow team-mates, a fair few readers of “All In The Family” probably felt John Layman’s narrative made the comic somewhat difficult to ‘get into.’ Sure, the dialogue-driven sequence only lasts six pages. But it also makes Arsenal appear extremely disagreeable, and doubtless there were plenty in this book’s audience who cheered when he’s succinctly told to shut up by Starfire at the end of the scene.

Sadly however, this doesn’t seem to be the end of the American author’s obsession to portray the former sidekicks as a group of grumpy protagonists who appear to barely get along, rather than be a warm, caring collection of experienced crime-fighters who have been together since they were teenagers. Indeed, Nightwing’s sudden spate with Wonder Girl when he well intentionally addresses the Amazonian’s somewhat confrontational leadership style, strongly suggests that Batman’s former Robin may well already be questioning whether he should have stood down as team leader in her favour; “Before ruling that out, shouldn’t we find out who or what we’re up against?”

What does work though is the Titan’s subsequent battle against Mammoth and Shimmer, with the powerful pair providing an intriguing moral predicament for Troy concerning the Justice League’s current stance to simply “toss enemies into the Phantom Zone and leave them.” In addition, it eventually becomes clear that the Clock King and Deathstroke are playing a seriously long game when it comes to taking their revenge against the constantly bickering heroes – with Slade Wilson’s sudden announcement of a “newly re-formed Crime Syndicate” providing a promising cliff-hanger. 

Similarly as solid as this book’s bout of fisticuffs are the layouts (and colours) of Pete Woods, whose ability to capture all the facial expressions a bibliophile would expect of an emotionally-charged group of meta-humans battling both their own self-doubts, as well as a villain who can quite literally “transmute anything into what I want it to be -- even the air around” her. Of particular note has to be the way the artist blurs parts of his panels to denote movement, and how well this technique sells the notion of Raven’s spell attack or a shower of ice shards lashing out towards the startled do-gooders.

The regular cover art of "TITANS" #18 by Pete Woods