Regular readers will immediately realize this is a rather unusual review for me. I usually focus on one comic book in these full reviews, and certainly not two separate titles that don't share creators or storylines. But as I sat down to write this week, I realized that a lot of what I felt about one of these two comic books, I felt about the other. They have a lot in common thematically and conceptually, and both are entertaining. But it seems odd to me that editor Eddie Berganza would have two of DC's top team books exploring such similar plot ideas at the same time. Separately, these are fine comic books, but when readers such as myself who sampled a good number of new comics every week read both o these books, they'll come away with a sense that there's a redundancy at play here. This isn't a critique of the comics themselves, but of the editorial direction and scheduling.
Visitors from the future travel back in time and manipulate the origins of the two most revered and respected heroes in history, Superman and Batman, and what results is a world in which the two men rule over America with an iron fist. And in an alternate future, the Teen Titans of today come face to face with their dark counterparts, men and women who have been twisted into villains by tragedy and loss, by good intentions and bad decisions.
Pacheco and Merino are well known for their ability to capture the majestic and larger-than-life nature of super-heroes; it's one of the things that's made Pacheco such a sought-after name in the industry. It seems to me their style is a little too bright, a bit too clean, for the darker ideas Loeb's script explores here. Also, given the alternate timeline at play here, I wish the artists did a little more in the way of offering new costume designs for the familiar figures who turn up here. We see a radically different Wonder Woman and a slightly tweaked Green Arrow, but the title characters are visually unchanged, and the Silver Age villains who serve as the catalyst for the story boast their old 1960s designs. There's room in this for a lot more in the way of experimentation.
McKone makes the most of that opportunity in Teen Titans. We saw a number of new designs in the previous issue, and he delivers even more of them here. The overall tone of the art is grim, and the colors reinforce the dark, tense nature of the story.
Time-travel and time-altering storylines in which heroes are transformed into villains and dystopian societies serve as the setting are a long-standing tradition in super-hero comics. I rather enjoy them, as it allows writers to tinker with and alter iconic characters they wouldn't otherwise be permitted to change in any real way. Both of these stories are a lot of fun, and they both celebrate the wide array of colorful characters of the DC Universe.
I'm just struck by how much these two comics have in common. Time travel. Former heroes as brutal dictators. Other heroes rising up to oppose them in a resistance movement. Though the plot are different, there are so many similar elements that I came away feeling as though I'd read the same comic twice. I can understand two such similar storylines arising as a result of a lack of communication within the publishing company, but the same editor oversaw and scheduled both books. It just seems... ill-advised. 7/10
