THE NEW TEEN TITANS #15

"THE BROTHERHOOD OF EVIL LIVES AGAIN!"
Co-Creators: Marv Wolfman & George Pérez | Embellisher: Romeo Tanghal
Letterer: John Costanza | Colorist: Adrienne Roy | Editor: Len Wein

The Plot: While Madame Rouge watches her forces invade Zandia, General Zahl gloats over the Titans and Robotman, trapped in his devolving pit. Elsewhere, the Brain and Monsieur Mallah, the surviving members of the original Brotherhood of Evil, introduce Changeling to their new teammates, Warp, Phobia, Houngan, and Plasmus. The Brotherhood wants to kill Rouge and Zahl, and invites Changeling to join them.

The entire group teleports aboard Rouge's flying fortress and attacks, and the Titans and Robotman are soon restored to normal. Amid the battle, Robotman corners General Zahl, who loses his life to a ricochet from his own sidearm. Meanwhile, Changeling chases down Rouge and knocks into a bank of electronics, inadvertently killing her.

The Titans, Brotherhood, and Robotman escape from the airship just before it explodes, and the Brotherhood departs as the Titans prepare to head home.

My Thoughts: Before we get to anything else, I have two retractions to make: First, I stated last time that Zandia was Madame Rouge's homeland. This was a misunderstanding on my part, as I learned from this issue. Second, it turns out that Wolfman did intentionally refer to the people of Zandia as "expatriates", as we learn this issue that the entire island nation is a refuge for criminals, and the Brain has designs on becoming its new ruler.

But in addition to the above, I also need to pick another nit with Wolfman's scripting. I understand that when writing a superhero team book featuring a large cast, giving every character his or her own "voice" can be tricky. And for the most part, Wolfman handles this task admirably. Robin has the same strait-laced speech patterns as his Darknight mentor. Kid Flash's and Wonder Girl's voices are similarly of a traditionally superheroic nature; logical since these three were preexisting characters created in the Silver Age or even earlier. Then we have Raven, who's more stilted, not unlike a Thor or a Colossus. Cyborg and Changeling both toss around more slang than the rest, and use terms like "ain't" and "mebbe" (instead of maybe).

So why, then, do nearly all of them constantly employ the epithet "lord"?? First off, I don't know anyone under the age of, say, sixty, who uses "lord" as an expression for any purpose. I have a hard time believing that people in their late teens were using it in 1982, either. See, for example, the following lines of dialogue from the previous issue:

• Robin: "Lord, why do I feel that one day she's going to break?"
• Cyborg: "Lord, and I used to feel sorry for myself!"
• Changeling: "Oh, lord! This is Rouge's scheme?"

Those are only a handful of the "lords" that have been tossed around, from the mouths of myriad characters, Titan and non-Titan alike, over the past fifteen issues. It's just too much. Did Wolfman realize he was doing this? Why not mix it up? Toss in some uses of "god/my god", "gosh", "holy (fill-in-the-blank)", "blast", stuff like that? Or, my personal preference, assorted wingdings to indicate swearing so we can just insert our own preferred exclamations?

Anyway -- now onto the story, which concludes Wolfman's and Pérez's love letter to the original Doom Patrol. To my knowledge, I've never read a single Doom Patrol comic, though I have at least seen them in a guest shot in JLA: YEAR ONE. They seem like a nifty bunch of misfit characters, though, and Wolfman and Pérez certainly appear to hold them in high regard.

The main thrust of this tale is that revenge is never worth it in the end. When Robotman corners Zahl, he is unable to take the villain's life despite that being his original goal. When Changeling accidentally kills Rouge, he is racked with empty remorse. Even though it's to be expected that the surviving members of the original Doom Patrol would mete out the final fates of Zahl and Rouge, the moments are no less powerful.

So Wolfman and Pérez have put a bow on the saga of the Doom Patrol, and have also wrapped up the last major dangling sub-plot from the early issues of NEW TEEN TITANS, the missing Steve Dayton (aside from the mystery of Wonder Girl's origin, which hasn't even been mentioned since #1). With no standing plots to draw on for upcoming installments, it'll be interesting to see what happens next.