Demons, Devils, And Robots, Oh My — Reviewing ‘New Titans’ #36

When coming into a new group setting, engaging in team building activities is a natural part of the overall process. It gets a bit complicated when that group includes robots, aliens, devils, and a host of other colorful individuals.

With their first adventure behind them, it’s time for the Titans to figure out who they are now in New Titans #36 from Tate Brombal, Marcus To, Adriano Lucas, and Tom Napolitano.

-Spoilers Follow-

Let’s start with something exciting, shall we?

I love seeing To handling the artwork here. He’s definitely one of my favorite artists in recent years. I have a commissioned sketch of the X-Men’s Rogue on my wall from him. There is just something bold and wide and heroic about the styling he utilizes in his artwork, no matter which characters, realm, or company that it might happen to be for at the time.

Smooth and expressive are easy words to attach to a lot of work, but that description is especially true here. There is a sense of depth and scale that really gives everything a breath of life and different energy. Hell, just look at the last page reveal and you believe that the demon beast Cyborg and Terra are looking at is massive compared to them and their space. Their unknown roommate sure seems to have a better claim to it than they do.

Pairing To’s work with Lucas’ coloring is a grand match. Just like I said about the artist’s work, Lucas’ colors are perfect for books like these. He finds the best ways to maximize the lighter, vibrant aspects of super hero stories while never losing the darker and heavier tones. This gives us a really bright and friendly-feeling appearance which balances perfectly with the reveal behind Happy Harbor’s strange behavior.

We got a (seemingly) baby-eating demon that is now mayor and, somehow, it feels even more wild with how happily colorful the town and everything happens to be. That’s some smart stuff right there.

Story wise, I’m still a bit off with this book. The first arc was so rapid and odd at how it threw all the characters together. Here we act like they are still new, but also not new to each other; it’s trying to do a lot of differing things at once. We still have nothing about where the rest of the still-active-before-this-run-started Titans have gone, other than a reference to Wonder Girl ignoring a phone call from Donna Troy.

I like Brombal as a writer. His work on Batgirl is phenomenal. I trust seeing where things go here … but it’s kind of rough. There are spurts of the characterization and depth that he does so well popping up here. They just get pulled down by the rest of the forced together puzzle pieces that is this strange cast.

Even the reference to what Nightwing is dealing with back in his own book felt forced and awkward.

There is a lot of stilted dialogue that could use a punch up, but otherwise it’s mostly fine, if not a bit confusing. That being said, Napolitano makes it all work as usual, giving it the right push and flow through the pages without losing any of the potential emotional resonance. He makes sure it doesn’t overwhelm even as some panels are heavy with the amount of text that has to be read to setup the story.

I’m invested enough to want to see more of this and where it goes. While I hope the characters and space becomes more comfortable and flowing for Brombal over time, unfortunately, these days books don’t have the luxury of finding their fit as they once did. I’m still hoping for the best all around here.

New Titans #36 is now available from DC Comics.