Books : Teen Titans Vol. 4: The Future is Now

In association with Amazon.com

Rating:

- Future Imperfect
This book gives readers a preview of what the titans may turn out to be in the future, and the consequences of their actions. It's worth it to see how their present and future selves interact with each other.

Rating:

- Very Good
This fourth volume of Geoff Johns' Teen Titans is easily the best to date. The writing, while not Mr. Johns' best, is quite good and the pencils are also rather good. This volume collects Teen Titans 15-23 and Teen Titans/Legion of Super-Heroes Special.

The plot has probably been explained well enough, so I'll just make a few comments about the book and be on my way. We start out with a story that involves Superboy being taken to the 31st century to aid the Legion of Super Heroes. This story is honestly not that great but it does serve as a lead in to the next story, The "Titans of Tomorrow."

This story is just an all around classic. It's excellently written and very well paced in the action. Basically, the Titans meet up with their future selves and the future my friends, ain't so bright. This story ranks up their with Mr. Johns' best work and, i dare say, is one of the best stories to come out of comic-dom in some time. I'm not saying that this is "The Watchmen" or "The Dark Knight Returns," but it's very good none the less. The ambiguity of the events surrounding why things turned out the way they did is enough to leave you salivating and definately serves the hype for "Infinite Crisis" quite well. In short, and I can't stress this enough, this story is pure gold.

The other highpoint of the TPB is the "Hiding" story. It's a heart-felt story dealing with the fall out from "Identity Crisis" and the ending gives us the feeling that despite the way things were in "Titans of Tomorrow," the kids may indeed turn out alright. For those who did read "Identity Crisis," we find out what exactly becomes of Luthor's armor.

"The Lights Out" arc spins straight from
"Identity Crisis," and while not required reading to enjoy this story, it certianly helps. It's not great, but it's not bad either.

All in all, this is a very solid collection and I highly recommend it

Rating:

- Geoff Johns can do better than this
I really liked Geoff Johns work on JSA. He gave us an interesting mix of old and new characters to star in some well written adventures. His stories had just the right balance of action, adventure, humor and drama and made the book something I always looked forward to reading. But after the third year the stories didn't interest me as much and I dropped JSA by issue 40. One of the things I liked about his JSA work was the character development. He made the reader feel a part of the characters world and made us care about them. It's a pity the same can't be said of the Teen Titans.

After having read this latest trade I just don't find much in these characters to interest me. The first three trades just didn't catch my interest much and I found I felt the same about this one. It's not for lack of effort on John's part but these stories just don't leave me wanting more as his work on JSA did. And quite honestly I just care about these chracters very much. Or to be more precise I wasn't given a reason to care about them because I never felt connected to them. Even with the characters from the Wolfman/Perez era I don't get the feeling that what I liked about them then is still there.

And the whole evil Titans thing just didn't work for me. Because of the "Crisis" the Titans turned bad and split America into two countries and turned the western half some kind of facist state where no one has any free will or something like that. But we are never given any of the details of these events. Tell us why the characters did what they did. Give us some sense of just how bad things were to cause them to change so drastically.

The final stories with Doctor Light work a little better and Johns handles him well and almost makes the reader feel some sympathy for this psycho over what the JLA did to him. I really like how he warned the Titans that if they didn't toe the line the JLA would come for them next. Though I have to wonder where Nightwing and Robin were when "Batman" and "Batgirl" showed up at the end.

Rating:

- The Titans of Tomorrow, today
Geoff Johns' run on the re-launched Teen Titans has been quite good, but it's in this TPB where the fan favorite writer is at his best on the series. In a time traveling mishap, the Teen Titans find themselves ten years in the future, and face to face with their evil future selves. What's upsetting even more to the Titans as they soon learn, is that this is a future that could be all too possible, and it features clues and hints towards Johns' current Infinite Crisis mega-event. In the second story, villain Dr. Light has his memories back, and he's no longer to be taken lightly. He takes on the Titans, and the results of which are very surprising. By the time it's all over with, the Titans are left questioning themselves, and all this leads up to some startling events that are tackled in future volumes. Johns has done quite well here, and this is his best collection of Teen Titans stories, while penciler Mike McKone continues to do solid work. All in all, this is the best of Johns' Teen Titans run so far.

Rating:

- Good, but not as good
This "reboot" started off great, but lost ground quickly. Geoff Jones is great with characterization but doesn't know how to pace a plot, so the stories just seem to bounce around -- even more so in this case because this contains one of those annoying crossover plots where you always feel like you're missing something.

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