Just like many other British readers of around my age, my first real exposure to American comics came in the shape of UK-based reprints in the late ‘80s. First out of the blocks on this front were the early John Byrne issues of Superman – but not far behind were some stories featuring the Marv Wolfman and George Perez New Teen Titans. And while I never subsequently became a huge fan of Dick Grayson, Donna Troy, Gar Logan and the rest, I enjoyed those stories enough that I’ll give any book that attempts to reunite them a passing glance.

This one doesn’t exactly get off to the best of starts, though, with the revelation on the credits page that it’s “Part Two” of a story. Er, what? I’m buying an issue #1, you cretins. I’m probably not alone. There are a lot of us who’ll have seen that big massive number on the cover – you know, the one where you helpfully even put the words “FIRST ISSUE” underneath – and thought “Great! Here’s a brand new book to try out!” So where the hell was part one of this sodding story? Turns out it was in a one-shot special called Titans East. Released, er, six months ago. Slow clap.

Still, if it hadn’t been for that caption, I’d never have guessed that the issue was following on from anything. It consists solely of a series of disconnected scenes in which various people who are, or used to be, Teen Titans get attacked by a variety of ludicrous B-movie-esque monsters, before each escaping and finally banding together in an attempt to work out who’s behind it all. Winick attempts to make us engage with each of the characters by falling back on the device - currently de rigeur for a DC team book - of having each character “narrate” the pages they appear in. Where this fails spectacularly, though, is in the complete lack of any distinctive character voices. Once again, the utterly lazy assumption seems to be that simply giving each caption a differently-coloured background will somehow mask this - but when you’ve got half-demon mystical sorceress Raven coming out with favoured Winick insult “brain donor”, it really doesn’t manage that in the slightest.

For anyone who remembers his nippletacular run on Supergirl, meanwhile, the prospect of Ian Churchill on art duties must surely be a cause for trepidation. What’s surprising, though, is how much Winick panders shamelessly to his, uh, “speciality”: treating us to three pages of Starfire flying and lounging around Animal Man’s garden completely starkers. Worse, he attempts to justify it by having Kori comment to herself (with as much subtlety as a neon sledgehammer) on American society’s apparent aversion to nudity. In a way, this actually managed to offend me more than the scene itself (which really is otherwise just embarrassing, in an “Oh God, sometimes they’re right about comics” kind of way) – if you’re going to objectify your characters for the sake of a bit of titillation, at least be honest about it. Don’t attempt to justify it by shoehorning in a genuine issue whose basis is in fact completely at odds with what you’re doing. Really, you have to wonder why he even felt it necessary – it’s not as if Churchill needs any prompting to go nuts with the cheesecake, and elsewhere in the issue we see Donna, Starfire (again) and some random gang members positively bursting out of their costumes, while the (high school age. HIGH SCHOOL!) Raven is given that ol’ Michael Turner standard: visible thong straps.

You suspect that Winick is just hoping this will get by on some hazy sense of nostalgia for the characters featured. But beyond their names, there’s very little to connect these cardboard cutouts with the people that grew and developed over Wolfman’s original run. As such, it’s very difficult to care about anything that happens to them. Furthermore, in the closing pages of the issue we learn that a bunch of other (apparently less important) characters actually did get badly hurt - and, in one case, killed - only, er, we didn’t actually see that scene. I’m guessing it happened in the ethereal “part one”, but the fact that I’ve had to guess should tell you everything about the paucity of storytelling ability on show here. It feels like an attempt to ape the style of the current Justice League of America series - and it succeeds, but that’s not exactly a good thing. All it means is that it’s a hollow, gaping void of a comic, with absolutely nothing to engage any reader. Unless they’re a brain donor, of course.

Tags: Ian Churchill, Judd Winick, Teen Titans
Publisher: DC