Customer Reviews

The New Teen Titans: The Terror of Trigon

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I just picked up my copy of this trade and reread it as I have countless times since the story's original run in the summer of 1984 prior to starting high school. As always, I was THOROUGHLY entertained! George Perez is the MASTER artist and it shows throughout the story. The high points of his art are the first two parts inked by himself and the staggering amount of detail he always throws in. Look at the "spires" twisting through the city and you'll know what I mean. I just wish he could've inked his pencils through the entire story although Romeo Tanghal backs him up quite well in parts 3 thru 5. Marv Wolfman expertly handles the execution of the subplot he and George had set up since the very beginning in 1980...Raven walking her father's road. I don't find it derivative of X-Men's Phoenix as implied by others since this subplot was around since the first story arc in '80. The subplot of the Titans each facing their fears and evil selves is effectively chilling. Just check this book out along with The Judas Contract. You don't find many stories like these in comics OR in most novels these days. Enjoy!

I've collected and read every story with the Teen Titans, New Titans, Team Titans, ect. but this story line is most felt by all Titans fans. The emotions felt by the characters is also felt by the readers...the art work is superb in itself. Plenty of times the world thought that the Titans were a knockoff of the X-men but they have proven time and time again that they are in a league of their own. Especially with this storyline with Trigon, a creature of almost limitless power, whos daughter is a member of a team who opposes him.
To show the extremity of the situation they show that even Superman,Batman (who usually can figure a solution to anything), and the entire Justice League couldn't stop him.
The creative minds of Wolfman, Perez (both my favorite), and the others brought out our own fears when they had the Titans go through theirs. The most horrifying was a tie between Nightwing and Changeling.
I was hoping that they would make an animated movie with this storyline (not with the current Teen Titans cartoon).
The cover of this paperback is the only thing I disagree with.
It's a minor glich with Cyborg when they should show the Nightmarish Cyborg without the cybornetic implants.
To make this story more monumental they should have it with crossovers with the other DC titles to show the sitiuations during the storyline.

Now, i read this collection some years ago, perhaps as many as four years ago, but every single time i re-read it, it is no less effective in its original goal, which was no doubt to bring a fresh, slightly skewed perspective to comic storytelling. More often than not, by mainstream America, comic books are seen as mere children's entertainment, as they've been viewed since their strange conception. This read was one of the very first(alongside Mr. Warren Ellis's works, Mr. Clarmont's tales, and Mr. Moore's yarns)character driven comic tales i'd ever read in which the character's motives and actions actually mattered. You could see the emotion in the drawings. You could feel every sharp taunt, every shocking revelation, every crass word, every desperate betrayel, and what's more, you knew how the characters felt upon the terrible devestation visited upon New York, and more to the point, their team. Their family. Nightwing. Evolution. Starfire. Emotion in it's most pure, achingly honest form. Cyborg. Hope, strength and insecurity unified. Kid Flash. Extremely human. Changeling. A Normal eye into the terror of the situation. Wonder Girl. Morality and Honesty personified.Team Heart. Raven. Terrifying. You felt the hopelessness of the team's situation, you actually felt their love for each other. Outside of X-men and The Avengers, you don't feel that kind of thing anymore. Or rarely, if so, thanks to Mr. Morrisson, Mr. Johns, Mr. Winnick, among others, though few they be. More than any other comic, which, because books like this one, are now being viewed as a slightly more adult format of mature, meaningful storytelling, this book, The New Teen Titans, allowed me to see just how real these paper and ink characters could be. To this day, i compare every other work i read, as far as character driven tales and interesting interaction, to this book, in it's heyday. Wolfman & Perez, what can i say? They sit upon the nigh unattainably high crest of storytelling greatness alongside Claremont & Byrne, Moore & Curtis, Moore & Veldt, Millar & Hitch, Ellis & Hitch...this is a read that i reccommend to anyone willing to see comics as they truly are in the 21st century....extremely intelligent, innovative, very creative and thoughtprovoking.
Adult.
Hawksmoor..From The Bleed
All Things Serve The Beam

Nothing like seeming cool to a sixteen year old. I loved this series when I was a teen and was scared it wouldn't hold up over time. The return of Trigon and the battle of hearts, minds and souls of Raven and the Teen Titans is still a compelling read, and more of guilty pleasure because you don't have to wait a month between issues.
Perez and Wolfman created the best Titan storylines that haven't become completely hokey overtime. Buy it, borrow it, read it, share it.

Overall, I like the clever, crafty Marv Wolfman, the master of subterfuge and misdirection--the man who juggles multiple subplots while building severe tension throughout, oh, maybe twenty issues of a comic book. Marv Wolfman pulls tricks involving behind-the-scenes villains very well. Marv Wolfman likes to tantalize the reader with some new hidden menace lurking in the shadows, just as the one main storyline is wrapping up. He has often been so ambitious in his multi-issue plotting that he leaves a series--or a series is cancelled--before all plotlines are resolved.

The Terror Of Trigon is not written by that Marv Wolfman. It is written by a Marv Wolfman (okay, okay, it's the same guy) who favours the direct approach. No subplots, no intricate build-up, no fighting through five minor villains to find out who's behind it all, no lurking in the shadows, no subtlety, no slowing down. Trigon just comes to Earth to claim the planet, and his daughter's spirit. But his daughter is Raven, of the Teen Titans. And Raven does not fall under the thrall of her father without a fight!

Actually, she does fall under the thrall of her father without a fight. Just some screaming. Raven is my favourite Teen Titan, but considering that this is a key "Raven story", she's not in it very much--she's been claimed. It's up to the rest of the Titans to follow her to another dimension, to the pacifist realm called Azarath, which has been torn apart by Trigon's legions. The Titans battle nightmare creatures in a last-ditch struggle to protect Azarath's few survivors. Meanwhile, Trigon and a hideously transformed Raven finally leave the dimension that held Trigon prisoner, and arrive on Earth. Awesomely powerful, Trigon remakes the Earth in his image, and all superheroes are incapacitated; we see disturbing images of a "frozen", helpless Superman. And forget Batman.

It's up to the Teen Titans--along with Lilith and Wally West, who had been Kid Flash and closer to Raven than anyone--to find a way back to Earth and use whatever powers (and hidden weapons) they have to stop Trigon, even if Raven is beyond saving. But they don't get much chance; no sooner are they back on Earth when, almost immediately, we see their physical forms embedded in one of Trigon's huge tendrils of stony matter that now cut across the black sky of New York, their frozen faces in eternal torment as, Somewhere Else, they each fight shadow versions of their own worst selves.

Pretty intense, eh? Have I captured the mood? I like this story, a lot, but it is a simple, direct piece of in-your-face writing...which does allow for some amazing visuals as rendered by penciller George Perez, with a lot of the inking by Romeo Tanghal. The splash pages of demonic city-scapes, while a towering Trigon stands over all, are just as effective as some of the close-ups of the anguished faces of the characters. You must see this artwork...because it ultimately locks in my four-star rating. Perez's art makes any type of paper look like the glossy kind, and the colours here are astonishing.

So I accept what is essentially a story with no real complexity. One might argue that the sequences where we see each Titan, in his or her turn, fighting a shadow-shelf spouting soul-destroying temptations, add an emotional complexity, but I don't think so. This is a fairly regimented, perhaps too orderly, treatment of each hero's weak spot--a summing up of each character's doubts in a few predictable panels. I'm far more impressed by the real-world Wally West, who's sense of hopelessness during all the battles seems very realistic. He's basically recruited for this mission almost against his will, and his reactions to Raven, and the large-scale destruction, and being wrenched out of his formerly quiet life, make him the most interesting character here.

Don't misunderstand me; I love this story, for what it is. But I don't love this TYPE of story, as compared to say, The Judas Contract--in fact, the whole Terra era--where subtlety rules, and things simmer for a while and then boil over. Yes, there had been build-up to Raven's capitulation to her father, but it still wasn't complicated cloak-and-dagger stuff (though I do love her cloak! oh, Raven, you are a visual treat, Perez'd or not), and it's not part of this graphic novel.

The Terror Of Trigon is an ode to The Main Event, The Battle Royale (hold the cheese, hold the lettuce, hold the pickles, hold the mayo but not the mayhem), The Final Confrontation--and as such, you couldn't ask for more. You certainly couldn't ask for more suitable art. I have to give Wolfman credit for versatility, I guess; he can stop juggling danger and simply throw it at you, when it works better. But I still love him best when he's up to something sneaky.

I ordered this because I thought it was a reprint of Teen Titans 1-5 (1980), which I read as a child. Actually, it's a reprint of 1-5 of the "2nd spin" of the title-circa 1985. To add to the confusion, both sets of issues (1-5) featured a Trigon storyline !

Anyway, the art by George Perez is gorgeous-some of his best ever. The writing is ok too, but the storyline is nothing new: kind of derivative of the X-men (Raven ~Phoenix becomes corrupted by her darker nature and goes bad.) Now as an adult, I prefer more sophisticated fare... I guess nostalgia only goes so far.