Titans: Tijeras, papel, piedra

Elseworlds

by Adam Warren

"¡Al final, los buenos nunca, pero nunca pierden!"
Traducción mexicana de Titans: Scissors, Paper, Stone.

Genres: Humor, Graphic Novels, Dc Comics, Comics, Superheroes

Paperback

First published May 1, 1997

About the author

Adam Warren (born 1967) is an American comic book writer and artist who is most famous for his original graphic novel Empowered, for adapting the characters known as Dirty Pair into an American comic book, and for being one of the first American commercial illustrators to be influenced by the general manga style.

Reviews

[Chad · Rating 1 out of 5]

One of the worst comics I've ever read. This isn't really an Elseworlds. The Teen Titans don't appear in it at all. It's set in the far future where four kids are fighting some kind of kaiju. They are downloading superhero archetypes or some such bullshit inspired by the Titans. I couldn't really understand most of the terrible dialogue. It's written in some sort of "future speak" where Warren uses a bunch of made up words to indicate they are in the future. He uses so many though it just sounds like a bunch of made up jargon and there's no context to infer what is actually being said. I found Warren's art overly busy and full of too many explosions and energy effects to tell what was going on by the art. I'm guessing you'll like this if you're a fan of Adam Warren's. For anyone else, just beat your head against the wall for twenty minutes to get the same amount of enjoyment as reading this nonsense.

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the far future, an "educlave" space station is about to experience a massive disaster, and the only hope is to form a group consisting of "a female mage, a masked fighting man, a weepy cyborg, and an energy flinging alien... sound familiar?" Tapping into the mythical power of super-hero legends, only this group can stand up to giant monsters and mass destruction, by emulating the formation story of the Teen Titans. The busy, wildly colored artwork emulates manga and anime (and features lots of cameos from various characters from each) and juggles interesting character backstory and wild action scenes, but those action scenes are sometimes confusing and unfocused. A fully self-contained story, which is a shame, because this futuristic world is much more convincing than many other visions of the future of DC Comics mythology.

[I've read this a bunch of times before, but read it again and recorded it here as part of the October 2017 Dewey's Readathon.]

[Ricardo Victoria · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite comics of all times. A quick read that combines in an interesting way the main ideas of the New Teen Titans (and their origin as team) with the tropes of Shonen SciFi manga. An overlooked gem.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is perhaps the strangest and most unlikely Elseworld of them all. The biggest strike against it is that it reads like a "pilot episode" - with introductory pages that explain each characters' induction to the "Titans" and why the team is being formed, followed by each character in action.

On the other hand, it's a very smart, very loving super-hero deconstruction. Rather than undermine the absurdity with negativity and "realism," Warren opts to underline the absurdity with tongue-in-cheek jokes and a smirking acceptance.

It's fun.

[Yani · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is very short, a single issue comic book basically, but I do love it quite a lot. It relies on a little knowledge of the Teen Titans comic book, but also manages to stand on its own nicely. The art style is highly anime and the story jumps right in at the deep end, giving just enough character backstory/info to keep the thing running at full speed.

[Kevin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Woof. Completely awful.

[Mikael · Rating 1 out of 5]

Poor art in places and absolutely no set-up for some character traits. Also has a bummer ending.

[Guido · Rating 4 out of 5]

Elseworlds futurista donde unos jóvenes semiarquetípicos tratan de emular a los Teen Titans de antaño.

[Kambalache XXI]

El amerimanga de los Titanes del futuro.

[Desire Manara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tomo especial Elseworlds. No se reeditó en castellano y probablemente en inglés tampoco.

[Zintulo Deyuno · Rating 4 out of 5]

Edición mexicana: TITANS: TIJERAS, PAPEL PIEDRA (Titans Elseworlds: Scissors, Paper, Stone).

[Ribrarian Not · Rating 4 out of 5]

Libro de historietas con código de barras propio. No se reeditó en castellano.

[Mulviterso Infinito · Rating 4 out of 5]

Claro que al final los buenos nunca pierden... Claro.

[JM · Rating 4 out of 5]

I always enjoy Adam Warren's work. His comics are always visually very interesting and his stories are usually entertaining, mixing comedy and action. The manga influence on his artwork, of course, is not everybody's thing, but I find that the level of detail he includes in his panels does a lot to help you get past that. Plus, he's one of the few artist I can think of who draw in this style that make male characters actually look male.

Anyway, this one's a fun idea. In the far future humanity has colonized the stars and a college student whose genes allow her to use any existing ritual (made up or legit) in order to work actual magic finds through some divination that a cataclysm caused by some sort of entity is about to hit the space station where she lives, so she decides to emulate a legend from Earth's history in order to basically cast a narrative-manipulating spell that ensures the cataclysm is averted.

So she chooses the first Teen Titans plot arc, where they stop the demon Trigon. Since she is a wizard, filling the role of Raven, she needs to fill the roles of Robin, Cyborg and Starfire, and off she goes recruiting some of her fellow students.

A girl who survived an explosion and was outfitted with a de-commissioned full-body prosthesis with military capabilities thanks to her mom's contacts is recruited and given the code that will unlock her body's full potential. So we have our tortured Cyborg.

The re-animated body of a guy possessed by an alien energy being in the middle of migrating to another universe, who's posing as a research student while being studied himself, is the next Titan. He's our StarFire analogue, being able to fly and project energy.

Finally, the main character's base-line human ex-boyfriend is outfitted with a chip that includes a virtual simulation of the personality (and skills) of a famous historical superhero, in order for him to take the role of Robin/Nightwing. There's a bit of discussion between the characters about whether superheroes were fiction (like in real life) or if they actually existed like they do in the comics. Anyway, once the chip is activated the guy immediately takes charge and you can tell who he is by the way he talks even if they never actually say so,until the very end of the story.

The next step is to choose the necessary ridiculous outfits and code-names and find the monster in order to confront it, and the shit hits the fan.

The story is interesting in that it deconstructs superhero tropes using the conceit that the main character actually studies ancient mythology as a major, and in the far future superhero stories are ancient mythology. I loved the way it constantly contrasts real life observations about superheroes with "in-world" tropes, including the very important lesson that, silly as they are, superhero stories also are often tragic even if the good guys ultimately always win.

I go back and read this every few years, and I always enjoy it a lot.

[Fugo Feedback · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una de las pocas muestras de que el manga shonen y el cómic de superhéroes pueden quedar muy bien mezclados si el cocinero tiene la onda y el talento de alguien como Adam Warren. Con mucha suerte en algún momento alguien se animará a editar en castellano su subestimada Empowered.

[Alex Cunningham · Rating 4 out of 5]

A heap of fun visually, just deep enough intellectually - this comic is what good action movies should be but usually aren't.

[Variaciones Enrojo]

Edición mexicana a cargo de Grupo Editorial Vid, publicado dentro de la colección Elseworlds. En la portada figuran los pvps correspondientes a México, Argentina, España y Chile.

[Dony Grayman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Edición mexicana del Elseworlds dedicado a los Titans del futuro.

[Kapitol Tank · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una OGN Elseworlds clave para la línea.