New Teen Titans Vol. 13

The New Teen Titans (Collected Editions) #13

by Marv Wolfman, Paul Levitz, Eduardo Barreto (Illustrator)

Marv Wolfman's legendary run on The New Teen Titans continues in this collection of late '80s adventures. In this volume, the team joins forces with Infinity, Inc., and must clear the name of a teammate who is framed for murder!

Collects The New Teen Titans #32-40, The New Teen Titans Annual #3, and Infinity Inc. #45.

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

336 pages, Paperback

First published March 8, 2022

About the author

Marvin A. "Marv" Wolfman is an award-winning American comic book writer. He is best known for lengthy runs on The Tomb of Dracula, creating Blade for Marvel Comics, and The New Teen Titans for DC Comics.

Reviews

[Chad · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot of these stories focus on the Titans in their downtime. Raven is exploring her newly found emotions and powers after denying them her whole life. All of the Titans except Changeling are entering their twenties, getting their own apartments and such. Danny Chase's first appearance is in this and he joins the team at the end to inject some youth at 14. The crossover with Infinity Inc was fun when they fight the Ultra-Huminite. Still the villains are lacking in these stories making for a lesser volume of stories.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

A splendid read! While some of the Raven Nightwing stuff was a little much, the dynamics of the team had returned in this grouping of comics and yet each character was able to shine. Some good storytelling and across numerous issues.

[Anna Shiverdecker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best one yet. Art was great except for two or three stories. Raven was so much more active in these and the characters were all much more compelling. It really touched me during "loving you" it just seems to have really figured these characters out and is doing interesting things with the relationships between them.

[Sarospice · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this is about the time I stopped collecting this title. I loathe the character of Danny Chase, and this volume doesn't change my view. Worst. Titan. Ever. What this volume does have is a ton of Raven getting her groove on with Nightwing. If you're a Raven fan, this volume is for you. There's also a fun crossover with Infinity Inc. that I wish went further. Here Raven gets macked on by Obsidian, who I thought was gay. Maybe this was his questioning phase.

[Nico D. · Rating 4 out of 5]

The beginning of the volume is a short pseudo-murder mystery, though it doesn’t get enough room to breathe. You know when a story feels like filler? Yeah, that’s this. But it’s fun to see the gang all hanging out. Vic and Raven even walk arm-in-arm, which is very cute. Their relationship has never been particularly good, but there’s some major strives made in this volume which was a nice surprise. Vic later ruins it by making a comment about Raven melting in water (‘cause she’s a witch, see?) Pick a lane guys. Though, and this is probably some sort of fandom heresy, I’m getting some ~vibes~ from Raven and Vic and I’m way more invested in this potential ship than I am him with Doctor Lady.

After the filler we finally get an end to the Mentos story arc. It’s been a long time coming and I’m so ready for it to be over. Despite that, it feels very anti-climactic.
Like, maybe I’m missing something, but it reads like the Titans and their dates are meeting up for a hang out sesh when Raven goes to get Vic (yeah, give me more ship fodder.
I’m ready) and then BAM the Hybrids attack?? And the non-Titan dates are just sorta… gone? Did I miss a few pages somewhere? Anyway, this leads into the Dayton fight which
at least gets a nice resolution for Gar. He deserves a win.

Strangely, Gar doesn’t get the Special Mention of the Mentos arc. That goes to my boy Dick. Literally and metaphorically. First is one that’s a little… muddled. Dick intervenes domestic situation where a man is planning on killing his wife and child, because his wife was unfaithful (or maybe he just thinks she was, either way neither justifies his disgusting actions.) butttt the resolution is a little wonky because it ends with the abuser asking for forgiveness and the wife seemingly willing to allow him a chance to repent. Though she states she isn’t promising anything it kinda gives a pass to the abuser. It’s not a cute look. The second highlight is Dick going to pick up Joey and just chilling with him while Joey is in his underwear. Joey is surprisingly ripped. He looks good. Dick is
much more pleasant in general in this volume, much closer to the Dick we know and love. I’ll give the writers
kudos for going with the Dick-is-a-Dick plotline from Brother Blood appearance to Brother Blood reappearance, if that was
the original plan, but I’m happy to have our boy be himself again.

From here on out, the book becomes heavily Raven focused. This is great! Raven’s been one of the Titans who seems to get the short end of the stick in regards to page time. There’s a bunch of reasons for this, but now that she’s rocking the white dress we’re in Raven’s Hot Girl Summer era. Raven’s exploration of her overwhelming newfound emotions is compelling, and as an arc it also furthers the characters around her. Having finally returned to the team proper, Raven gets her own apartment in New York City. I about had a stroke when she revealed her rent for an apartment on Broadway was $400 and included utilities. God, the 80s. Everyone really was on cocaine.

The arc villains are two new characters who mostly exist as foils of Raven’s empathy powers. Arthur and Evelyn, a Dommy Mommy + Soft Boi Husband couple, use Arthur’s powers to bring bliss to the people around them for money. Arthur is happy using his powers just for himself and Evelyn, but Evelyn sees those dollar signs. Assumedly their apartment is more than $400 a month. Arthur is directly set to reflect Raven, as he feels compelled to use his gifts to help others to the point of exhaustion. Evelyn is a stand-in for Trigon, Brother Blood and basically a catch-all for anyone who tried to dictate how Raven’s powers were used. Evelyn isn’t nearly as evil as those guys (I mean, one is literally the devil) but she’s awfully unpleasant for most of the story.

They’re also the sluttiest dressed antagonists I’ve ever seen. They’re like DC’s answer to the Golbin Queen/Prince during Inferno. Can’t be workin’ them streets if you ain’t showing them cheeks.

The Titans intervene. Raven’s got this new “I can fix them : )” attitude about pretty much everything in life which involves of lot of making people feel euphoric with her powers. It’s very cool and probably unethical and I’m here for it. During the fight with Adam and Eve from the Garden of Thot, Donna (there’s no way I’m going to go a NTT review without talking about my number one gal) has some interesting thoughts about how much she loves the rush of battle when she’s with her team. Normally Donna is level-headed and will look for ways to avoid conflict when possible, but this shows a deeper part of her psyche, the primal joy of dominating others and the safety she feels engaging with her Titan family. It also shows how well Donna knows herself, as she recognizes the feelings and accepts them without much fanfare.

Once Adam and Eve are trumped—through compassion, as Arthur really isn’t a bad guy, his powers just got away from him— and back in sensible pants, we move into the most bizarre storyline of the whole volume. I’m still trying to process what I read. For a minute I thought I’d stumbled on some really rough self-insert fic off Archive of our Own. So the new arc introduces Danny Chase. Danny looks like Chucky, the killer doll. He’s just slightly more obnoxious. The whole plot is about Danny, who’s a government agent at 14 (uh, okay) trying to save his parents, also government agents, and enlisting the Titan’s aid to do so. The story moves at a breakneck pace and just, like, keeps going. Danny reveals he has telekinetic powers and everyone talks up how incredible he is. He’s somehow both petulant and super smart, the key to solving the story’s problems and is like every annoying aspect of the kid tagalong all rolled into one package.

I never thought I’d say it, but I’d rather give more page time to Terry. Terry might be the bland self-insert love interest, but Danny is the self-insert who bamboozles his way onto the team and instantly out shines all the previously established characters. I swear I can hear the audience laughing at the last panel like it’s a sitcom. Danny’s whole introduction is a total car wreck: sudden, explosive and thoroughly unpleasant.

I girded myself for Danny to become A Thing, but he’s dropped the next issue without any explanation. I’m not complaining! Gift horse, mouth, etc. Instead, the Titans ally with Infinity, a superhero team I’m honestly unfamiliar with. It has Obsidian and Jade, who I know as Alan Scott’s kids. As a queer comic fan, knowing Obsidian and Alan is pretty much mandated. The rest of Infinity includes Temu!Ghost Rider and Wish!Hellcat. The story is mostly focused on Obsidian and Raven teaming up and teases at romantic feelings between them. Even though Obsidian is gay. I’ll give it a pass since Raven is subconsciously making everyone fall in love with her at this point anyway as part of her Hot Girl Summer. Unfortunately, the most memorable thing about this whole set of issues (aside from Raven being super extra, to my delight) is Obsidian’s dialogue. First up his comment to Raven that he “might as well turn on the blackface” which is not a thing a white person should say ever, anytime, even if their power turns their face literally black. Don’t do it Obsidian. There’s also his final “women, I’ll never understand them” line which is hilarious in hindsight. Poor baby is so in the closet.

The rest of the book is mostly introspective and delves more into Raven. Which is a good segue for our main topic of the book! So, Hot Girl Summer Raven is experiencing all these emotions for the first time, and she’s confusing her feelings of affection for Dick with romantic love. This would be complicated as is, but Raven’s empathy powers are bleeding out and influencing those around her. In this case, it’s causing Dick to have trouble navigating his familial love for Raven with her romantic affection for him. This creates a messy subplot (in the best way) where Raven is Feeling Herself but wants to Feel Dick instead. Meanwhile, Dick and Kory’s relationship is finally in a good place as Dick gets his head out of his ass and starts coming to terms with certain things. Like understanding the concept of a political marriage (in spacceeeeee.)

You’d expect Raven’s emotional meddling to cause a ton of drama. What happens is extremely refreshing: Dick is open about his recurring (involuntary) sexual dreams about Raven to Kory. She returns his honesty with understanding and an open mind. She instantly clocks what’s happening and why. She acts with maturity and grace, and even expresses some pretty progressive views on love. It sounds more than a little polygamous, which is impressive for a mainstream comic of the era (hell, seeing as how Marvel has totally dropped the ball with their supposed Scott/Jean/Logan throuple lately, it’s impressive for comics of this era too.)

Kory decides to help Raven sort her feelings out, and they spend an issue paling around. It’s great and the first time these two have really connected. Raven gets to do some soul searching as she logically understand her feelings for Dick aren’t romantic, even though her heart is stills saying otherwise. Raven spens most of her time since the series began soul searching , but usually it’s a very solitary thing. Now, however, Raven finds herself finally connecting with her team after years, growing closer to them and finding her place among them. For the first time in thirteen volumes, Raven feels like a true member of the Titan family. It’s been one of the most satisfying payoffs this entire series has given us.

I really appreciate that though Raven has changed so much in the last few volumes, she’s still recognizable. She still has a spooky text box wobble effect that is unique to her, and she’s also prone to extremely purple prosy dialogue. If the scene calls for a ham level of five then you can bet our girl Raven is gonna come in at twelve. She was my favorite part of this volume, and I hope her Hot Girl Summer goes strong for a while.

There’s a few other small things I noted around this time. First, the civilian clothes of the characters are slick. Raven wears a swanky late 80s coat that is loud as hell and she is working it. Joey also wears a t-shirt that looks like it’s promoting a heavy metal band. It’s so off from his DnD Bard costume as Jericho! I love the personality it shows off. For a man of no words, it speaks volumes.

The funniest line in the entire novel happens around this time. While Joey and his mother (love that ish) are shopping together a thief pops up and Joey does a body leap to stop the guy. It leads to this monumental exchange:

Thug: I-I can't control myself!
Joey's Mom: (smiling widely) Not while my son is inside you!

I died. Context be damned. There’s also a sudden weird moment where Joey looks into Kory’s eyes and the narrator is like “could it be love??” and I’m like “no???” It really comes out of nowhere, and the books had been pushing Joey and Raven together up to this point until they totally dropped the ball on that. I have no idea, but this was weird and I can sense the potential for melodrama upcoming. Not that I have a problem with it, per se, but I’m a little trepidatious. Dick and Kory only just got their shit together. Can we get a few volumes of them being a happy couple?

Just when I was lulled into a false sense of security the final issue in the collection is the return of Danny Chase. I swear to god, it’s like his very presence alters reality. The Titans constantly shill for him, he comes up with all the plans the team utilizes, and the story runs at Wally speeds to the finish line. It has the same kind of “audience laughs, fade to black” sitcom ending as his first appearance. I don’t want to be that guy, but Danny is giving Cousin Oliver. It’s only been two appearances and I think I despise him. The stories without him have been so good (okay, the Infinity crossover felt mid, all things considered) that I hope Danny doesn’t impact the overall quality of the book going forward.

Between him and Terry Long, why are all my narrative nemesis redheaded men? Man, Terry barely annoyed me this time! I only rolled my eyes like once or twice. Guess when there’s a greater evil right next to him it really makes me appreciate what I had.

[Anthony Wendel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume really helps to reignite the legendary Marv Wolfman run of Teen Titans. The interest comes from how the characters really experience growth in this installment compared to the all adversity they faced the previous volume. With a lot of focus on Nightwing and Starfire's relationship as well as Raven being able to embrace her new outlook on life.

[Jess · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay last volume I complained a bit about the number of issues where Marv Wolfman was only the co-writer or plotter on this issues. And yeah, there is still a little of that here. However, in volume 12, it seemed like Wolfman and Levitz were not on the same page on the story the wanted to tell. Now that we're out of the Brother Blood stuff (for now) things seem to be back on track. Not only that, once Wolfman is the sole writer again, everything is great. Apart from a few typos. You know what I find funny? They'll often fix coloring or even art mistakes in reprints... they rarely fix typos, lettering errors, etc. This one has two of them... but they are two very infamous ones.

The other fill in issue was an issue where Roy and Dann Thomas takeover the book for the Infinity Inc. crossover. I get WHY they did it that way. Crossovers are hard enough to do on their own, even if the same writer is doing both books. When it would be two writers doing two different books, that's even more difficult. But three writers on two books... that's a bit much.

Now, I'm not going to say the book is all bad. Because they aren't. Its just the stories that are in here that are really great would lose something by spoiling too much. They are the types of stories that benefit from you not knowing too much before going in. I hadn't read most of these issues in a decade or two and had forgotten them. It was almost like reading them again for the first time.

[Brian Heinz · Rating 4 out of 5]

The continuing story of the Teen Titans. Even with George Perez no longer on art, the writing by Marv Wolfman makes sure this book remains a classic.

At the start we wrap up some long-standing plots. (Steve Dayton and his NOT X-Men, Dick and Kory's faltering relationship) From there we move onto introducing the controversial Danny Chase, we meet the Wildebeast, a villain who will have a long lasting impact on the TITANS comic going forward and even deal in a very human and emotional way with Raven finally getting to feel emotions for the first time in her life and, mistakenly, thinking she and Nightwing have fallen in love. In particular, issue #39, deals with this romance. And there's no pushing and screaming. Raven doesn't go insane (yet) and ruin the team. She and Starfire just talk. Starfire, always in tune with her emotions, gently guides Raven through her feelings in one of Wolfman's "Slow" issues. A chance to see the Titans outside of a crisis, catching their breath. It's lovely and so different from the GO GO GO! pace of modern comics. The art by Eduardo Barreto is fine. (He's competent but no Perez) But it's Wolfman's writing that keeps me coming back.

[Liz.Loki · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Dick-Kory-Raven love triangle was so unnecessary… but I liked the focus on Raven and Kory’s friendship at the end. I loved how Kory — someone who is really connected to her emotions and who acts by following her feelings — helped Raven understand her own, since she couldn’t let herself feel anything for so long. It was really nice to read that. Less heterosexual romance more female friendships, thank you.

I don’t care about Danny Chase, the new addition to the Teen Titans. The issues about him are the ones I liked less.

[Cybernex007 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall a more fun read than anything, but I am glad we finally dealt with the hybrid and Issue 39 has been the best we have seen Raven! The painful buildup in the issues prior made it all worth it. The infinity inc crossover was also fun, but a little disappointing for the second part. Overall included all notes on the individual issues:

NTT 32-35
Annual 3
NTT 36-38
Infinity Inc. 45
NTT 39-40

[Ramón S. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Thia is becoming worse and loosing track.
The immorality is growing and I hate the premarital scenes os Sarfire with Nightwing. What a bad example and a message about the "normalization" of sexual sin!
The script is lame and the art very irregular.
The best: the showing up of Infinity Inc and the growing art of Eduardo Barrreto

[Franck Martini · Rating 3 out of 5]

Incredible art by Ed Barreto, stories are a mixed bag once again but the book definitely picks up after the annual. A fine read.

[Greg Callahan · Rating 3 out of 5]

(2.5)

[Mike A]

Confusing

The new teen Titans vol 13 the story's are good classic action and excitement recommend this book to any Teen Titans fan!