I consider myself a fan of JT Krul. He’s written some really good stuff in the time I’ve been aware of him. Now, he also wrote the horrid “Rise of Arsenal” but I give him a pass on that as he both inherited the mess with poor Roy Harper, and I have no idea how much editorial influence was worked on the book. Lately, he’s been on Teen Titans, which in the past has been a good fit for him, but the current story I am finding far from impressive. In “A Call to Arms,” Krul finally wraps up the Hindu god storyline, and manages to hit about every cliche I kept hoping he’d avoid.The new team member, Solstice, is an Indian woman, and they made it appear for a bit that Gar Logan, not her, would be the hero of the story. He’s not, she is, fitting into the “It’s my cultural myth, so I have to be the hero,” expectation. Also, she’s the new girl, so of course we have to see how impressive she is first time out. Further, her light powers are causing Raven, with her demonic heritage, to dislike her intensely, to the point of attacking her outright in addition to blaming her for about everything going on around them.For whatever reason, Wonder Girl decided to break up with Superboy a while back, and now he and Ravager seem to be flirting a lot. So, we’ll be setting up for yet another team romance, and the angsty love triangle. Lovely. In the end, the heroes win, the evil god is defeated, the various imperiled parents are rescued, and Solstice leaves her folks to join the Teen Titans.Gotta feel sorry for Kiran (Solstice’s real name) here. She’s joining the team just in time for two horrid events coming up (yes, I’m biased). The next few issues deal with the return of Superboy Prime. Prime was introduced as a hero way back in Crisis on Infinite Earths, but then the current folks in charge of DC decided to bring him back in Infinite Crisis as a villain. Since then, he has helped kill several Titans and Legionnaires, and become an emo whiner, as well as a stand-in for, apparently, how the management at DC feels how about some of their fans. After his arc comes the Great Reboot, and from the looks of the cover of Teen Titans 1, much of the current team will not be there, and the ones that make it are very different. Here’s hoping Prime doesn’t kill off a bunch more Titans. I really somewhat wish they’d make him a hero again, but I think he’s too far gone at this point. His personal death toll is just too high.

What I liked and what I didn’t:

I do still think Krul’s a good writer, I just feel this storyline hasn’t been up to his standards. Nicola Scott’s art has been great, as I have come to expect. Beast Boy (still really prefer the Changeling name) was given some credit in this arc, and he seems to be finally moving past the Raven hangup he’s had for a while now. That’s all to the good.

As I said above, this just seemed to be the confluence of the cliches, and I expect better from Krul. Changeling could have been the hero, we don’t need the Ravager/Superboy/Wonder Girl mess that seems to be lurking, and the Raven/Solstice oddness just seemed to come out of nowhere. Maybe that could be explored well, and some of these other things ironed out, but there are only three issues left, and even that only because they decided to bring out two Teen Titans issues in August so it can get up to 100 before they toss the numbers and history in the scrap heap.