Titans #19 Review

Titans #19

Role Call: Red Arrow, Lian Harper

As ever, beware spoilers below.

Guest Star: Mia Dearden (Speedy II)

Villain: Lady Vic

The Titans continue their spotlight on individual characters, this time around focusing on Red Arrow, formerly both Arsenal and Speedy- one the “fab five” Teen Titans. This tale is called Paternal Instincts and, in my personal opinion, is the best of these solo tales so far. It opens with Roy musing on how archery is like life, about adapting to variables you can’t control, etc. We gradually see that Roy is teaching his daughter Lian to shoot a bow, and that they have moved to a small house in Star City. Lian is not an instant, natural shot, which I think is a good touch, and there’s a scene of Roy pointing out that she’s making progress. Their practice is called off when Roy tells her it’s time to go to school, and he promises to help her paint her room tonight. She gets ready and can’t find a shoe (good touch of typical kid stuff) while he reviews pictures of various eras of his life, including the inevitable reference to his past heroin addiction. He gets her there on his bike, which two rather snotty teachers make comments about.

Lian goes off to school, a bit reluctantly, and Roy goes on patrol as Red Arrow, musing about the Titans falling apart. His mental wanderings are interrupted by a high speed police chase passing by, as he sees Lady Vic trying to kill someone. They fight and swap some comments about their mutual acquaintance Cheshire- mother of Lian. Vic knocks Roy down and takes off after her victim with Roy in pursuit who realizes he needs to pick up Lian about now, and somehow in here finds time to call Mia, who comes to get her. The same snotty teachers from the morning are commenting on absentee vs absent minded fathers, missing mothers, and Mia’s roller blades, asking if Mia plans to carry Lian on her back while using them. In my view, the best line of the issue is her comeback “Don’t be silly, that would be irresponsible. I brought another pair for Lian.”

The fight continues, and Roy manages to get the victim to safety (someone due to testify against a crime lord), but Lady Vic flees. Their fight ends up in hero locale of choice, the abandoned warehouse. Vic almost kills Roy, but he beats her, in part inspired by his being “all Lian has.” Roy delivers her to the cops after debating with himself about killing her for almost making Lian an orphan, and gets home. Mia tells him Lian was pissed but got over it, and has crashed on the couch. Roy tells her to let Lian sleep there, and goes off to paint her room, as promised.

What I liked: I think Roy has always been the most human of any of the Titans. He’s not an alien, not part machine, has no powers, and is not rich. He has his flaws (the past drug use, the womanizing) but he has some great strengths (his depth of feelings for his friends, his love for Lian, his desire to be the best parent he can). All the characterizations here seemed spot on. The artist did some things very well, like knowing what a finger guard is for archers and having Lian wear one to protect her hands, which aren’t toughened like Roy’s, and she was shooting target arrows in that opening, which was a nice, accurate choice.

Lady Vic, the villain du jour

What I didn’t: there were also some odd artistic choices- Roy looks through pictures from different eras of his life, and in every one, he looks the same as in the main story, including the same hair. Also, when he’s fighting Lady Vic, the colors were done wrong, so that she seems to suddenly switch from her usual outfit to one with no leggings and a sort of high cut almost thong like lower half. Also, on his own costume, Roy’s boots have changed from his more streamlined ones to the sort of turned over short cavalier looking ones like Captain America wears. Yes, these are minor, but they distracted me a bit. What I think is a lot less minor is the final fight between Roy and Vic. Roy is supposed to be a master of Moo Gi Gong, the art of turning anything and everything around you into a weapon. In this fight, that seems to be what she does to him, and he makes a poor showing. When she breaks his bow in half, he starts using his arrows as hand weapons, also a bad choice. I also think Roy should be a better fighter even without the Moo Gi Gong, and not get beaten so apparently easy by Lady V until his last minute rally. As a passing overall gripe, and not issue specific, notice who he fights here. Lady Vic is a Nightwing foe. Despite his decades of comic history, being a hero and government agent, Roy has never really had a rogues gallery, or even really a foe of his own. And in closing, he’s worried about the Titans breaking apart, so the guy with no powers and no personal fortune moves from New York to Star City, which was last located in California in the ever unstable DC geography? How will this help?

Overall, I liked it. I might be biased as I do like Roy a lot, and I even kinda like Lady Vic- I love Dick Grayson’s description of her once “talks like Jayne Seymour, fights like Bruce Lee.”

Next issue is supposed to be Donna’s turn, and the last one of these.