TITANS #5

Over the last couple of months I may have been overly critical towards the work Dan Abnett and Brett Booth have put into this book. But as for this month, hey, this month is a new month entirely. It's December, 2016, and it's time for the Titans in review. Fingers crossed, it's going to be good!

TO QUOTE William Shakespeare: 'The course of true love never did run smooth'.

THE REVIEW:

At the start of this months episode Wally West is faced with a very curious dilemma. In less than seven seconds -- or in comic book terms, the span of twenty plus pages -- he has to race across country and save his friends from their current perilous predicament. Problem is, for him to be able to do this, he has to push himself to the very limit, which may inadvertently cause his own speed-induced demise.

Now in loose term's, very loose term's, that's the basic plan Abracadabra came up with during the current 'Return Of Wally West' story-arc, and now this is what Wally has to do to save the day -- rescue his friends, or die trying.

But can he do it? Can he stop Roy from getting shafted in Keystone City? Can he rescue Dick and Donna from getting their mind-shagged in Coast City? Can he halt Garth and Lilith from getting buggered wherever they're located? And more importantly still, can he save Linda Park, the sweet and innocent Linda Park, spit, from getting her fanny fried in Gotham?

Well, I can't really say, can I? As if I did, I would totally spoil the book for you. Although what I can tell you is that Wally West does run very-very fast, and in so doing comes up with a number of curious questions.

Not directly, mind you. More indirectly, during his psychic discussion with Abra-De-What's-His-Face! You see, while Wally is running from pillar to post, occasionally the plot would shift gear, where we'd see a number of revelatory sequences, each taking the form of either a flashback scene or a visual recollection.

In one of these flashback scenes we see Kadabra, post-Flashpoint, spitefully casting Wally into the time-stream, with Wally wearing one of his old Kid Flash costume's no-less. But to me, this sight begs the question, what was he doing wearing his old costume in the first place? Before Flashpoint began he was wearing his regular Flash costume, so I don't see the reason why he's wearing his old one now, do you?

Something else these un-disclosed scenes revealed is the fact that Wally is a lot faster than he was before, presumably because of his time away. Again, I'm not quite sure why this has happened, a hundred percent. Yet I do hope these little revelatory cast-offs are explained sooner or later -- preferably sooner rather than later.

Now quickly moving onto the art side of things and I must congratulate Brett Booth and Norm Rapmund on their marvelous collaboration together. In spite of being presented with a pretty sparse plot -- I mean, all there was to it involved Wally running around and saving people -- both of them still managed to produce splash pages and dynamic illustrations of speed, emotion, action, and kinetic flow, which has to be applauded because of the added emphasis they gave to a fairly thinly designed plot-line.

Another shout out should also go to the colorist, Andrew Dalhouse, as he was able to amp-up their visuals with his clear and bold color palate. During those scenes where we see Wally running, jumping, and not standing still, I really loved the way the white and blue lightening emanated off of his costume, as it kind of made him look more powerful, or more emotional even.

Now please don't take my previous two statements the wrong way, dear reader, as I don't wish to take anything away from Dan Abnett's story-line. But as I said previously, apart from the basic narrative being fairly easy to follow, full of little pieces of trivia to help it on it's merry way, at the end of the day it was regrettably too basic and too simple by design, leaving some of us Titans fans wanting more character, more progression, and more answers to those unanswered questions.

THE MUSIC:

For this months musical match-up I would like to pair this adventure with the Lionel Richie song, Running With The Night, simply because...

THE COMPARISON:

...let's face it, folk's; the majority of this issue was dedicated to seeing Wally West running. So, simply put, I can only really compare the story to one thing: A race, preferably a grand race seen in the Olympics.

THE CONCLUSION:

At the very end of this issue something happens to Wally West. So for the sake of speed --- Zooooooommmmm --- let's see if you can guess what that something is out of the following eight options? Does he...