DC Comics reviews 3/23/21 – Harley Quinn #1, Detective Comics #1034

Teen Titans Academy #1

We’re seeing a number of Future State breadcrumbs being dropped in the kickoff to Infinite Frontier. Some of relaunched books are benefiting from this tease while others need more time before setting in motion the events of a potential DC future.

Teen Titans Academy definitely earns a slot in the second category. When the most recent Teen Titans book ended, Nightwing and the original founding members — Donna Troy, Starfire, Cyborg, Raven and Beast Boy — offered to train the remaining members of Damian Wayne’s squad of Kid Flash, Red Arrow, Roundhouse and Crush.

Now writer Tim Sheridan introduces another wave of Teen Titans trainees to potentially one day join the main team. That’s more than enough potential storylines and subplots to play out for the first year, but Sheridan immediately jumps to the Future State tease that one of these trainees is up to mischief and potentially just joined for the sake of destroying the Titans from within as the mysterious Red X.

It’s hard not to get The Judas Contract vibes from this setup and it’s one Sheridan could have avoided for awhile.

Especially since the Titans embodies one of the greatest continuity logistic nightmares of the Infinite Frontier era. Cyborg began the New 52 era as a founding member of the Justice League. Bunker, another returning character, was a charter member of the New 52 era team and there’s still plenty of fun subplots with Damian’s four Titans.

The biggest problem is Sheridan introduced a mystery subplot that gets too much focus particularly since it shouldn’t get paid off anytime soon. I’m concerned every issue is going to be about setting up the Red X mystery and divvying up the remaining page time among this massive cast.

That’s frustrating since the characters are interesting enough to warrant greater development beyond casting them as a suspect.

Rafa Sandoval’s art is exquisite as he always provides such strong visual personality to his characters whether Donna’s battle ready stance, Beast Boy’s knack for leaning on others and rarely standing straight, Sandoval offers fun insight into the characters. Alejandro Sanchez’s rich color choices complement Sandoval’s classic artwork nicely.

Teen Titans Academy offers some encouraging signs that this could be a welcome evolution of the team provided Sheridan reduces the emphasis on Red X until that character is actually close to being revealed.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Photo Credit: DC Comics