Graphic Novels - Teen Titans Vol. 2: Family Lost

Happy post-Thanksgiving! I hope all of you out there had a good Thanksgiving and that you are now exercising or doing something to get that turkey and dressing off ya. Here I am, sticking to what I said last time and going in order through this DC stuff. The next tpb on the list? Teen Titans Vol. 2: Family Lost.

Now I forgot to mention something in my last post and here it is: Volume 1 of the rebooted Teen titans book contain the first seven issue of the series. This volume contain issues 8 - 12, as well as Teen Titan 1/2. This volume pretty much takes off from where we left everyone in Volume 1. The TT are still looking for Raven and Joey (Jericho), and now Deathstroke and his daughter are also on the search. The creative team is pretty much the same as last time, but we have a new artist on board. Ivan Reis. I'll talk about him more later. So let's do it!

Part One: The Ravager (So that's how it's spelled!)
This is that 1/2 issue. It pretty much follows Rose Wilson, the daughter of Slade Wilson aka Deathstroke the Terminator. From what I can tell, the events take place between Issue 6 and Issue 7 of the last volume. We get two pages of flashbacks, with the first page being a flashback of Slade when he was....doing something, I don't know, probably mercenary work. All I know is that he's running in a jungle, Predator-style, with a woman and some soldiers. Before he can say "Get the the choppa!!!", the soldiers are all gunned downed and Slade is grazed by a bullet. Later, he wakes up with the woman, named Lillian, by his side saying that he's lucky and a survivor. The next page is a series of panels involving some Titans, Slade, and Rose. We see:

• Dick Grayson (The first Robin, now Nightwing) as he sees his parents die right in front of him.
• Rose as a young girl training with her mother, Lillian.
• Slade, as Deathstroke, holding his son, Grant Wilson, and blaming the New Teen Titans for his son's death (Check out New Teen Titans #2).
• Slade killing Jericho
• Doctors talking about cloning Superman, which leads to Superboy.
• Rose talking to Wintergreen, Slade's associate, about her mother dying.
• JeriStroke or DeathIcho (you'll know what I mean if you read the last post) shooting Bart in the kneecap.
• Rose in a house in Chicago (Present Day).

Rose is talking with her adopted parents about getting into a fight at school . Seems like they're good people, trying to help Rose and be supportive. They are about to hug and all of that mushy stuff, until it's all stopped when someone snipes and kills both foster parents right in front of Rose. It turns out that someone placed a hit out on her, and the person who accepted the job was Slade's half-brother, Wade DeFarge aka Ravager (Man, that name gets around in this family!) He's about to take her, but suddenly the Teen Titans pull a Kool-Aid Man routine and kick DeFarge's butt easily. Bart checks out Rose, who isn't happy to see them or him. They try to drill DeFarge for answers, but they, Rose, and DeFarge get knocked out with gas.

When the Titans wake up, they find that Rose and Defarge are gone. Superboy pretty much gets into an arguement about the only good parts of Deathsroke family, as well as a few other Titan members who went bad, with Starfire and Kid Flash. Apparently, Rose was also once a Titan back in the day (who wasn't?).

Rose wakes up and sees her father Deathstroke. It turns out that he has tried to look for her because Wintergreen's dead (remember that head on the wall from last time. Yep, that was him.) and he needs someone he can trust and look after. He then tells Rose to kill his brother, Wade, and it's here that we see that Rose is a little.....nuts:

AHHH!!!!!

Meanwhile at Titans Tower in San Francisco, the Titans have looked everywhere for them but come up with nothing. Wonder Girl wonders who placed that hit out on her. Cyborg says "Yeah--I think that's obvious." The last panels of this part have Slade hugging his daughter, with this sinister smile on his face. So in conclusion, Slade planned out all of this: the hit on Rose, contacting the Titans and his brother, and getting Rose P'Oed at her uncle. Yep, Deathstroke the Terminator is one bad....brother from some other mother.

Part Two: Family Lost
We start out in Gotham City. Tim is saying bye to his dad and heading off to the Batcave, where he'll get a ride to the Tower. He talks to Batman about wanting to tell his dad that he's Robin. Meanwhile, in San Francisco, the Titans are facing Mammoth, a big villain, and Gizmo, a small but smart villain. The titans are getting their butts tossed left and right, and Beast Boy is wondering where Conner is. Turns out Conner is once again in detention (Hey, Conner's not wearing his glasses in this panel! Oops?) and has to wait before he can join his friends. Eventually, with some brute force from Cyborg, Mammoth is taken out. Beast Boy takes out Gizmo in a somewhat cool way:

Dang!

Anyway, we get back to Batman and Robin in the Batplane. Batman flat out tells Tim to be wary of Raven when he find her since she had some trust issues, and that it's better that his dad didn't know that he was Robin. Tim, of course, blows the whole dad part off. We then skip to Titans Tower, where Superboy and Robin arrive. They, Wonder Girl and Kid Flash get lectured by Starfire about Raven, and we get a long flashback about Raven's origins, her time with the Titans, and her turn to evil and eventual death. I might as well mention some of it since it's here and it helps to know who Raven is.

• Raven's mom runs away from an abusive home, joins a cult (not a smart thing), and gets impregnated by Trigon the 8th devil ( The first seven suck apparently sucked at the job.).
• She tries to kill herself but can't.
• Suddenly, people from the world of Azarath come and take Raven's mom (Don't worry. They're the good guys).
• Raven is born and throughout her first seventeen years feels no emotion and is emotionally distant from her mother.
• When Trigon threatens Earth, she leaves Azarath and heads to Earth to stop him. She tries to get the JLA to help, but they turn her away (Jerks.), so she forms the New Teen Titans to take care of her ugly father. They do, and apparently they take care of him a lot.
• Since Trigon was her father and she had that darkness in her, Raven went evil.
• They destroy Raven's corrupted body so that her good soul may be free (In other words, they killed her.).

Now, she's back in a new body. Starfire says that her appearance means that something evil is coming and the the Teen Titans must be ready for it. Robin mutters to himself if Raven is the evil that's coming.

We skip to the Church of St. Sebastian aka That Church Where All of That Crazy Crap Went Down. Deathstroke is there beating up a cultist trying to find Raven. We then see Rose as Ravager. Uh oh.

Oh no, it's that crazy chick again, and she's got knives and stuff! RUN!

Part Three: First Blood
We start out in some deep cave that looks like it needs a makeover. A bald Raven is chained to a wall. Some kid dressed in some Shakespearean (?) garb is talking to some cultists and then he rips out Raven's red jewel (I guess it does something for Raven) from her head with his teeth. WTH? Man, this guy's already on my nerves!

We cut to the rooftops of San Fran. Robin, Wonder Girl, Kid Flash, and Beast Boy are going to the hospital to catch up a lead on Raven. Apparently, all of the fortune tellers in a certain part of the city have gone into coma. Robin thinks it will be faster if the take his new ride.

Oh Yeah! Now that's what I want for Christmas!

Bart, being the immature one, really really really wants to drive it. They let him. I'll just let these two pages tell you what happened:

Ha ha!

We cut to the Tower where Conner is working on a paper for school. He brought Krypto along for the trip. Krypto is restless so Conner asks if he wants to go outside. Suddenly, Krypto busts through the window and starts to mess up Starfire's garden. Conner tries to get him out, only to be approached by Starfire. Crap.

We then cut to That Church Where All Of That Crazy Stuff Was Going Down (TCWAOTCSWGD for short). Ravager starts to question the last remaining cultist for questions about Raven. He gives an answer, and then is killed by that crazy woman. Deathstroke gets on her a little bit, telling her not to fail like the rest of her brothers did. Now that they know where the Church of Blood (I guess that's what it's called) is, they will go there and make sure that Jericho is dead by killing Raven.

Meanwhile, Conner (who just got cussed out by Starfire) is running after Krypto, who's still being a nuance. Krypto runs into Vic's room where he sees this:

Well, I hope he doesn't run on Windows 95!

We find out that Cyborg has to run maintenance on himself so he can be in tip-top shape. After Cyborg puts himself back together, Krypto starts acting strange. Suddenly, ravens fly out of Krypto's mouth.

Meanwhile, at the hospital, the phyisican shows the the team the fortune tellers. The tellers are all doing the "Dana Barrett" (floating atop the bed) and have a black aura around then. Gar recognizes it as Raven't energy signature. Suddenly, the tellers yell out "TEEN TITANS" and that black aura or whatever gets into Gar. He the transforms into a raven and proclaims "The raven belongs to Brother Blood."

Part Four: Raven RisingStarfire is walking the beach by the Tower, probably still miffed at Krypto for destroying her garden. She begins to notice a large, large flock of birds flying, and then she notices that the water has turned to blood. Suddenly, those ravens that flew out of Krypto bust out of the tower and Superboy and Cyborg check on Krypto (don't worry, he fine.). Starfire joins them and is going to tell them about the blood until suddenly, a big skeleton of Trigon comes out of the water Godzilla-style and tries to attack them. Cyborg tells Superboy that Raven is trying to contact them, to which Conner replies:

Yeah, Raven! Send an email or something! Don't send Chutulu to my door!

We cut back to hospital. Wonder Girl ties up Gar with her lasso so he won't joing the rest of the birds. Meanwhile, Kid Flash checks on the tellers, who are fine now, and gets them out of the room. Suddenly, Robin starts to act strange and keeps blabbing about his dad and Batman. Kid Flash and Wonder Girl start to do the same thing. Thanks to some help from Ares himself, the team snap out of it. Robin realizes that those feelings came upon them because Raven hated her father.

At the tower, Starfire, Cyborg, and Superboy, who finally can use heat vision, take out the big skeleton. The rest of the team show up and figure out what to do. They figure out that it's Brother Blood who has kidnapped Raven. Bart blurbs out that Brother Blood is dead. It also turns out that the cult has been after Raven before. They then notice that the possessed Beast Boy is flying away towards the flock of birds. So they decide to run .....run so far away, and they run, they run all night and day .......(Oops. Sorry, I had an 80's song moment.).

So, they let BB go and follow him. While they go, Robin wonders if they should take Raven out if she goes bad and tells the new recruits about that. They tell him to calm down and to stop acting like Batman. Ouch.

Meanwhile, in the the Cave of DOOM!!! (there's not at name for it), the kid is talking about Raven to his mother. She disagrees with what he is doing. They argue, and after she tells him that she's not his mother and that he's psychotic, the new kid attacks the woman and bites her in the face (Huh?). Afterwards, he calls up another woman and makes her his "mother". Yeah. Weird.

The Titans finally make it to the cave. They go in and as they go in, we see Deathstroke and Ravager at the cave as well. The Titans find a maze of stairs. They come upon a door with some cultists going in. Robin makes the plan to knock the cultists out and go in take their robes to make a disguise. Cyborg busts the door open and:

Oops.

Well, they put Plan B in motion: Get Raven away from the crazy kid. Conner is amused that the kid is actually the new Brother Blood. They get attacked by the cultists. Brother Blood springs into action and then bites Conner to take some of his power. He does some damage with that power. He breaks the floor, Starfire gets knocked out, Robin tries to help her, and they both fall through the floor. The last panel goes dark and someone says "Look what I found Daddy." Oh no, it's that crazy chick again!

Part Five: Raven Rising II
We cut to Robin getting up from falling through a hole in the floor. Starfire helps him get up. She then gets a shotgun pointed to her chest. Deathstroke and Ravager have found them. Robin and Starfire wonder what Rose is doing helping Deathstroke. Deathstroke offers to help them out of the place if they help them kill Raven. Starfire agrees (Huh?), with Robin disagreeing about the deal.

Meanwhile, Cyborg is beating up more cultists, and Kid Flash tends to Superboy's bite. Brother Blood tries to bite Cyborg, but it doesn't work and Vic feels even more peeved:

Hmm...what can I say?

Cyborg: Yeah, that's right! Taste some 10W-40, sucka!

Possessed Beast Boy flies near Raven, who does something that snaps him out of it and he transforms back into his human form. Cyborg gets overwhelmed by cultists, he tells Gar to get Raven out of there. He transform into an orangutan (or a gorilla,I really can't tell)kicks some butt, and gets Raven out of there.

Meanwhile, Starfire Robin, Deathstroke, and Ravager are walking up stairs. Robin asks Starfire why she sided with the bad guys. She says she wants to help her friends, but Robin doesn't like that answer. He says that after some thinking, he won't give up on anyone now. He then attacks Deathstroke, but Ravager stops him. They all then come up some big doors, which lead to the Church of Blood, and we see a former villain's image:

The Church of Latter-Day Psychos.

The group find a book, which is the cult's Bible. Robin finds out that the Church of Blood worships Trigon. They also read that when the new Brother Blood weds Raven, the world ends. So they have another reason to kill Raven.

Meanwhile, Beast Boy sets down Raven. Raven tells him that without her 'chakra' (that red jewel on her head), her powers are greatly diminished and she's under Blood's control. Blood finds them, and he has taken care of the rest of the Titans. Beast Boy tries to fend off the cultists, while blood tries to make his move on Raven. Suddenly,

Finally!

The other group shows up and try to get Raven. Deathstroke and Ravager try to take Raven, but Starfire stops them. Deathstroke yells "I thought we had a deal, Starfire," to which Starfire replies "I lied." Robin is impressed. Blood uses Raven's chakra to make Raven teleport most of the group to........ Raven's soul? (yeah....i can't explain that.). BB, Kid Flash, Robin, Starfire, Deathstroke, and Ravager find themselves in more trouble when Jericho shows up.

Joey: Oh and by the way, can someone find me my fluffy shirt? It's cold here in Raven!

Part Six: Raven Rising III
We start out with Blood, Raven, and the cultists standing outside with Superboy, Cyborg,and Wonder Girl. He has sucked some of Wonder Girl's blood and gains her power. Now, he's going to use Raven to bring on the end of the world. He also swallows Raven's chakra.

Meanwhile, Deathstroke, Ravager and the rest of the Titans are trapped within the dimensional confines of Raven's soul self. Jericho finds them and begins attacking them by jumping into body after body. Jericho does this in an effort to kill his father, Deathstroke.

Suddenly, Raven expels the heroes and villains from her soul and everyone is dumped out into the middle of the forest. Blood also summons a plague of Trigon-looking demons which begin attacking everyone who does not have true faith. Unfortunately, this also includes many of his own cultists.

Ravager finds Jericho in Beast Boy's unconcious body. She hesitates to kill him. When she finally decides to kill him, Cyborg stops her. Jericho then jumps into Wonder Girl's body and does some damage. Superboy tries to stop him, but can't.

Jericho then tries to jump into Cyborg's electronic eye, but Vic traps him and downloads his essence into his robotic parts.

The only way to stop Blood is to get Raven back up to full power and out of his control. In order to do so, they must get her chakra which Blood has eaten. Beast Boy does a brave and gross thing when he transforms into a worm and goes into Blood’s mouth. He grabs a hold of the gem and forces Blood to regurgitate him and the gem onto the ground. Ew.

When Beast Boy puts the chakra back on Raven's head, Raven's full strength returns, and her costume changes into her ordinary navy blue color. She spreads her soul self wide and engulfs Brother Blood, the demons, and his followers. She transports them all to .....Elsewhere.

Deathstroke and Ravager take off and Raven teleports the Titans back to Titans Tower.
Bart talks to Starfire about Rose, who he knew and kinda liked (Aw, I'm a little sad now). Cyborg puts Jericho's essence onto a computer disk, which fills 210 MB. (I wonder how much space I would take up on a disk.) Anyway, Jericho is taken out safely and no longer a threat, for now. Raven is back and the team will help her get acustomed to ....well being alive again as well as being bald. Later, she and Gar talk and eventually hug (Aww!!!).

Alll of that sappyness then ends when we cut Blood in ....Hell (or someplace like it)? All of his followers are killed by the demons, who then turn to Blood and worship him. He then names someone else "Mother." Who? Don't know nor care.

We cut to to Deathstroke and Ravager at his hunting room. He expresses his disappointment in her inability to kill Jericho. He then goes on to say that she is nothing like him at all. To prove that she is certainly her father's daughter, as well as crazy, Rose takes Deathstroke's sword and gouges her own eye out with it.

Yeah, she's nuttier than a nut.

. . . . .
Well, that's all I have to say. Is it a good read? Yeah, it's okay. It has its good and funny moments. I guess what I don't like about it is the new Brother Blood. I guess it's because he's just an evil kid. Now Deathstroke's a cool villain. This new Ravager? I guess she's okay. You know why she's evil: she just nuts and had a troubled life. The new Brother Blood? Not that great. There's not a lot of backstory to him, and he doesn't seem threatening when you compare him to Trigon, Deathstroke, Dr. Light (post-Identity Crisis), and maybe the old Brother Blood.The artwork is all-around good. It's also good to have Raven back on the team. It is also good to get a resolution to the Jericho problem. I'm wondering where this Ravager will go (yeah, I kinda know what happens to her, but I haven't read it yet, so there!).

Next Time: Beast Boy, I think. I don't have that volume yet, so I may skip to Vol. 4, which as of now is my favorite volume.