A now for something completely different - Teen Titans (Vol 5) #5

Human Resources

Teen Titans #5
Cover Date: February 2015
Released: 17th December 2014

The one good thing about being on a more regular schedule is that I can actually plan things out a little bit more. And one of those things is to celebrate certain important events throughout the year, so to start we're celebrating Black History Month with the other Power Girl Tanya Spears. And as the US and UK have different Black History Month's I plan it as a twice-yearly thing, with some now and more in October.

And no Infinity Inc didn't break me so badly that I had to retreat to something more modern! (though even this is seven years old at this point).

Whilst I could have started with Tanya's first appearance in World Finest #23 I plan to cover those, eventually, when I get to nu52's Power Girl. So instead we'll go with her first post Kara appearance, and as it seems anyone who's called Power Girl can't appear in a book that isn't a team-based we're starting with Teen Titan's #5. Whilst I tried most of the nu52 comics I only continued a few of them, World Finest, Batwoman for a while, and Earth-2. Which all suggests I was preparing for this blog well before I started working on it! This version of the Teen Titans is, much like the 80s stuff I'm reading as well, is totally new to me.

Previously on the Teen Titan's our heroes, Wonder Girl (Cassie Sandsmark), Beast Boy (Gar Logan), Raven (Raven), Red Robin (Tim Drake) and Bunker (Miguel Barragan) have been embroidered in a plot by Manchester Black to get STAR Labs to move there local New York office from downtown Manhatten to Governors Island for reason unclear. In the last issue, Manchester offered to team up with the Teen Titans to track down whoever is threatening them. (Obviously not knowing he's the bad guy).

We open up with a bunch of bored school kids taking Red K that gives you a random superpower, a reference to Red Kryptonite which does much the same, leaked from STAR Lab's Advanced Ideas Division. Meanwhile, the majority of the Teen Titans are deciding what to do about the offer from STAR Labs, not buying it in the slightest and sending Beast Biy to sneak into the Labs to try and find out just what's going on.

Meanwhile, Cassie is walking with her mom, who's obviously figured out she's Wonder Girl. Following her is an all-girl gang based on Wonder Girl, that be set up through the last few issues,  who have been violently defending women in the area. When the Red K powered kids start fighting between themselves that fall off the roof they've been on, in the path of Cassie. Send the gang off with her mother she starts to fight the four teens, struggling a little especially as one of them is invisible right now, so she calls the rest of Teen Titan apart from Gar who is on his STAR Lab mission.

We cut back a forward between Gar sneaking in, first as lice (with a weird comment that Beast Boy is always a male animal), the as a mouse where he listens in to Manchester Black and Josiah Powers about the fight and how the Red K was leaked. The fight itself goes back and forwards until the powerhouse of the group hears that Cassie's mom is still around throwing a garbage truck at her. At the last minute, Tanya pushes the older woman out of the way, apparently being crushed by the truck. 

And because Power Girl's always turn up at the end of the story Tanya lift's up the truck in a well-framed ending splash page.

First thing first I have no problem with Kara and Tanya both being Power Girl, we have enough Super and Batfamiles around for this not to be an issue. As much as I'd like a new Kara series I'd also love to see a new series with Tanya coming back. Obviously, there are discussions about how Tanya is a PoC adopting a legacy of a white character, but I don't feel that I'm in a position to judge this myself. Though there's an argument that Mal Duncan and Bumblebee should have been on the team, not that it counts out all three being team members.

Unlike Infinity Inc, an 80s comic, one I still like, but the simple A-plot, B-plot and C-plot are nicely woven together and unlike Infinity Inc is finished in only two issues. Tanya is still a bit of a cypher here, she is in only four panels after all, but she initially seems to have the cockiness that Kara has as well!

⋅ Writer: Will Pfeifer ⋅ Penciler  / Inker: Scott Hepburn ⋅ Colourist: John J Hill⋅
⋅ Editors: Rickey Purdin, Mike Cotton & Eddie Berganza ⋅ 

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