Monday, March 23, 2026

"Hard Feelings, Indeed: A Short Review of TITANS Vol3."

The sole strength of TITANS: HARD FEELINGS is its art by Pete Woods and Serge Acuña.  Acuña takes a classically strong approach that places him in company with industry heavyweights like Dan Mora, but Woods offers a dynamism that almost looks digitally rendered, maybe in part thanks to the vibrant inks and colors.  Facial expressions are a particular strong point, and one suspects that (like most comics) the work as a whole would have benefitted from the author trusting his artist to visually narrate inner monologues rather than write them.



Which brings me to author John Lyman.  There is nothing good to say here; "Hard Feelings" points to the narrative theme, and the writing immediately goes downhill to face plant in Act 1 and drag along through the end of Act 2.  The Titans quarrel, then face off against a mind-bending B-villain who explains his dastardly plan but is out-chess'd by a strong-willed female (Donna Troy, aka "discount Wonder Woman") who refuses to let fear rule her and instead faces her traumas in order to blindside the foe.  Then the Titans share a couple more quarrels as the tension builds before facing another B-villain who explains his dastardly plan but is also out-chess'd by another strong-willed female (Raven) who refuses to let fear rule her and instead faces her traumas in order to blindside the foe.  


Dialogue and consistency is lowest-tier.  During the first stand-off, the heroes all make almost comically poor exclamations ("You'll never get away with this!"), or reference events "way back" last issue.  Character behavior is occasionally inconsistent, which seems to be Lyman losing the details as he fixates on the issue's point-of-view protagonist; when Donna Troy is the lead (meaning readers get to experience the inner monologue of her secret fears and anxieties that she self-wills into submission by the arc conclusion), she encourages the captured Titans with, "Don't listen to him, Titans! We can fight this!" (pure Shakespeare, that...), but when Raven is the lead (meaning readers are subjected once more to inner monologues about her secret fears and anxieties that she self-wills into submission by the arc conclusion), a mentally-influenced Donna instead echoes the mentally-influenced Nightwing's pained "Arsenal, you can't fight this!" with "Get out of here...get help..."  This is the same woman who only an issue or two before monologues, "The Justice League still thinks we're the kids, the sidekicks, in constant need of help.  We have to show them otherwise!"

That said, it is also impossible to take any of the alleged adults in this work seriously (quite apart from their incessant puerile bickering), since they all suffer from narrative-induced ADHD.  Twice in as many chapters they 180 away from the matter at hand to engage in "character development"; Arsenal is knocked unconscious and his place taken by an imposter, but when he finally stumbles back to base to warn the others, he immediately engages in a protracted discussion about past adventures and personally hang-ups, finally blurting out, "so yeah, that's when I got knocked over the head!"  A few scenes later, once Raven has self-willed herself to victory, the heroes immediately ignore the villain lying prone at their feet to instead focus on a medical brain scan to ensure that Raven's self-will is really a sign of self-healing (which it is).  Sure, suspension of belief may imply that they'd properly disposed of the bad guy, but I somehow doubt that Lyman thought about that.

Art's a solid 10, writing is sub-zero; I figure 5/10 for the work overall is generous.