Titans: Beast World #3 - Comic Review

 

Chaos continues to rage across the world as Garro's spores transform everyone in their path into animal people, including several members of the super hero community.

The first issue of Titans: Beast World was a really interesting, and kind of spooky, issue that introduced an ancient horror from the depths of space, sealed away inside a moon for thousands of years. It was the kind of thing that I really love. And whilst the series is still pretty entertaining, it feels like it may have lost a little of the stuff that made that first issue so good; and the tie-in books only seem to be dragging things down too. However, sticking to the main title, it's still a decent read.

After the events of the second issue, Batman has been infected with one of the spores, and has become a wolf creature. Luckily, Dick has been able to contain him, and has reached out to Doctor Bridget Clancy to help find a treatment for the infected. Tom Taylor, who's also writing Nightwing, has clearly done his research into the character, as Doctor Clancy is a blast from the past, having been in the Nightwing series back in the 90's. Her return is a cool little easter egg for long time readers, and the fact that she knows Dick is Nightwing, having lived in the same building as him and having seen him coming and going as the hero, is a cool moment too. It suggests that there's probably a fair few members of the public who know some of these heroes identities (particularly the vigilantes) and are keeping quiet about it because they understand that these are good people helping the world.

Whilst Batman is being helped in Titans tower Power Girl is infected, transforming her into a fiery bird creature (a definite nod to the Kyrptonian legend of Flame Bird), and Jon Kent has to do his best to take her on. This moment is slightly undercut by some of the tie-in stuff, and the fact that we've already seen Power Girl this way weeks ago in the Metropolis focused book ruins the moment here. And as I said when reviewing that title, the relaxed attitude of people, who are acting like nothing much is happening, whilst the main title shows the world in a full blown disaster, leads to readers not knowing how we're supposed to be seeing things.

Whilst a lot of the heroes try to contain the spores and save as many people as possible Starfire and Donna Troy head into space to help Raven and the other big hitters deal with Garro. Using her lasso, Donna is able to contain Garro somewhat, giving the others a chance to try and figure out what to do. Luckily, back on Earth, Detective Chimp comes to Titans Tower in order to assist with this. It's cool to see that the Titans are still leading things, even with folks like Wonder Woman and Superman in the fight. Most of the places we check in on in this issue has a Titan or two there, leading the charge, and there's still very much a sense that despite things having gone wrong the League hasn't turned round and said 'okay, you had your turn but fucked it up, we're in charge again'.

During all of this we also check in on Amanda Waller, who is still doing shady shit in the background. It's clear that her plan is to make people not want to trust the heroes, to see them as the reason for things having gone wrong, and for trust in them to be broken forever. She knows that she can't just take them down, but if she gets the world to turn against them she'll come out on top. But it seems that she's not just happy to let that play out, and is ready to do some serious damage to the hero community as she tries to force Lex Luthor into helping her with her new goal, killing Beast Boy. Gar's personality has been supressed thanks to Doctor Hate (presumably something that Detective Chimp can help the heroes undo), but it seems like permanently killing him is on the table; which I honestly hate. If Gar ends up dying at the end of this event I'm not going to be happy.

The art on the issue is provided by Lucas Meyer, with Romulo Fajardo Jr. doing the colouring work. The book looks really good, and the art sells the chaos and carnage that's going on, with some fantastic visuals that really makes it look like it might be the end of the world. The transformed heroes and villains that we get to see have some fun designs too, and the fiery bird version of Power Girl is slightly ridiculous, but looks better here than she did in any of the tie in titles.

Whilst the tie-ins for this event are coming out in orders that mess with continuity, and have tones that don't quite fit, the main title continues to be entertaining. Tom Taylor is clearly a fan of the Titans characters, and is doing some cool stuff with them; and when it comes to end of the world style stories he's still one of the best that DC has, and is doing some great stuff here.

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