Originally Published: April 20, 2011, on Comicvine.com

With new team member Solstice in tow, the Teen Titans look to familiarize themselves with a whole new set of demonic forces that for once have nothing to do with Raven and her daddy Trigon. Can they brush up on their Indian mythology enough in time to rescue Wonder Girl and Solstice’s parents though?

The Good

A lot of fast paced action throughout the comic helps set up some ominous undertones revolving around these new foes of the Teen Titans. Couple this with some good internal monologues from Raven and Red Robin and you can get a good feel of what the team’s overall psyche is right now. In flux, uncertain, and uncomfortable for a variety of reasons with one another, the Teen Titans are fighting inner demons as much as those from Indian mythology.

The Bad

It’s another magic based storyline for the Teen Titans. I understand that with Wonder Girl, Raven, and now Solstice on the team with such little being known about her, that magical and mythological creatures make for the most logical and frequent of foes, but it gets tiresome. I don’t want or need a mythology lesson every time I crack open a Teen Titans comic. Maybe instead of trying to introduce a horde of new villains into the Bat-Family comics, DC should look to flesh out and diversify other rogue galleries instead, like those of the Teen Titans.

The Verdict

This issue of Teen Titans gives you exactly what you would expect from the comic if you’ve been reading it to this point or even if you’re just roughly familiar with the series because it’s the same almost all the time. A good balance of character and plot development tempered with some action due to an unknown demonic force rearing its head and requiring the strength of everyone involved to overcome. Therefore, they must put aside the hints of internal team strife that are constantly simmering just below the surface due to a bevy of conflicting personalities. Everyone comes together in the end to save the day. Mix well with new characters occasionally and serve for $2.99.

For the most part, Teen Titans has become predictable and formulaic, aside from the one arc involving the Clock King a while back, which I particularly enjoyed because it broke so far away from the norm. Not to say it doesn’t deliver well on this formula it has come up with, but it would be nice to see something different from them once in a while. Of course, this also makes it easy to jump into if you know anything about the characters involved, but fans that have been reading this consistently deserve something new and exciting from this comic and they’re definitely not getting it this issue.