Sirens Karaoke Night

For a bit of context, I did try parts of this run years and years ago when I was completing reading lists for minor characters that I was interested in at the time. (Namely Eddie, Zach, Black Alice, in my earliest years of fandom, a few years after that for Damian while doing a bigger read for him) And I remember being a bit lost of course, since I was weaving in & out of story arcs and only half understanding which ones were important & which were glorified cameos for my characters. (Normally I gotta hand it to fandom but, I think we’re a bit better about how we compile reading guides now than we were back in 2017-2020)

So this initial, partial attempt, didn’t leave me with the best impression.

Nowadays having more context of the Major Event Storylines of the era, of where some character’s arcs were heading, and especially where the company as whole was hurtling towards. TT03 feels like an omen of what was to come for DC, and a testament to how the very nature of comics can keep a run idling by, even when others may have been cancelled for much lesser offenses. Because when in doubt, you can always pass the baton on to another creative team, and hope that their ideas will swim.

What sticks the most with me from this run, is the footing it never seemed to find hold of. From Johns rebuilding the core four from essentially the ground up, paying lip service to their ‘history’ seemingly without an actual understanding of those characters, to the team roster itself being shuffled per the needs of whichever writer was then at the helm, leading to team shake-ups in the latter half that made the whole team feel like a never ending revolving door of cameos. Because when you go from a comic like YJ, where the cast is set & properly developed, given the space to grow & change together and really breathe. To a comic where ‘plot’ so overtly takes priority over properly developing the characters to make them compelling. It leaves me wanting! It leaves me wanting for so much more! Especially because I can see potential here! There’s nuggets of interesting ideas & dynamics, and they’re left to languish!

It’s also encapsulated in the lack of regard for legacy/recurring villains. The fact that they blew up a Deathstroke story arc so relatively early on only to not touch on him again, despite Rose’s departure & eventual return. Or that they had the Calculator storyline putter out into nothingness (what I assume will be a more satisfying conclusion in other runs, should I choose to revisit the Oracle/Batgirl stories where i know he ‘concludes’). Superboy-Prime being a lackluster two-bit footnote…

Again the comic as a whole just leaves me wanting. Wanting for more from these villains they’re supposed to be facing off against, more from their interpersonal team dynamics, more from all of the potential threads that would continuously be set up, and then… not fully touched on in satisfying ways. It doesn’t make me eager to continue my Titans reading, but it does reinforce a feeling that I’ve always had in regards to the Titans/YJ comparison of comic to cartoon adaptation.