Polite Dissent

Remember back to Teen Titans #25, when Robin quit the Titans and the rest of the group vowed never to wear their costumes again? Here it is three issues later, only the second storyline since taking their vow, and they’re back in costume with Robin at their side. But I’m getting ahead of myself…

Teen Titans #28, “Blindspot”, starts as Sharon, a young woman walking through the park at night, stumbles upon a horrible secret. Screaming, she runs back to her apartment. Unfortunately, in all the excitement she dropped her purse and the criminals are able to find out where she lives. Luckily, Aqualad is at her apartment looking for her roommate Donna Troy when the thugs show up. Aqualad throws them out the window and relocates Sharon to the Titan’s headquarters for safety. Sadly, the horror of what she witnessed in the park has blocked the memory from her mind. Unable to find the other Titans, Aqualad tracks down Robin at Hudson University. Robin takes him to Mr. Jupiter’s estate where the other Titans are staying. Frustrated that he can’t convince the Titans to help him, Aqualad manages to talk them into donning their costumes and talking to Sharon in an attempt to find out what she saw in the park. Lilith uses her mystical power to read Sharon’s mind and discovers that she saw grotesque aliens masquerading as humans. Aqualad wants to run out and hunt for these aliens, but the Titans remind him of their vow. Angrily, he stalks out to solve the mystery himself, but is clubbed from behind, tied to a tree and left to die. The villain is revealed to be Aquaman’s (and Aqualad’s) arch enemy Ocean Master.

In Teen Titans #29, “Captives”, Kid Flash, Wonder Girl and Speedy all show up in the nick of time — and in costume — to rescue Aqualad. They tell him that they decided “to forget about our vow, at least for the present!” Meanwhile, Hawk and Dove return to Sharon’s apartment, hoping to lure the thugs back there. Their plan works too well and Hawk is overwhelmed and knocked unconscious. Dove enlists the help of the other Titans to rescue his brother, but in the end Hawk and Dove still manage to get captured by Ocean Master and taken to his underground lair. Using their powers, the brothers manage to escape and confront Ocean Master and his alien allies. Just when Hawk and Dove are about to be defeated, the rest of the Titans bust in and the criminals and aliens are all captured. At the end of the issue, Aqualad tries to convince the Titans to give up their vow but they refuse. Sadly, he leaves them behind telling them, “I can see that you’ve learned something from this adventure! But the way I see it, you haven’t learned enough!”

The art is generally quite good. Nick Cardy does an excellent job using varying angles and perspective to keep the panels interesting. His dramatic use of shadows adds a layer of suspense to the plot. Sadly, his aliens are less than inspired. They have a distinctive Silver Age Marvel look to them and could easily have stepped from the pages of Fantastic Four.

The story, by original Hawk and Dove scribe Steve Skeates, is too full of coincidences. A young woman just happens to be walking through a park at precisely the right moment to come across aliens disguising themselves as human (and why would the aliens use a public venue to make the change when they have a secret hideout?). This same young woman just happens to be Donna Troy’s roommate. Aqualad just happens to choose the perfect minute to visit Donna. The villain just happens to be Aqualad’s arch enemy Ocean Master. More importantly, the way the Titans so easily and completely (and frequently) change their minds about their supposedly sacrosanct vow never rings true and undermines the “seriousness” of this vow (and all the stories that spring from it).

Hawk and Dove manage to get some nice action scenes in this story. Unlike previous Titans stories, their original personalities resurface and they repeatedly butt heads over their philosophical differences. Ultimately, Dove joins Hawk in attacking the aliens, figuring that violence in this instance is fine because the villains aren’t human.

This is the Hawk and Dove’s last appearance as main characters in this edition of the Teen Titans. They appear in an original back-up story in issue #31 and a reprint back-up story in issue #39. They do make some appearances when the Teen Titans is relaunched in 1977, but that is seven years down the line. The Teen Titans themselves last for two and a half more years, but the series ends at #43 in 1973.