Alex Sarll's Reviews > World's Finest: Teen Titans

JLA: Year One was a pretty good series, but it was also 25 years ago, so it's already a slightly worrying sign if DC are getting the same writer to do the same trick again now, except with a less good superteam. On top of that, factor in the vagaries of the sliding timeline, so that these characters who've been around for decades, and even in current continuity are all grown-ass superheroes with extensive adult backstories, are here depicted as bickering kids finding missions through social media hashtags and making jokes about Left Shark. It's most glaring in the case of Speedy*, here presented as a preening livestreamer; to be fair, in all the years he's been around, the character is best-known for his smack habit and the issue where he tried and failed to sexually assault an ex before fighting Batman over a dead cat, so this is at least a plausible update to his existing characterisation as a prick. At its best, as when the team attend a fan convention devoted to them (highlight: Wonder Girl crashes the 'Wonder Girl: Empowered Hero or Manic Pixie Dream Girl?' panel), there's a hint of the meta, satirical take on the DCU I associate with Mark Russell. The treatment of her and Aqualad's contrasting reactions to American cities, after growing up in isolated fantasy kingdoms, also hits home (to Wonder Girl it's all impossibly exciting, whereas he finds the sensory processing a bit much after the ocean depths). More often, though, there are worrying reminders of how what used to be the best superhero universe has ended up in a position where some of its most bearable books are wheel-spinning failures to recapture past glories.

*Green Arrow's mini-me, and not the Titan with speed powers; to its credit, the first issue does have a joke about that.