Titans #7: At the Tower

Back at Titans Tower, the heroes are met with a variety of challenges even within the first couple panels. That’s the beauty about superhero teams, which Tom Taylor has been able to catch, they can each be in multiple places all at once while somehow finishing their race, banding together again.

Issue seven kicks off with Cyborg and Raven teleporting into the tower only to find it flooded, in which Raven reveals to Cyborg that it must be the Tempest, and that she will face him herself. The next pages reveals Starfire in a battle with Xand’r, her old family servant who has been disguised as Brother Eternity. During their fight, Xand’r reveals a plot made with the dominators and citadel in which they would take down Starfire’s family, only for Xand’r to receieve the last piece of his god, and the location of where said god was imprisoned. That god then led Xand’r to the world of the Titans, where he hoped to revive the necrostar. After his speech, Cyborg blasts the enemy with water, knocking him down.

Switching over, Batgirl is coming face to face with beasts who have infiltrated the tower. Calling for backup, she is joined by Flash and Raven to take down a fox version mutation of Nightwing and a controlled version of the Tempest. Flash takes Batgirl to safety and Raven deals with the threats using her magic, taking Garth to a room where they plan on using flash dehydration to take him down. The heat picks up, and whatever is messing with Garth’s mind comes out of his mouth only to be incinerated by Raven’s magic.

Towards the end, Nightwing is turned back into a human and Garth now recognizes his friends again. However, as for “Brother Eternity”, Raven makes the decision to banish him to the phantom zone, to which Nightwing has ethical concerns.

While this issue makes up an even bigger part of the Beast World finale, it definitely marks the beginning as the Titans take back their power and address the first front of driving forces behind the beastly tragedy. What is most respectable about Tom Taylor as the writer is his consistency, and even for a while as it felt like his writing was straying off course, it made one big loop around.

As for Travis Moore’s art, it feels fun and a little childish. It’s different from Nicola Scott’s art and while the creative decision to change artists so early on is rather odd, I hope it suits the following arc.