Titans: Beast World #3: The Chimp and the Phoenix

Out of many of the comic book events DC has done in the recent years, from Knight Terrors all the way back to Future State, Beast World undoubtedly tops all of that. It takes such an odd concept and stretches it out smoothly. These Beast World issues are much more interesting than the complimentary tours across the cities of the DC Universe and pay homage to a variety of characters one wouldn’t even think of seeing.

It feels as if in the past couple issues of Beast World, Batman being infected by the spores and turning into a wolf was the primary focus of the week. While the character went head to head with Nightwing and is now kept in confinement, we start off this issue looking at Starfire and Wonder Girl’s battle against Black Adam as a lion.

The last chapter ended with the looming idea that the beast spores would infect more powerful hosts, and we saw Donna and Starfire surrounded by spores. Early on, we see Starfire create a huge combustion, burning the spores to death!

Nightwing is with Barbara Gordon and Dr. Bridget Clancy at the Titans Tower, where they’re talking about finding a cure, not just for Batman but for all that have already been infected and turned into animals. As the three talk about the safety of the Tower and how nobody or nothing could get in, Detective Chimp appears out of nowhere, saying they need to talk, which catches the Doctor off guard.

Bobo poses the idea that the animals have an agenda. Just then, the next couple panels focus on a plane being attacked by hawk-people, with Power Girl arriving on the scene. One of the spores enter her mouth and while she’s up in the air, she mutates into a creature of a flaming eagle, almost resembling even a Pheonix. Going back to Starfire’s battle with Black Adam, the lion eventually runs away, with Bobo saying the animal has fight or flight instincts and that because it saw no chance of winning over an alien on fire, it chose flight.

Raven eventually asks Donna to come up to space. When she gets there, Raven asks her to use her lasso to contain Beast Boy’s conqueror form, Garro. With her lasso, she’s able to maintain him but not for long, and while she does, she tells the other assisting heroes to go down to Earth and assists in containing the Beasts.

Meanwhile Amanda Waller continues her campaign against the heroes as she quietly heads to Stryker’s Island Penitentiary to go visit the one person she believes could help her; Lex Luthor. She tells him that she needs something he stole from Batman, and without even saying what she needs, it becomes clear she wants Batman’s contingency plan for Beast Boy as she declares that it’s time to kill him.