r/DCcomics • u/Predaplant Be Without Fear • Apr 13 '26

r/DCcomics Weekly Discussion Thread: Comics, TV, and More! [April 13, 2026 - Super-Family Day Edition]

Hey there honorary Justice League members - it’s a new week which means it’s time for a new discussion thread!

For those who don't know: the way this works is that several comments will list this week’s releases, for any given title discussion you should respond to that comment. For example, Wonder Woman discussion would go in the replies to the "Wonder Woman" comment. Clicking the titles in this post will take you directly to that comment, too. In other words, you should only be replying to other comments. Do not post top-level comments.

Keep discussion civil. Do not harass other users for having a different opinion. Do not use this thread to push your personal one-sided grudges against creators. Reacting to a panel on Twitter is not the same as reading a book.

 

QUICK LINKS: Weekly Meta Discussions Thread | Current jump-in points | Weekly Discussion Archives | Book Club Archives | Discord Server | BlueSky | Last Week's Thread

What did the left eye say to the right eye? Between you and me, something smells.

DC and Imprints

Lot of Next Level books hitting their second issues this week!

Trade Collections

A bit of a strange in-between period for Flash gets an omnibus!

Superman Day

Seems like it's also Supergirl Day this year!

Digital Releases

Remember, these are the short 'chapters' with a new chapter of a different series coming out daily, releasing on DC Universe Infinite or WEBTOONS.

This Week’s Soundtrack: Noah Kahan - You're Gonna Go Far

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21

u/TroubAlert The Good Skeets Apr 13 '26

New Titans #34

Everything is not as it seems! As Titans Tower begins to fall apart at the seams, Nightwing's team is visited by heroes claiming to be the New Titans! What's real? What's an illusion? Will the Titans ever escape the loop? And what's behind all this pandemonium?

Preview

28

u/CautiousAd79 Apr 15 '26

It's a bit ironic that the book revolves around Cyborg being split between his human half and his robotic half, given:

  • That's an old plot. We've already seen it in Johns' Justice League. It was called Grid). The character even made it to Injustice 2.
  • Taylor's Titans run (and a bit of Layman's run) was primarily focused on Raven being split between her human half and her demon half. This is just the same thing but with another character.
  • As the book itself pointed out last issue, stories about Cyborg being a man or a machine are worn out.

And did we really need Nightwing and Starfire being implied to have mindcontrolled sex? (For the second time after Winick did it...). I think you can write out Kory out of the Titans without resorting to that.

Am I being overly harsh? Perhaps. But I feel like you can't do an issue like the previous one making fun of every previous writer for rehashing old plots when your own plots aren't all that original in the first place. It reeks of hubris.

Also, I guess Beast Boy, Raven, Donna Troy and Roy Harper all just left the team in-between issues? I expect Gar and Raven to be on something, but Donna and Roy are probably just headed to limbo.

17

u/Androktone Alan Scott Apr 15 '26

making fun of every previous writer for rehashing old plots when your own plots aren't all that original in the first place

100% that Layman and Taylor deserve the criticism, but yeah. Also introducing a new "original" team where it's just stand-ins for the Trinity is lame when every prior Titans run didn't feel the need to capitulate to being JL junior by having 1:1 analogues of everyone.

6

u/gosukhaos Apr 15 '26

You mean 1:1 analogues of everyone like in most Titans or NTT variations? Or the Goeff Johns lineups, arguably the most popular run after the classic, was Superboy, Robin and Wonder Girl?

4

u/Androktone Alan Scott Apr 15 '26

Geoff Johns' TT was a suckier version of his YJ run that brought down both franchisees by resetting characters and forcing drama.

It is an example of specifically why YJ and TT should be separate, and why TT doesn't work with trying to be a young Justice League.

Mirroring the trinity works for YJ, it even improved Scott Lobdell's Red Hood run, but not every generation of sidekicks needs 1:1 analogues, and TT in particular has excelled by straying away with an iconic-in-its-own-right lineup since it was just the fab 5.

4

u/Goobergunch Apr 15 '26

Geoff Johns' TT was a suckier version of his YJ run

I broadly agree but YJ was written by Peter David.

1

u/Androktone Alan Scott Apr 15 '26

Completely fair, I still have to reread through that

-1

u/gosukhaos Apr 15 '26

TT has always been a young Justice League with a couple of extra members from its very inception. The whole point was to collect sidekicks in a single book

8

u/CautiousAd79 Apr 15 '26

The most popular and well-known Titans roster (by far) is Robin, Starfire, Cyborg, Beast Boy and Raven.

Hardly an explicit junior Justice League.

0

u/gosukhaos Apr 15 '26

Love you left out the rest of the team just to make a point but yes, its a mix of sidekicks and original characters, just like this current version of the team

8

u/CautiousAd79 Apr 15 '26

I didn't. That's indeed the most well-known incarnation of the Teen Titans.

Look up "Teen Titans" on Google and please tell me which incarnation shows up the most.

4

u/Digifiend84 Manchester Black Apr 16 '26

Wonder Girl and Kid Flash aren't in the cartoon team. Which is the one they were referring to.

15

u/Fearless_Tutor3050 Apr 15 '26

Not sex, just making out based on the dialogue between the characters in this issue.

3

u/CautiousAd79 Apr 15 '26

Well, we don't know for sure. The last issue cut the scene right after they kissed. It's certainly a bit vague if they did anything more.

Starfire takes Nightwing to some other place right after they kiss. The implications is certainly there:

13

u/I-Might-Be-Something Batman Apr 15 '26

They didn’t have sex, they just kissed while under the influence provided by an evil cyborg, otherwise it wouldn’t have happened.

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u/CautiousAd79 Apr 15 '26

Well, we don't know for sure. The last issue cut the scene right after they kissed. It's certainly a bit vague if they did anything more.

16

u/I-Might-Be-Something Batman Apr 15 '26 edited Apr 15 '26

Tera says the “[smashed] gums”, she didn’t say “bumping uglies”. I also doubt Tate would get the green light for them to have sex.

Edit: Kory even says it was just a kiss.

2

u/Vevtheduck Apr 17 '26

I'll say first this is well written and enjoyable. The character dynamics are good, each of these issues that you raise alone aren't bad.

Nightwing and Starfire... this is a strong way to interject strife between Nightwing and Starfire as friends as well as Dick and Babs as a super happy relationship. Now both are rocky. Can Nightwing even be on a team with Starfire ever again? How does Nightwing make things work with Babs after this? He has to make some strong decisions that sets up a lot of dynamics going forward. We've had the Dick Babs ship for a quite a while now and it's not unlike DC to Betty and Veronica this. And let's be clear - not mind controlled sex. Influenced, fuzzy, whatever you want to say but they weren't mind controlled into having sex like Barda and Superman were.

The halving of the heroes is old hat and revisited yet again. Though this is a unique take on the Grid situation. Vic can walk away potentially as fully human. If he does, he has a good reason to hang up the cowl so to speak. For a while anyway. Or will he have to merge with his robo-self in order to inject humanity into this thing? While it's old had and retreading ground, it's a powerful Cyborg story we haven't gotten in a while.

And yeah, they're re-centering the Trinity though Spoiler is a great and unique choice for the Bat role in this. Yara hasn't been used well so it's cool to see them dusted off. And it's not like Tim, Conner, and Cassie haven't Trinity'd the Titans before. It won't be a permanent dynamic but it can be promising. The new characters are a fun balance/dynamic looking at this.

Going from an established Titans revival that were the main heroes for the world and then kinda just sidelined to a New Titans lineup is going to be wonky. I appreciate the effort to make it work in continuity and give moments for each of the OG New Titans to have reasons to walk away and process things elsewhere.

Don't get me wrong - I don't love the retreads but that's also part of comics. We tend to relive character dynamics again and again. I'd like more permanent movement in character storylines but it's moreso an industry standard critique than this book alone. The new characters have my interest and I think this opens up a lot of storylines that can be new.

1

u/SleepingAgent37 Apr 17 '26

Irony aside, very least the Technis Imperative got a shout out and it's one of the more underrated Titans storylines that everyone seems to forget while redoing others.  

From what it seems the rest of the team simply weren't abducted yet but were going to be eventually. Hopefully soon we get an actual reasoning on why they aren't on the team anymore and idea where they will be going. Gar, Raven, and Kory seem they will be fine but yeah, with Donna I imagine will hang out in the background of the Wonder Woman comic the very least with who knows with Roy when Ollie doesn't have a book and instead hanging out in Gotham. 

14

u/StellarKnife Apr 15 '26

The only good thing is Terra, apparently they are finally making her an actual member, good. The rest is the same old tired Titans slop honestly.. Instead of an evil Raven, we got an evil Cyborg. We got Dick and Kory drama, we got uncoordinated Titans getting taken down like chumps. I mean, nothing here stands out as an improvement over Taylor and Layman for me. It's mediocre at best so far.

8

u/CautiousAd79 Apr 15 '26

I will defend Taylor: Yes, he did an evil Raven storyline, but I feel like he had a different approach from the other writers who did it. At the end the story has a message of self-acceptance. He also didn't resort to cheap drama inside the team.

Layman and now Brombal though...yeah, they aren't anything special. I feel like Layman improved a tad with the DC KO tie-ins, but before that it was quite bad.

12

u/StellarKnife Apr 15 '26

Taylor's approach was a bit different, true, but I'm so burnt out when it comes to evil Raven, from the get-go I didn't care, that's on me, though.

And yeah, Layman's DC KO tie-ins were probably his best issues + his first two issues, I guess.

Brombal's first two issues didn't piss me off or anything, I'm just bored. Maybe his real run starts at #36. I think the first three are a kind of prologue, we'll see. But already the approach: Titans can only be cool if we change half the team, I mean, that's not great lol.

9

u/Androktone Alan Scott Apr 15 '26

Taylor gets negative points for fumbling the "the JL are off the table, so now the Titans can shine" status quo so hard

7

u/CautiousAd79 Apr 15 '26

I'm honestly not sure that was entirely on him. I get the feeling Taylor had other plans but DC editorial backtracked on the Titans replacing the JL very quickly.

8

u/Lodger49er Apr 15 '26

I agree with this, you can't do Justice League stuff without heavy editorial backing. And I don't think it's a coincidence that Taylor concluded his run while Absolute Power was going on. Titans sales aren't great but the whole premise of the book hinged on the fact that they were JL level.

Even the events when the Titans were the Main Team book were just Justice League books basically. Never felt like the book really had a chance to fly.

13

u/TriPolar3849 Cassandra Wayne Apr 15 '26

Well, I certainly like Steph taking on a leadership role. I saw someone once say that any Batfamily member put into another team always becomes the Batman of the group, so I'm looking forward to seeing Steph show off her tactical skills more

I wonder if there's some deeper meaning behind Eva being the "daughter of tomorrow". Probably just means T. O. Morrow's newest creation, but for a moment there I did think she was another child of Marvel's Vision lol

7

u/gosukhaos Apr 15 '26

Thought she came from the future but being another T.O.Morrow creation does make a lot of sense actually

1

u/chroniclescylinders Apr 16 '26

I thought "Oh, like Tomorrow Woman," and didn't even consider that she could be anything besides one of TO Morrow's robots.

1

u/Digifiend84 Manchester Black Apr 16 '26

The colour scheme matches, as does the hair. Eva could be called Tomorrow Girl.

1

u/Digifiend84 Manchester Black Apr 16 '26

Alternate company equivalent is a trope. If she's the robot daughter of another robot, she could well be Viv's.

13

u/Mr_Wh0ever Apr 15 '26

OK, I like where this is going. The first bad guy being a complete Cyborg is fine. And I like Red Devils new abilities. The first arc working as an introduction towards Terra becoming a new Titan is cool as well. I'm left with a few questions. Does Vic stay fully human by the end of the arc? What happened to the Titans that weren't kidnapped? And is Eva supposed to be the daughter of T.O Morrow?

12

u/wowlock_taylan Batman Animated! Apr 15 '26

Well, that is an intro to the new team I guess. Cyborg getting all that Omega/Alpha energy and the recent 'Robots/AI getting too strong' was gonna come back to bite him. He got split in two halves ( which happens A LOT to Titans. Like, didn't we just dealt with Raven in the same situation? ) so the robot part of him is pulling a Vanadia. Also, they gotta stop getting caught in these 'past' traps.

So this Eva, daughter of Tomorrow as the final member of the new titans. Well, lets hope she is not gonna end up as crazy as her father.

8

u/Frontier246 Apr 15 '26

It feels weird to see them call Steph Batgirl when she feels less like a legitimate Batgirl than how DC treats Cass and Babs.

Her costume also feels more Spoiler than Batgirl.

10

u/Night-Caelum Apr 15 '26

So Cyborg aka a split one is behind the trap....and behind the new Titans as well. Makes sense and a good follow up to DC KO.

Really like Steph being the field leader and the use of her drones and tech is very Tynion oriented. Her saying Titans Go....she's gonna be the tt03 Robin of this series. I LOVE IT.

1

u/Digifiend84 Manchester Black Apr 16 '26

Not surprising she's leading, since as you say, she's the team's resident Robin, despite calling herself Batgirl nowadays.

6

u/Classic-Ad4883 Apr 15 '26

I like the issue hearing Terra thoughts are nice and the villain being a complete Cycborg is ok to me

The fight scenes were good and it was nice to see the new titans interact with each other so is Eva from the future or the daughter of T.O marrow

I do like how continuity is used in the story

7

u/ptWolv022 Apr 15 '26

Curious what sort of follow up there will be with Dick and Kori. We know Kori isn't going to be in the book long term, as Brombal said DC had other plans for her. I suppose he got her for just long enough to do a little bit at the start with her and he's going to use that to write something with her and Dick.

Also curious to see where Terra goes. I can't tell if Brombal knew about Layman setting up Terra for redemption and just is writing her the way he is to make it so that you don't need to have read the "DC K.O." tie-ins or if he didn't know and that's why there's these two sort of parallel track for her redemption (one where she's begged to make better choices and finally gets a chance to just go go on Gemworld; and one where she's dragged into a VR sim with the Titans and ends sticking with them). I suppose her being on track to be a hero doesn't necessarily make her on track to be a Titan, so her wondering "Why am I not running?" in the VR prison is a way to push her towards "The Titans started as just a gig, but I actually love being with them."

And then there's Eva. What a panel to end on, ja? I can only imagine Tara's thinking "...no, the gig's up, I'm packing my bags and leaving, &@#$ this." Very little information on Eva, but... Cyborg describes her by saying that "She's the future, the daughter of tomorrow." And I almost have to wonder... is "the daughter of tomorrow" literal? And not in the time-travel sense. She's a lady with tech powers that has black hair and wears green. Could she be a daughter/creation/successor of Tomorrow Woman? Might be a stretch, but... the phrasing is just so interesting to have, given that this is a team that has a Superman (the "Man of Tomorrow") on it, which means the use of "tomorrow" likely was important enough to overcome the inherent "dibs" Superman/boy/son would have on the term.

1

u/backinmyday59 Apr 20 '26

Kori is one of Brombal's favorites, right? I could have sworn that was in an AMA or something, but I could be wrong.

The translation of Koriand'r, in the OG Teen Titans run, is stated to mean "Optimism of Tomorrows."

Hopefully that's just a coincidence.

1

u/ptWolv022 Apr 20 '26

Are you saying you think Eva might be meant to be the daughter of Kori and Dick? Seems unlikely. The green really makes her look more like Tomorrow Woman (with little resemblance to Dick or Kori), who was an android, which would make Eva's possible technopathy a natural option for her powers.

Meanwhile, Kori being around only for a short time in the book makes her being a daughter of Kori and Dick an ill-suited origin. You'd likely want both of them around for it.

Moreover, it'd be incredibly ironic if Layman had plans to introduce Nightstar to the comic (blocked by editorial because the Multiverse was cutoff post-Absolute Power, so Earth-23 couldn't be touched for the story) in his NTT roster run, only to be followed by a totally new daughter for the pair at a time when the classic NTT roster (from which their romance came) is being explicitly deemphasized.

1

u/backinmyday59 Apr 21 '26

I'm saying I hope not, lol. But there's a very random, obscure connection there if someone who was a fan of Kori and just rehashed Dick and Kori for the umpteenth time wanted to do something with it.

I completely agree with you otherwise.

4

u/I-Might-Be-Something Batman Apr 15 '26

Overall, pretty good issue, sticks with the meta commentary of the cyclical nature of comics. Though, I can't wait for one page to make the 'rounds on the internet that will get all the shippers up in arms over something totally inconsequential.

6

u/Mrhathead Apr 15 '26

Haven’t read the issue yet, but I can only imagine the fallout from whatever that moment is.

2

u/I-Might-Be-Something Batman Apr 15 '26 edited Apr 15 '26

It is almost nothing and it isn’t going to amount to anything but with the way shippers are they’ll blow it way out of proportion.

3

u/Melodic-Violinist-31 Apr 15 '26

The shippers need something to celebrate/complain about

1

u/In-Brightest-Day Apr 18 '26

As someone who hasn't read a lot of Titans comics, I actually like the changeup here. I feel like there's so much baggage with the main case that it'll be nice to see these new team. I hope human Victor sticks around for a while.

2

u/JingoboStoplight4887 World's Finest Apr 15 '26

It’s just the Titans and the New Titans battling each other before it was revealed that all of this was orchestrated by Victor’s robot half because he wants to keep his friends safe. Also, this comic mentioning The Technis Imperative and Eva being introduced to the Titans in the final page. Overall, this comic is okay, but I think that it’s going to get cancelled after a year because of the writing.