Teen Titans #24-25, Outsiders #24-25

Okay, this is the storyline I have been dreading the most out of this entire Teen Titans run. And that's really saying a lot! Long story short, I hate the way Geoff Johns altered Superboy's entire history, just so he could feed his fanboy ego and make the character the way he wanted. After reading all 100 of Superboy's original series, as well as the 50 issues of Young Justice he starred in, seeing that character torn up for no good reason vexes me to this day. As such, I'm going to knocking out all 4 parts of the stupid, “Lex Luthor is randomly Superboy's father and/or god” storyline in one post. So yeah, this one may be a bit on the long side, although, due to my disdain for this storyline, I'm going to try to make it as short as possible. Also, for some reason, this storyline ties in with the Outsiders, so I'll be looking at those here as well.

Teen Titans #24-25, Outsiders #24-25:

Summary: Now possessed due to a audio file sent to his computer by Lex Luthor, Superboy beats up the Teen Titans with total ease.

What the!?  This entire series all Johns did was hammer home the point that Superboy was destined to be evil because of his genes!

Robin calls the Outsiders for help(???), which leads to Outsiders member Indigo randomly turning into Brainiac 8. Brainiac 8 beats up the Outsiders, but leaves before striking any killing blows because reasons. The Outsiders meet up with the Titans and compare notes, but get attacked by a mess of Superman robots. Brainiac 8 meets up with Lex Luthor, Superboy and Brainiac. The Titans and Outsiders wind up destroying the Superman-bots(why they couldn't do that during Graduation Day, I have no idea), which leads to Lex and Superboy popping up to attack. Wonder Girl manages to get through to Superboy for a moment, but that gets shut down by Lex. Brainiac and Brainiac 8 arrives to kill Wonder Girl, as she seems to hate Wonder Girls, I guess. However, the heroes rally, Superboy goes back to normal, and Brainiac 8 is killed. Who the hell knows what happened to Lex or Brainiac... The end.

Thoughts: Now THAT'S how you review four comic books! I did that even faster that I imagined I would, the length is pretty much the same as a regular review. Okay, back to this mess... This entire storyline exists because Geoff Johns always thought it was a good idea for Lex Luthor to be Superboy's human donor. Before he was involved with DC, he wrote in to the Superboy comic book and put his idea forward, before Superboy's human donor was revealed. However, in the years that followed, DC went in a different direction, and Superboy's donor was revealed to be Project Cadmus Executive Director, Paul Westfield. That stood until Johns was able to get his hands on Superboy, at which point he immediately implemented his own ideas for Superboy, even though it made little sense and flew in the face of Superboy's previously revealed origin. That's what pisses me off the most about this story in particular, and Geoff Johns in general, I find it extremely disrespectful to disregard the past work of other creators, whether you like their work or not. But then, Johns's entire career has been spent pissing all over the work of past writers, see: Hal Jordan suddenly being absolved of all of his crimes while Parallax, Batrry Allen suddenly NOT being dead after 25 years, and of course this damned Superboy story. I mean, it's one thing if you have an actual GOOD plan to do these things, but Johns never does... Contrast this story with the Winter Soldier story over in Marvel to see what I mean about having a good plan for altering a characters' history. *sigh* Well, I have made my way through the story I was most dreading in this series, so it's gotta be smooth sailing the rest of the way, right guys?

Yeah, I doubt it too...