Teen Titans #26

Okay, we're past the abomination that was the Superboy/Luthor storyline, so it's clear sailing from here on out, right? Hmm, let's see what the cover of this issue is... Oh Christ... Here we go again...

Teen Titans #26(Sept. 2005)

Summary: So Superboy is back on the Kent farm, and has quit the Titans. Plus he's bemoaning the fact that he doesn't have a soul. Raven shows up and takes him through his life, along with Lex Luthor now randomly being a part of Project: Cadmus because of course he was... Granted, Superman was dead, meaning he had no reason to fret over Supes anymore, and as such had no reason to make a Superman/Luthor clone, but why let facts get in the way of a sucky story. Also, back when Supes bit the big one, Lex had long flowing hair and a beard, but naturally he's the regular bald Lex in the flashback because Johns just doesn't give a shit.

What the hell does he mean, "This project needs a name."??!!  It had two names, in this panel!!!

So Superboy goes through his life and fights off evil, bald Superboy, at which point Raven tells him he had a soul after all. And that it was hidden(the fuck?!) until he broke free of Lex's control... I hate to say it twice in one review, but what the flaming fuck?!?

So his soul was always there, or he made it, or it was hidden, or some bullshit...  This frigging comic...

Anyway, Raven tells Superboy to come back to the Titans, but he's just too damned angsty to return just yet, which ends this mess.

Thoughts: I'll be honest, I think I summed my thoughts of this issue up pretty well in the summary... The story was bad, it was executed terribly, and made zero sense, even by bad comic book standards. Now, I like good comics. Good comics can make you think, they can make you feel, good comics are like a piece of good art. They ARE good art. I like bad comics. Yes, that's right, I do. Bad comics can be fun to pick apart and laugh at. I'm the kind of person who can watch terrible movies repeatedly, just to laugh at them. Hell, JT and I have done that for YEARS! But I hate... Let me emphasize this, I HATE insulting comics. Comic books that just ignore the past, rewrite things for no good reason, make no sense, and are, well, insulting. The last three issues of this series? Insulting. Totally insulting. It was the frigging insulting comic book trifecta. It ignored Superboy's past, it rewrote his entire origin for no good reason(there were plenty of other ways to put Luthor in this series), and made no real sense... So Lex made a clone of Superman and himself, to betray Superman, even though Superman was dead?!? Ugh. I hated this storyline. I really, really hated it...