Titans United: Bloodpact #1 // Review
Tim Drake wakes up in an alley. He’s Robin. He knows that much. But he has to remember. And there’s so much more in the past that needs to be addressed as Titans United: Bloodpact opens its first chapter. Writer Cavan Scott’s six-issue mini-series opens with an issue-length battle between the team and a group of villains conjured to the page by artist Lucas Meyer with color by Tony Aviña. The first issue doesn’t assert itself strongly enough to overcome the fact that it’s opening a series on nearly 20 pages of combat, but there’s enough intrigue to carry the series over into its second issue.
Before Drake woke up, there was a sudden call from Nightwing. The Titans were facing a group of villains in the metropolitan night. There was something strange about it. The villains in question were of a far higher caliber than would have been necessary to do what they were doing. The Titans were having some difficulty getting any kind of answers out of them. And that’s when Brother Blood and Mother Mayhem appeared out of an unearthly portal that glowed a faint red. Things got more than a little hazy from there.
Scott begins the story in conflict and action. Each member of the Titans feels firmly defined in a chapter that manages to throw in some very high-power villains right away. Scott tosses a whole lot of conflict into the night and lets the Titans go to work. It’s not a bad way to start, but it’s kind of difficult to connect with the team and its conflicts without Scott allowing the reader much of an opportunity to hang out with them before the battle. This might work a little bit better in the context of an ongoing series. Opening a mini-series on an issue-length battle isn’t the most engaging way to welcome readers.
Meyer manages the best he can in an evening-based combat. There are some very dramatic angles to the action. The variety of different weapons and powers being used in the course of the combat doesn’t hurt. Aviña’s colors add immeasurably to the visuals as the radiance of power blasts shoot off the page with impressive force against the shadowy world, contrasting expanses of illumination against the heavy ink of all that shadow that occupies so much of the rest of the page.
With a series like this being conceived of and written as only six issues, it’s always a bit strange judging just the opening chapter. The fact is that the series IS being presented in six parts as opposed to a single graphic novel format, so individual chapters like this DO count. It’s really difficult to get into a story that launches straight into a battle like this without much in the way of formal introduction. The mystery at the beginning and end speaks to a bit more mystery than a 20-page slugfest, so it will be interesting to see how things progress in the second issue.
