Catching up on Comics -- Series Run: The Titans #4

1999, DC Comics

 

The cover says "Get DISed".

The inside splash page titles this issue "The DISsing".

Consistency?  One "s" or two when adding a suffix to a proper name?

Dis here is referred to as a city just outside the sixth circle of Hell where the apathetic go (the sixth circle in Dante's Inferno is for heretics, and Dis is a city spanning circles 7-9).  They aren't evil, but they aren't worthy of paradise.  Goth has trapped a legion of teens and Starfire in Dis by getting them to sign his book and perform a ritual incantation (I guess not everyone has to participate in that latter part to be transported).

Devin Grayson here is using aspects of Dante's mythos for a parable about teenage disaffectedness to varying degrees of success.  Goth's plan is an interesting one for a teen Titans book, and the resolution cleverly deals with Goth's magic, but it doesn't feel like the pieces fit.  Starfire really could have handled this solo, it wasn't much of a team effort, and Donna was being set up as the ace in the hole but she didn't even make it to the scuffle in hell.

I notice that the horror convention the Titans go to is a Fangoria event... I don't see any accreditation in the copyright box, so I wonder if DC had permission anyway or if this is just fair use of the name?

Donna Troy exists thanks to Wally West's memories of her.  There's a parallel here with Rebirth... where Wally needed someone to remember him or he would fade away.  But instead of being grateful, Donna's kind of pissed at Wally because she is only his perception of her, and she feels he holds her up to too high a standard.  Yeah, something to be pissed about, sure.

Goth's plan is defeated by caring.  Yes, the Titans pull a Care Bears stare and win the day.  

I want to rag on Goth's design, but it's actually not *that* bad. It does hew close enough to absurd goth style, but then goes large with skull shoulder pads and demon wings to make for a supervillain-esque look.  The big "G" that hold his straps is all kinds of silly though.  Like when Green Arrow used to have a "G" on his belt buckle.  It would be like if I wore a letter "G" around everywhere, just because my name started with it.  It's not like Superman's "S" or Aquaman's "A" or Wonder Woman's double "W", which are more stylized iconography, a symbol, a shield...it's just a letter.  "What's my name? Roth?  Moth?" (Looks down) "Oh, Goth, right, I forgot."

"G" is for "goofy" and that's good enough for Goth