Titans: Rebirth #1 Review

The Titans, the original Titans are finally back thanks to DC Rebirth and it has made so happy I could burst.

Titans: Rebirth #1
Written by Dan Abnett
Art by Brett Booth and Norm Rapmund
Colored by Andrew Dalhouse
Published by DC Comics

Warning: This review includes spoilers for both Titans: Rebirth and DC Universe: Rebirth. If you don’t want to know, go read Civil War II.

Towards the end of Titans: Rebirth #1, the newly reunited Titans have finally remembered who Wally West is and the huge part he played in their lives. At that point Wally thinks to himself “At long last I’m finally home.”

For me that sentence pretty much sums up how I felt after finishing Titans: Rebirth #1, possibly the best Rebirth comic I have experienced yet.

See, The New Teen Titans by the legendary duo of Marv Wolfman and George Perez was my gateway into the world of DC Comics, so the title has always had a very special place in my collection. The fact that my version of the Titans was effectively erased from continuity with the New 52 relaunch broke my heart and I never quite warmed to the new line up that was running around calling themselves the Teen Titans.

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But now, the Titans are back and I could not be happier.

Titans: Rebirth #1 continues Wally’s story from DC Universe: Rebirth and Flash: Rebirth and does an excellent job setting up the new Titans series and what role Wally will play in the post-Rebirth DC Universe.

However, more than what Titans: Rebirth may foretell for the whole Watchmen subplot running through all DC’s titles for the next few years, in just 20 pages the book manages to show everyone just what was missing from the New 52 and why, at the end of the day, it didn’t work.

Titans: Rebirth has more heart, joy and emotion than any DC comic I think I’ve read in many, many years.

At its core, the book is about friendship and what that means. The Teen Titans were never the Justice League or the Avengers, where you get a membership card and a slot on monitor duty and that’s it. The Titans was always a family, pure and simple, and that is something that has been missing from DC’s titles for far too long.

Dan Abnett and Brett Booth in just a single issue recapture the special essence that made the original New Teen Titans from the 1980s such a hugely popular title. The story is simple but an immense amount of fun while the art is crisp and clean and never detracts from the plot.

Like I said before, Titans: Rebirth #1 is the best Rebirth comic yet and if Abnett can keep this momentum up, it could be the best series DC has published in quite a while.

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The Bottom Line: Titans: Rebirth #1 is a joy of a comic book, page after page of fun and a return to what made DC Comics my preferred choice before the events of the New 52. My only complaint is that Titans is going to be monthly instead of bi-weekly, because the wait between issues os going to be unbearable.

Thank you DC for giving me my Titans back. I feel like I’m finally home.