Even when they’re not fighting supervillains, the Teen Titans have some wild adventures! These three volumes of Teen Titans Go! see the young superheroes hosting a sleepover, prank-calling an alien warlord, accidentally bringing their video games to life, and getting overly competitive at the mini-golf course.
These fast-paced stories have funny, and usually low, stakes. Who has been stealing Cyborg’s sandwiches from the fridge? What is in the mysterious package delivered to Raven? Will the girls-only sleepover at Titans Tower result in Starfire getting engaged to marry a demon? Each of these questions is posed and answered in just nine pages—usually without the Titans ever leaving the Tower.
Though the stories are short, the personalities of the Titans come through. They may be silly and exaggerated, but the main characters do feel distinct from each other. Starfire is the cheerful alien who still doesn’t quite get Earth customs and speech patterns. Beast Boy and Cyborg are buddies and pranking co-conspirators. Raven is reserved and theoretically scary but actually obsessed with their universe’s version of My Little Pony. And Robin tries to be the serious leader type except for all the times when he forgets about that and gets caught up in the silliness. Their interactions create plenty of funny situations. We also get brief guest appearances from other DC universe characters like Bumblebee, Jinx, Trigon, Batman, and Riddler. Readers who don’t know these characters probably won’t be too confused, but those who do recognize them will enjoy the surprise cameos.
These three volumes can be read in any order. Each sturdy, colorful hardback contains two stories plus a glossary and a couple of pages of ‘Visual Questions and Writing Prompts.’ The visual questions are mostly aimed at helping young readers understand the techniques used in comics, asking about things like what the facial expressions or symbols in a panel might mean. The writing prompts are generally in the vein of, ‘What do you think happens next?’
The art is zany, angular, and colorful, and will be familiar to anyone who has watched the Teen Titans Go! TV show. The characters have comically over-the-top facial expressions and body language. The action is easy to follow, despite often being weird and wacky in the extreme. (Demon pizza monsters, anyone?) The arrangement of panels varies from page to page, adding visual interest to the story. In some Teen Titans Go! comics I have previously reviewed (Teen Titans Go! vols. 1-5), different artists bring their own styles to each volume. These three volumes are pretty consistent in their art style, perhaps because artist Jorge Corona worked on all of them. (Other artists joined him for two of the volumes.)
These wacky, fast-paced adventures pack enough action and humor to feel like watching a cartoon. They’re simple enough for young readers and short enough for those without long attention spans. There’s a small amount of silly, cartoonish violence, but nothing scary. Fans of the Teen Titans Go! TV show will likely get a kick out of these volumes, and fans of the DC Comics universe in general might enjoy seeing it in a silly light. Hey, where else can you find out what happens when you prank-call Batman?
Teen Titans Go!
Food Fright and Par for the Course
By Sholly Fisch, Merrill Hagan
Art by Jorge Corona, Ben Bates
ISBN: 9781496579935
But Games can Never Hurt Me and Sleep Over
By Sholly Fisch, Merrill Hagan
Art by Jorge Corona
ISBN: 9781496579980
Prank’d! and Don’t Look
By Sholly Fisch, Amy Wolfram
Art by Jorge Corona. Lea Hernandez
ISBN: 9781496579973
Stone Arch Press, 2019
Publisher Age Ranking: Reading Level: Grades 2-4; Interest Level: Grades 2-6