Written by J.T. KRUL; Art and cover by NICOLA SCOTT & DOUG HAZLEWOOD; 1:10 Variant cover by KARL KERSCHL

It's mayhem at the cafeteria as Headcase and the Feral Boys run wild! Can the Teen Titans pull themselves together long enough to overcome this combined threat – or will Damian once again be their downfall?

DC Universe | 32pg. | Color | $2.99 US

On Sale December 29, 2010

Well, sounds like Damian screwed up in his first issue. That probably means he's sticking around for a while. He tried to take the lead and botched it, so now it's time for him to learn some humility. Yeah, it sounds like he'll be a feature in the book for a bit.

All the solicits so far have really done a good job at avoiding the issue of leadership for Krul's team. God if only we could escape from Cassie.

Side note: apparently Feral boys only have three fingers :P

I just hope JT handles Damian right. It's probably a good idea to have him screw up a bid for leadership this early, but I want him to have an extended run with the Titans. I'd like to see him make friends outside of the Bat family.

I wonder if it's even going to be touched upon; it hasn't been an issue since the Hunt for Raven arc even started.

I want it to be an issue tho. It doesn't make sense for the team to have two veteran members serving under a much newer leader (who has had a horrible track record)

I dunno, after the s*** Hendersons pulled with it, I'd rather see it pushed off for later than deal with it right away.

That depends DL, how does Krul see Damian? Depending on how he views the kid may tell us how he'll write him.

I'm not entirely sure. I don't really remember a lot of what's been said about Damian from the interviews two some months back. DC writers seem to be getting a better handle on Damian though, so I hope for the best.

Well you'll just have to wait for the first issue Lil' Wayne appears in then Dl. Nothing else ya can do.

Despite the anxiety running around, I doubt JT will have problems with developing character growth with Damian. Even if he did, JT wouldn't be the first, Damian's character is particularly hard to write.

I'm sure we'll get to that in the near future, I think right now we're still in the process in clearing the muck off the rest of the team after Henderson's run. Cassie as leader wasn't the only mess in that mayhem, ya know.

If any of the tolerable worse comes out, Gar and Rae would end up as Co-headmasters of Titans Tower while Conner ends up as leader.

I think I'd prefer that to be honest, no Batspawn in charge, no Wondergirl bitchitude. Yes, Connor as leader is preferable. Thats how bad it's gotten folks, a Supes-Spawn is now the preferable choice to lead the Titans. Way to shake up the dynamic.

The thing about the leader business is that honestly, I don't really want the book to deal with it right now. I'd like the first arc to just be separate and new. Give us a good idea of what's to come. Henderson's done such a bad job with the leadership issue that I just want an arc to set things up, maybe get some excitement going and give a taste of what to expect before that stuff is brought up again.

If and when it is, I'd prefer it's not even an issue. I like continuity as much as the next guy when it's done right. But in the case of Hendersons run I'd be perfectly fine with it being ignored and forgotten. Just settle the leadership business in a couple pages, if it has to happen.

True enough. Though writers are starting to get a handle on him. Since Damians had more fleshing out in Batman & Robin, other writers have started to pick up on his particular brand of snark.

We'll see how it goes; I may just make one of my rare exceptions to go to the comic shop for the first issue of Kruls run and review it.

I think Conner would do okay. I think the characters alright. He's headstrong. While he won't be a tactical leader or anything, I could see him getting a handle on giving basic orders and keeping things together.

Speaking of Conner, I'm hoping he and Damian form some kind of friendship. Like I said before, I just want to see the kid make some friends.

You sure it's not because of that nice little scene of the two standing in front of their mentor's graves in that possible future? Cause that did suggest they had gotten close.

And if anyone could make friends with Damian it would be Connor. He's a farm-boy after all.

That's part of why he was the one I suggested, yes; but mostly, like I said, I'm hoping to see Damian make an actual friend or two.

Also guys, something that's probably worth noting is that this is the third straight issue to have a special variant cover. Not just any old artists, either. These are "holy-****-are-they-seriously-using-them-for-this" artists. Adam Hughes, Frank Quitely and now Karl Kerschl.

Is this a sign that DC is serious about this book? I don't think this volume of Teen Titans has had too many variants in it's life. The only one I can think of that's on this caliber is a lone Jim Lee variant cover that graced an issue a while back.

Considering Teen Titans is one of their more popular hero teams, arguably on par with Marvel's X-Men, it stands to reason they would be serious. If a flagship title starts to fail the smart move for any company would be to try and reinvigorate it. New writer, new artists, and if need be some variant covers to make the collectors buy up several issues.

So yeah, they're serious. They can't let a popular team book sink.

That's just it though. For a while now, it's felt like DC's just been letting the title slowly sink. Which is why this is such a surprise for me. Artists of that caliber doing variants (hell, the title having variants in general), interviews, a talented ongoing artist and a fan demanded writer? It's like a shock to the system after everything that's happened.

I wouldn't say they were letting it sink, I'd say they were using a bucket with a hole in it to bail it out and just didn't realise. Occam's Razor Dl, never attribute to malice what can easily be just as likely ignorance. I think they figured "Things ain't working out with this writer, let's give Henderson a try" and when they realised that wasn't going so well after giving her a chance to get better they decided on another replacement.

I think they were just struggling to find the right writer and have just been having bad luck. I don't see why DC would want the Teen Titans book to fail. Although I don't think that's what your suggesting. You're saying more likely they didn't give a **** about it one way or the other right?

variant cover

Not bad, who's the artist????

Karl Kerschl.

Wait, the guy that did the Teen Titans: Year One short series??? Wow, guy's style looks better with more detail.

The very same. I don't like everything he does - sometimes I can't really deal with his style - but I'm kind of a minority in regards to that. That said, I do like this variant.

this one is pretty good. However i don't like how styalized Bart and Conner look while Gar and Damian look as near to photo-realistic as I could imagine.

Also if Gar is hoping to keep up with those guys, a cheeta is a very bad choice.

True, but the cheetah is practically the #1 icon when speed is mentioned.

Besides, it's comics, if they didn't stretch the animal facts, many animal-superpower based heroes and villains would have to tone down their abilities to the actual facts.

exp. Spiders not actually having spider-senses or spider-strength, even the radioactive ones.

Yeah, it's always struck me as kind of funny that the only power Spider-Man got from the spider bite that actually had anything to do with spiders was wall crawling. Everything else wasn't really native to spiders. He had to actually create webshooters.

Actually, relatively spiders have a higher strentgh/size ratio than humans. Spiderman is basically supposed to be aa strong as a spider would be if they were human size, so that actually makes some sense.

As for the spider sense, that is dirived fromw the spiders ability to feel all the vibrations on it's web and know if danger or prey is around. True it dosen't work anything like how Pete's does, but i just thought you would like to know that it wasn't something they just pulled out of nowhere like alot of Supe's powers.

I guess it just gets to me with cheeta's because they are really the saddest animals on Earth. They can reach incredible speeds, but only for incredibly short bursts afterwhich they are so exhausted that if they were able to actually make a kill it usually gets stolen by hyenas and buzzards.

That's right, buzzards which usually wait for things to be discarded actually walk up to cheetas and strong arm them out of their kill. sad...

True, but from what people say on said body ratio, a common house spider can only lifted 8 times it's own weight, yet with Spidey, it's said his able to lift somewhere around 10 tons. I suck at algebra, but even so, the numbers don't seem to add up. As far as spider-sense goes, yeah, I know it's all in the web, but that just means that Spidey would probably have to have all of NY covered in webbing in order for his spider-sense to tingle as it does now.

Be the facts as they may, it kind proves my point. If heros/villains with animal-based superpowers stuck to the laws of animal physics, it'd add in more limitations that they already have.

That's kinda how it is with all fast animals. Sure, some last longer then a cheetah, but in the long run (no pun intended), it's all a matter of which animal can run/fly/swim the longest sprint.

First off, there is no "house spider" species there are any of over a dozen species that can commonly be found in homes and residential areas, all with different strength/size ratios. So, unless the type of spider that was used on pete was ever truly specified, I think one can at least admit that the proportional strength is plausable. As for the spider-sense, my onlt point was that it had a small grain of truth in relationship to spiders and wasn't complete manifest on part of the writers (like many of Superman's retconned abilities that seemingly came out of no-where) However, if spiders are able to sense vibrations transferred on their webs, it stands to reason that the same hyper-sensativity could be further increased to feel threatening vibrations on ground or even in the air if they were hightened enough.

lets not forget, that the spider was a mutated spider who could have passed on traits given to it via it's neo-genic treatment. Whilst Beast Boy turns into normal versions of animals (aside from the color of course)

My main point is that while cheeta's have the greatest maximun landspeed, it is for the shortest burt imaginable and it must be a straight line as well. Whilst there are many animals who can go much faster than commonly know who also has super-beast stamina. dromidary camels can run faster than most horses and can do so virtually nonstop in the harshest enviroments. The same can be said for ostriches. Red kangaroos only need to work for the first few bounds, after which they just lock their muscles and let their momentum and body weight supply the rest of the work, and thus are able to keep a constant speed for almost unheard of amounts of time with out coming close to exhaustion.

Beast Boy is more interesting when he uses his powers in the smartest ways possible and if the people in charge of writing him did a little reasearch they could make him an incredibly clever character. But oh well, i have similar issue about anyone who writes time travel stories in comics or when people in the x-men books talk about "species" without having a clue what the word actually means.

On a side note, if anyone was interested in this years Halloween Special (which Featured JT's Teen Titans on the cover) don't read it for their sake. The Featured Teen Titans story inside is a little story about Miss Martian and Blue Beetle stop Klarion the Witch Boy. This did however lead to one on the funniest lines I've read recently...

whilst trick-or-treating Klarion is asked what he is supposed to be to which he responds "I'm a Witch Boy!.. From Magic Town!!"

You know, when I mentioned what I did about Spider-Man, I have to admit I did not expect it to turn into a wall-of-text conversation on the minutia of spiders.

I'm not sure whether to raise an eyebrow or give a "well played".

Naver tell me "well played" it only enforces my pointless nerd rants in conversations where reality is allready inhenrantly thrown out the window

Oops, sorry, that's a typo, I meant Hobo spiders. Why'd I say house spiders??? Eh, forget it. Spiders, cheetahs, kangaroos, real/fake facts, etc. they all inspire somethin in comics in the end.

Well, we haven't heard jack from those two lately (mainly Jaime), so I guess it'd still be worth a look. Least now, there outta Henderson's hands this time.

Now that we've bought him up, I really hope to see Klarion go against JT's TT, more specifically Raven. Seems like an interesting Raven vs. scenario that doesn't involve her daddy.

you called them house spiders to mock them for being hobo's and houses being the only thing they don't have :P

I don't know much about him. is he a serious threat or just kind of a lame would be super villian who causes more annoyances than actualy trouble?

It would be nice for the Titans to expand their rouges a bit. However I kinda hope we can forget that Cinderblock showed up unless someone thinks of some amazing way to justify him being around.

Man, I can't wait till next week!

A little bit of column A and little bit of column B. He's basically a spoiled brat who's annoyance (along with his dark magic) actually cause great trouble. His does have an evil long-term goal to learn all there was to know about witchcraft, while causing some chaos along the way.

Watch "The Demon Within" in BTAS, you'll get a better idea on how he is.

However, during Morrison's run on the Seven Soldiers and Infinite Crisis, there where times he was dubbed a good guy. But I think they turned back to a villain.

As if it was somehow still up to debate, The source confirmed today that Kiran is Solstice...

It will be interesting to see what the long term plan for her is, it sounds like she will be used as the anti-drama character. A character who will be around for all the adventures and still contribute as a friend/team mate, but without alot of her own emotional baggage. If that's what she is designed to be, then I'm all for it.

Previews are in.

Hmmmm, interesting. Seems Solstice was born with or had her powers longer then we would've guessed.

aww, I like how Rose tried to reach out, but didn't give a damn when he didn't accept it.

Also this is about the third time Raven has hinted to feeling lonely. I imagine it will probably be a theme for her until she gets a storyline focusing on her where it can be addressed and either resolved or developed.

I think that was more likely hinting towards Damian's and Rose's possible lonliness considering it shifted to them when Raven finished her sentence. Usually when a comic does that its saying something about the character in panel rather than the character saying it.

Well, I'm sure for this issue that line was probably designed to represent the team as a whole at this point. Rose and Damian for sure, but you could also look at Cass and Conner having similar issues of issolation. And both Gar and Raven a point beyond that.

I think it's an intentional point to show that they aren't a fully functioning team yet. I mean most the time we've seen all the characters up to this point has been one of them doing something by theirself when another teammate walks in a sparks a little dialogue before leaving them to whatever they were doing. I imagine this first arc is meant to show the first steps of them not just relying on eachother in battle, but learning to rely on eachother in everyday life as well.

However, I do think that the line of lonliness was meant to first reflect at Raven, and then (through Rose and Damian) show that she isn't really alone in being lonly.

I'm not sure how I'm feeling about Damian on the team at this point. If there isn't a point to how dickish he's being written - like to be resolved in the future with him accepting and becoming friends with the others - I'd rather he left the team. I like the character a lot, but being continuously shown like this outside of the Batman books, where more folks can see him, could set him back.

Did like that Rose didn't take it personally when she was brushed off though; girl doesn't let anything really get to her and that's part of what I like about the character. It's good to see her back. Now I just miss Eddie.

We all Miss Eddie Dl, we all miss him.