Teen Titans #6: The Fifth Titan

Moving along with the retrospective, today’s comic is Teen Titans #6: The Fifth Titan from December 1966, written by Bob Haney and Henry Boltinoff and drawn by Bill Molno and Boltinoff.

The issue begins in the headquarters of another superhero team known as The Doom Patrol, where Beast Boy is trying to prove himself and be a member of the team without the consent of his guardian.

Unsuccessful, he reaches out to the Titans and asks to join them. But they also require the consent of a guardian before becoming part of the team.

Feeling rejected, Beast Boy leaves to find something meaningful to do with his power, ending up approaching Baltzer the Beast Master. Baltzer promptly hires Beast Boy to shape shift for his circus.

During the first performance, Baltzer signals a shadowy figure, who forces Beast Boy to transform into an albino baboon, which hypnotizes the audience into giving him all their belongings. Beast Boy later wakes up with no recollection of the event.

Soon, the Titans are called to quell a mob at a shopping center. While they are the same people from the circus, they are soon un-hypnotized by Wonder Girl spinning a giant pop-art sign. Realizing the strange circus is involved, the Titans don another team disguise, this time as acrobats.  Meanwhile, Beast Boy feels like he’s becoming second best.

In the next show, Beast Boy is compelled to become the albino baboon again, but Robin sees the only way to not give in to the spell is by shutting themselves in the escape artist’s safe. And Baltzer immediately locks them in.

After the act, Beast Boy as an elephant drops the Titans into a pool. They get out by having Kid Flash vibrate Aqualad out of the safe, where Aqualad can work on the locks. They go and fight a still hypnotized Beast Boy, who becomes half gorilla, half snake for the fight. It isn’t until Beltzer decides to shoot himself out of a cannon wielding torches that Beast Boy snaps out of it. He captures Beltzer and hands him over to the Titans. Robin says the Titans will reconsider Beast Boy joining the team and ask the readers to vote on it.

I like comic, except for the last panel. I normally don’t mind breaking the fourth wall, but all of a sudden Robin asking readers to write in to vote on something was surprising. That sort of thing should be put in a narration panel or editor’s note.

Anyway, the art and visuals were pretty good – 4/5

The cover is pretty decent too. It makes it look like Beast Boy will be the main villain the heroes have to face instead of being a tool used by more cowardly forces. It did a good job in enticing me to read it – 4/5

It has a great story too. I like how it starts off with the Doom Patrol, showing just how desperate Beast Boy wants to be part of a team but can’t. It gives it that extra punch when he starts being used by those who took him in. 5/5

As for characterization, I already said how you can really feel for Beast Boy, but I don’t get how Robin thought a box where the only lock is on the outside was a good place to hide from a hypnotizing monkey. – 4/5

Pacing was spot on. 5/5

The final call for Teen Titans #6: The Fifth Titan is a great 4 of 5.

Next Tuesday: #7: Mad Mod: Merchant of Menace