Did I Miss Something?

After much waiting, Teen Titans #50 came out a couple weeks ago. I was greatly anticipating this issue, as it surely would spell the end of the Countdown-related filler that the book had been sitting on for the past three months. Nothing against the "tragic end" of Duela Dent or the tie-in with Amazons Attack, but the Titans had been a bit aimless for that period, and I was looking forward to them turning a new corner with new writer Sean McKeever on board.

When I read issue 50, though, I felt like that corner had already been turned down and they were taking a break to reflect on another event. Titans finally got around to mourning the fallen Bart Allen, but it was not this that caught me wrong in the book - it was that Supergirl was a member of the Titans. I didn't miss an issue, did I? When did this happen? Then there was Cyborg leaving for his Titans East team. What? When did this come about? Suddenly, the Titans are a drastically changed team (changed from the drastically changed team of the One Year Later jump), with no cohesive story to explain it. These things just happened - deal with it.

The same had taken place earlier in the year when the Lightning Saga started over in Justice League of America. After reading the first issue, I called my friend (and Comicdom Wrecks! conspirator) Casey and asked when Geo-Force had joined the JLA and Black Canary been elected leader. Neither had been pointed out in the story (in fact, it was signaled against in Geo-Force's case), and were simply mentioned in the context of the new story.

I'm not a fan of throwing changes on without having something take place to explain them. Sure the Titans had just fought a Titans East team led by Deathstroke, but there was no setup to create a new team under that name. It seemed like someone had forgotten to set it up, so they just had to say "And this is happening too. Read it!" To further future stories, consistent setup is necessary, or anything can happen for no reason. Continuity must be established and maintained. A sense of stability is needed to maintain a reader's suspension of non-belief that comics so require.

So please, stop with the jumping. It's giving me a headache.