Comics / Comic Reviews / DC Comics

Raven #1: A Review

By Zak Edwards
September 25, 2016 - 18:50

When Raven was announced, quite a few people absolutely adored the idea of Marv Wolfman coming back to write a key Teen Titans character that he himself co-created. Wolfman’s longtime run on Teen Titans with artist George Pérez back in the 80s has become a hallmark of the series, a high point celebrated on similar levels to Chris Claremont’s run on X-Men. And since comics is a huge nostalgia machine, many publishers love bringing these types of creatives back, decade after decade, to play around with toys they left alone a long time ago.

Original creators can do one of two things when they're brought back to visit old projects: either the character feels like its undergoing a return to form or the story treads over familiar territory and accomplishes very little. Raven is the latter and, worse, it bears a striking resemblance to the Rebirth Supergirl, which is also a fish-out-of-water story about a superhero attending a new high school and adapting to a new family and new friends. In Supergirl’s case, the new family are actually top-secret agents and the school is an ultra-pretentious science school. For Raven, the family are hardcore Christians and the school is filled with mystery telepaths and kids who are just way too friendly. And, well, Raven’s obstacles feel shallower than Supergirl’s, which leads to problems in the issue.

While surrounding Raven with typical American Christians makes for an interesting juxtaposition, the family reads like those nerdy sitcom Christians who mostly function to make things awkward by praying before every meal. Their religion is happy-go-lucky, uncomplicated, and seems to make them nice and giving in absolutely every situation. I understand why Wolfman has decided to put Raven here, I think that’s fairly obvious, but the story overall starts to read like someone putting pieces together and then just waiting for something to happen.

Waiting is a large part of this issue as well, and I found myself waiting for the other shoe to drop while Raven runs about her new high school. At first, she arrives to fairly typical teenage exclusion, wandering around without a friend, but after three pages of teens gossiping about Raven, a few select kids seem over-eager to take her under their collective wing. I spent the rest of the issue waiting for them to yell “psych!” and bully her in some way. It didn’t happen and I was left to wonder whether my high school was just filled with shitty people or if Wolfman didn’t know how to handle natural, teenage dialogue, so he just started in media res. The latter seems more likely since Wolfman turned 70 this year.

For all the mundane existence that surrounds Raven, she is ultimately the daughter of a demon, one who seems intent on invading her dreams, her mind, and the minds of her fellow classmates. It permeates the issue, but it also gives artist Alisson Borges a chance to do pretty much whatever she wants. The results are some very classic-looking panels and styles that have the energy of someone like Humberto Ramos, but without the insane anatomy issues. And when the dream sequences come, she drives them to the forefront. The issue was obviously a lot of fun to draw and that excitement comes out on almost every page.

tl;dr review: Overall, Raven represents a fairly standard approach to a fairly standard teen superhero story. While I’m sure many people will enjoy the story and Wolfman’s familiarity with the character, I was left mostly bored. Also, the high school scenes start to read like this:

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12