The Teen Titans have had a rough go in the New 52, but DC is hoping to change that with the team’s new series by writer Will Pfeifer, artist Kenneth Rocafort, and colorist Dan Brown. A change in tone is immediately apparent in these three covers by Rocafort, Cliff Chiang, and Joe Quinones, with the first two promising a digital social media bent, while the third simply delivers a silly team shot to show this is going to be more fun than what came before. Rocafort’s initial cover sparked a firestorm of controversy after this Comic Book Resources piece by Janelle Asselin. Now DC offers up a more engaging image by turning it into a mock social media site—which creates some clutter, but also makes the cover stand out from the usual DC fare.
Will Pfeifer is a writer who did exceptional work at DC in the mid-’00s with books like Aquaman and H-E-R-O, so it’s nice to see him back in the fold with the New 52. This preview of next week’s Teen Titans #1 shows that Pfeifer is starting the series off with a lot of energy, diving immediately into a terrorist plot involving S.T.A.R. Labs and a school bus full of children. The dialogue is also much smoother than what these characters have been saying for the last three years.
Rocafort’s sleek artwork and Brown’s bright colors give the title a more vibrant visual style, and Pfeifer refines his script so that he’s not distracting from the art with extraneous text (a major problem in the last run). Considering the Teen Titans’ success on television, there’s no reason the team’s comic shouldn’t be a top-selling title, and this new run is looking to make that happen.