Teen Titans: Beast Boy is a worthy update of an underutilized character
Teen Titans: Beast Boy (DC) expresses its mission statement right away, with Gar Logan saying he wants to reinvent himself. The green shapeshifter has been overdue for the kind of evolution that his fellow Titans have been given in recent years, but nothing else he’s been in has really made an attempt. Either he’s the comic relief alongside his other Teen Titans, or one of many heroes who are fighting for screen time.
Beast Boy aims to get its title hero out of his state of arrested development—quite literally. The smartest move made by writer Kami Garcia and artist Gabriel Picolo is a complete commitment to having their version of Gar Logan be so utterly normal at the outset. Instead of living in a glamorous city like L.A., he lives in Georgia. His friends—an athlete and a game streamer—are just as normal as he is, with problems just as relatable. This isn’t a weird kid with a quirky trait or a strange past, as YA stories usually have; he’s simply average.
What makes Gar an outsider is something seemingly out of his control: Despite being a high-school senior, he looks much younger. Image issues have been a staple of Beast Boy’s insecurities across all mediums, and this clever reworking allows Garcia and Picolo to use Gar as a way to talk about self worth and toxic expectations. He feels like a real, fully developed character, and Garcia writes him with a lot of charm even before he grows into himself.