The Teen Titan story continues as we find our Starfire and Cyborg to round out the team in Kami Garcia and Gabriel Picolo’s fifth book, Teen Titans: Starfire. As much as I have enjoyed the series, this might be the weakest volume so far. It probably was because I had such high expectations for it. While I knew a little about the Robins (Dick and Damian) I wasn’t versed in Teen Titans. The first three graphic novels were good as I got to learn about Beast Boy/Garth and Raven/Rachel, and their stories had some meat and potatoes, but I didn’t know a lot about Starfire/Kori or Vic/Cyborg other than one cartoon (that was shall we say, less than ideal), so I guess I assumed and/or hoped, it would have more about them this time around, have a story that was satisfying. This was Circus Peanuts. Now, I love circus peanuts once or twice every two or three years, but they are far from satisfying.
I did not feel that there was a lot about Vic/Cyborg’s origin story at all, but hopefully the next book has more about him as there is a sixth book planned for 2025. The Band is Officially together on the (what I saw) cover. However, Vic is in this book was an important character (he works for the lab that is associated with H.I.V.E and we know from the other books H.I.V.E is bad, but we see how he wants to stop bad). He already has his cybernetic connections so we do not see how/why that happened, but we do see he has issues with his dad and likes Kori.
Another big thing was, why do the kids (Kari, Kori, Ryan) have a mother who is absent most of the time and why was it “boom” the girl’s powers just started overnight? What is their background? Where is dad? Are they lab grown? How did Lynch (the head of the lab working with H.I.V.E) find them? Does mom know what a slimeball he is? Did he hypnotize her? Is she working with them all along? Why is Kari (older sister to Kori) weak and easy to manipulate? (I mean, Girl Power! It’s the 21st Century. Come on Tate’s last name is Fairweather? Red flag my friend!!!!). And WHY is the big sister ALWAYS the villain? (Have you had a younger sister? Seriously! We’re saints for what we put up with!) And where is Ryan, the youngest brother this whole time? And what is his power/story? And are the girl twins or close in age? And why didn’t Kori realize that sun is a good thing for her EDS?
The entire book was a conduit for the rest of the team to find Kori/Starfire and Vic/Cyborg and make sure everyone was accounted for, but it really needed more. If you like the series by Garcia and Picolo then you must read. If you like Teen Titans, the series is a must read. However, if you are just a Starfire fan, it actually probably isn’t a good one to start with. But the usual fun illustrations that are bright and colorful and are a good backdrop to the action are added and nice, but overall things were underwhelming. Read via an online reader copy, due November 2024.