Graphic Novel Review - Titans Volume 1: The Return of Wally West

Name - Titans Volume 1: The Return of Wally West
Published by - DC Comics   
Story by - Dan Abnett   
Art by - Brett Booth, Norm Rapmund, Andrew Dalhouse, Carlos M. Mangual, Carrie Strachan
 
First things first, I got this book from NetGalley, so thank you netgalley and DC Comics for this opportunity.
The return of Wally West is the catalyst that started of the DC Rebirth era, so you would expect to get more info on the smiley button or at least more about how the Watchmen characters are to be incorporated into the DC universe. Instead, we get a story about Wally West, reuniting with his team and trying to save all the important persons in his life while being, you guessed it, as fast as he can be.

Even excluding the rebirth mystery, it could have been quite a much better story if the villain was a bit more interesting, or if he could have had a more interesting motive. And also I hoped for development of all the members of the team, instead the author focused entirely on Wally while giving the rest a back seat (even going as far as to make them seem rather weak compared to him), and not really giving them much room at all in terms of character building.

Another sad fact is that the author never really made me feel like rooting for Linda and Wally as their past and relationship was handled too bluntly for me. Also, there is not much to enjoy as terms of team dynamics as well, due to the focus being too much about Wally and his relation with the team members.

The antagonist never really felt too much of a threat and his version of Titans fighting the real ones was also a thing that has been done numerous times before. I would rather read about these characters talking with each other than such predictable action and suspense. I mean this guy just returned from being erased we all knew he wasn't gonna lose to some second tier villain.

The art was good to look at, but did not have anything out of the ordinary to draw attention. The only positive is that Dan Abnett's smooth storytelling did keep the momentum going and fast pace of the story never really made this a chore to read.

Nevertheless, I do have high hopes for this series in the future. Now that the introduction of Wally is done, hopefully the author will focus on telling an interesting story with these characters and give each one room for improvement in the upcoming issues.

But this first volume of the Titans gets only 2.5 out of 5 stars from me.