Teen Titans – Review: Birthmark

Titans Voices
Greg Cipes as Beast Boy
Scott Menville as Robin
Khary Payton as Cyborg
Tara Strong as Raven
Hynden Walch as Starfire
Rodger Bumpass as Dr. Light
Ron Perlman as Slade
Kevin Michael Richardson as Trigon

This episode whooped ass–literally, in every sense of the word. From the highly amusing opening to the beautifully choreographed fight scenes, it was simply stunning from beginning to end. However, its greatest achievement is that it simply leaves you begging for more, which in all honesty, Teen
Titans hasn’t done so well since the first season. Most of the Terra arc was pretty predictable and Brother Blood was bloody boring. Only Slade has managed to intrigue me enough to make me want to see him again.

I have to add though; spoilers literally killed the impact of his return. I thought it was awesome when Haunted hinted at his return. But the creepiness of his return was lost, simply because I wasn’t surprised by it. It’s no one’s fault in particular, as Cartoon Network let the damn episode descriptions out too early, but I can only imagine how sweet it would’ve been if I was totally unaware Slade was returning. It could’ve been one of the coolest “Oh. My. God.” moments ever.

I’ve personally been awaiting the return of Slade with each passing episode.
With the exception of a few of the second stringer villains such as Mumbo,
Control Freak and Mad Mod, most of the villains in Teen Titans are pretty mediocre, and their attempt to ‘replace’ Slade as the big bad with Brother
Blood was pretty uninspired.

The one thing that I was a little cautious about for Slade’s return was the fact it might simply look like their going through the motions and repeating the same story all over again. Thankfully, this is not the case, and his return is one of great interest, because now he’s got a new master, new absolutely whoops ass Human Torch style powers and, most intriguingly, a new motivation. It seems our Slade no longer cares about Robin he’s after Raven.
This somewhat reminds one of the whole Terra angle, only it seems a helluva lot more interesting.

Some things simply shouldn’t change however. One of these things is Ron
Perlman. He simply owns almost every single role he’s ever had. With the exception of an iffy Hulk, the man is a God animation voices. He brought great life to a somewhat mediocre villain in Batman: The Animated Series displayed the perfect sense of rage as Orion in Superman: The Animated
Series

This season has promised to focus on Raven, which I personally think is great. Unlike Cyborg and Starfire, Raven works great when she’s in the lead role, whereas the aforementioned duo works so much better as supporting characters. Raven’s biggest strength is that she works great as both.
Another great asset to her is that, like Robin, her past is a great mystery.
Whereas one could pretty much accurately speculate what Beast Boy, Cyborg and Starfire were like before they became Titans, its great fun to think about what Raven and Robin were previously.

The ending was cool. I’m just really interested in seeing where this entire story heads. The mere title of the season’s finale has great expectations from me. Considering how good a build up this gave it, let’s hope it doesn’t disappoint like the previous ones.