Teen Titans – Review: Titans East, Part 2

The final showdown between Cyborg and Brother Blood culminates in the creation of a new branch of the Titans team. Titans East includes a new tower in a new city with five new members: Aqualad, Bumblebee, Speedy and a pair of high-speed twins known as Mas Y Menos.

Review by Stu
Media by Bird Boy

Titans Voices
Greg Cipes as Beast Boy
Scott Menville as Robin
Khary Payton as Cyborg
Tara Strong as Raven
Hynden Walch as Starfire
John DiMaggio as Brother Blood
Mike Erwin as Speedy
T’Keyah Crystal Kemah as Bumblebee
Freddy Rodriguez as Mas, Menos
Wil Wheaton as Aqualad

I’m going to start by saying this was an utterly pointless episode. This and part one were essentially a waste of time, presumably to show us the new super group, Titans East. The other point, to show Cyborg’s human self is stronger than his robotic one. Only, we’ve seen that in practically every single Cyborg episode we’ve seen.

Now, generally, I like Cyborg. He’ll never be Robin, nor dare try and take his crown as the coolest Titan of all time, and I find him to be pretty cool at the best of times. But, it’s a simple fact; most episodes based on him have this horrible tendency to completely and utterly suck. This episode unfortunately doesn’t break the rule. It underlines it.

The Titans East involvement here was completely pointless and lacked any real logic. I liked them as individuals, before I saw this episode. I won’t lie, I can’t stand the Spanish twins, but I really enjoyed the previous
Aqualad episode, and especially enjoyed Speedy’s previous episode; Now, however, I don’t think I could care enough to watch The Titans East again.
They came across as the polar opposite of what I love about the original
Titans. Dynamic, three-dimensional characters that have great chemistry with all there team mates. Can you image a Speedy and Mas Y Menos? Nope. Sounds dull, doesn’t it? I realize there’s a lot of potential spin off to be found here on Teen Titans, after all, it’s a highly rated show, which is actually watch able instead of the over hyped shows which seem to be plaguing animation at this time. If that indeed was the case here, the producers failed…miserably.

This was arguably the most boring episode of Teen Titans ever. Having already seen the following episode, I’m glad it’s not a trend. However, I am now weary of the coming 3 part episode. Teen Titans works best as a fast action cartoon with best of comedy thrown in, with the odd “complete riot”
episode which only this show manages to do so well. Long drawn out episodes and Teen Titans don’t mesh well; especially when they’re centered on Cyborg.

I love Teen Titans. I really do. But I can’t justify this as anything other than a complete waste of time.