New Writer on Titans

Newsarama has an interview posted with the new writer for Teen Titans, taking over with issue #50:

Sean McKeever

McKeever was already announced as the new writer on Birds of Prey when Gail Simone moves over to Wonder Woman.

Now, I'm not currently reading Titans in its monthly issue form. I HAD been picking up the trade paperbacks, but after the "Infinite Crisis" crossover paperback, I've been leery about picking up any of the new ones. I've read some of the individual issues sporadically at Borders in the post-"One Year Later" jump and, while there are some things that I like about them (Miss Martian in particular, though also Kid Devil), it hasn't been enough for me to think about jumping back onto Titans. The whole "death of Superboy" thing just sits like a pall over the whole book for me.

But McKeever -- he does do the teenage drama well from what I've seen. On the good side, he expressly likes the characters of Miss Martian and Kid Devil and wants to explore them more (wanting to explore more about Ravager is more neutral than good to me -- I just haven't been that interested in Rose since the arc where she became a psychotic nut under her father's tutelage). On the bad side, McKeever says he "really likes" the Titans Tomorrow story, a story that I thought was fairly derivative overall and just not that compelling. Revisiting that particular story arc doesn't thrill me in the least.

There are only some indications of what the "full roster" of the Titans will look like in the interview -- McKeever commits to Kid Devil, Miss Martian, Ravager, Wonder Girl, and Supergirl explicitly. There's an implicit assumption that Robin will also be on the team, and McKeever's careful choice of words indicates that Blue Beetle will not be on the team. I like this -- it's good to see the focus move off of the Wolfman/Perez roster of Titans and onto a new generation of teen heroes. I'm also already pre-disposed to like almost all of those characters (but can Robin please get a decent costume back? That red-and-black number just screams "target practice" to me).

Overall, I think I'll take a wait-and-see approach to the book. I could see it getting onto my monthly pull list. I could also see myself continuing to mostly ignore the book. I've been impressed by McKeever's work in the past, and I'm already planning on getting McKeever's Birds of Prey. Despite not really having the money to expand my pull list right now, I actually hope that the book is so good that I can't help but put it on my list.