Review: Teen Titans: Beast Boy by Kami Garcia Illustrated by Gabriel Picolo
ARC provided by the publisher through NetGalley. All thoughts are my own.
Teen Titans: Beast Boy is the second in this Teen Titans graphic novel series. It is an origin story of how Gar comes into his Beast Boy powers whilst being a high school student navigating social relationships and his parent’s secrets. The story from Teen Titans: Raven has no bearing on this one, so you do not need to read the two in order.
This book has the same strengths and weaknesses of the first in the series. Both are exceptionally quick reads that do a decent job of introducing you to the character and their world; the art is equally as wonderful in Beast Boy as it is in Raven. This being said, they both feel very incomplete. Both end right after an information reveal and right before something big is going to happen. It makes it feel like you just read a prequel and now are waiting around for the rest of the story.
I wish I could find any information about the structure of this series. I would probably feel less critical of the abrupt endings if I knew when DC plans on actually either uniting the group or going back to their individual stories. I also just want to know how many beginnings of a story I will need to read before I get to progress in anyone’s story.
I gave this book four stars and am conflicted about if I would recommend it. It is fun and quick, but I kind of wish I hadn’t read them until more were out. That impulse is obviously bad for actually getting more if you (and everyone else) don’t buy books in a series, then there is always the risk the series will be canceled before if it finished. I would like to read more; I just hope they eventually start to progress past the introduction phase.
