Jul 1982
Beware the Wrath of…Brother Blood!
By Marv Wolfman, George Perez, Romeo Tanghal
Starfire and Raven thwart an attempt to cause havoc at a baseball game. There are masked gunmen and a bomb planted under third base. Starfire carries the bomb high above the Earth to dispose of it. She is injured when the bomb explodes and she falls from a great height. Raven catches her but fears that she has inadvertently done her friend and teammate some harm. Observing all this is someone in a satellite, someone who isn’t shown but that I am pretty sure is the Monitor.
Vic is hanging with Sarah Simms when he gets a call from Marcy, an ex-girlfriend. Marcy is desperate. She’s being chased by the followers of Brother Blood. She tells Vic where to find her. He rushes over but it is too late. Brother Blood’s foot soldiers hav already found and executed Marcy.
She joined the cult sometime after she split up with Vic (see Tales of the New Teen Titans 1). It is unclear how long she was with the group but she decided it wasn’t for her. When she tried to leave they followed her. Brother Blood ordered his troops to excommunicate Marcy. Blood is displeased that it came to this, especially because of Marcy's connection to Cyborg. He had hoped to keep his church hidden from outsiders.
Vic tells his teammates about what happened to Marcy and then goes to her funeral. Her father doesn’t want him there and blames Vic for her death. The truth of the matter is that it was her father who told Marcy to break it off with Vic.
The Titans decide to look into Brother Blood. Robin, Wonder Girl, Kid Flash, and Raven, dressed in civilian attire, make their way to Brother Blood’s HQ in Massachusetts. They arrive as new recruits to Blood’s church. Almost all his followers seem be young adults, no more than early 20s at most. In that sense the Titans fit in quite well but the acolytes of Brother Blood surreptitiously scan the the Titans and can see that three of them are not ordinary humans.
A fight breaks out. Brother Blood claims to be hundreds of years old and proves to be much more than just a figure head of a cult. The source of his powers are unclear. He shoots blasts from his hands and is very strong but those powers could come from the suit he wears. It clearly looks like he presses a button on his gauntlet to fire the blasts in one panel. He defeats all four of the Titans but Raven's soul self escapes.
It is only mentioned in passing but Brother Blood's church has prospered in the Baltic island nation of Zandia for at least 700 years. Zandia was introduced in New Teen Titans 14. It is the country that Madame Rouge and General Zahl tried to take over.
Great first chapter to this two-part story. The violence in this story was palpable. Marcy's escape and attempts to evade the followers of Brother Blood probably don't phase readers today but in 1982 this was intense stuff. The tension and nature of this story remind me in some ways of the X-Men graphic novel: God Loves, Man Kills, which was also published in 1982.
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Titans' Tower, the letters page, features letters about New Teen Titans (1980) 17,which isn't a favorite story of mine. Some loved it, some did not.
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This issue also includes a preview of Night Force by Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan. Wolfman and Colan, prior to Night Force and New Teen Titans, collaborated on a long run of Tomb of Dracula. I own the first issue of Night Force. I haven't read it in years and never read the rest of the series which was cancelled after 14 issues. There are trade paperback and digital collections available of the entire series including the preview. The preview is not included in the New Teen Titans collected edition.
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Here are some ads that I scanned from the pages of this issue.
Even if my copy of this issue was in perfect shape I doubt that all the details on the covers of the issues depicted in the first ad would be visible. The comic books depicted are:
- DC Comics Presents 47 - Superman teams up with He-Man - this is a collector's item and very expensive these days; if you can find it for less than $50 then you are probably getting a bargain
- Wonder Woman 293 - Conclusion of a 3-part story celebrating Wonder Woman's 40th anniversary
- The Fury of Firestorm Storm 2 - Firestorm vs. Black Bison
- All-Star Squadron 11 - Part 2 of a 3-part story which features the return of Hath Set (an enemy of Hawkman of Earth-2) in the form of Dr. Anton Hastor
- Jonah Hex 62 - Part 4 of a 5-part arc where Jonah travels to China with Mei Ling
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