Monday, January 7, 2013

Pre-Crisis Primer: Love Your Mother

Tales of the Teen Titans 51-52
“Jericho's Story”

Even Jericho's poster is shocked.
When the mother hen of the Teen Titans, Donna Troy, is away on honeymoon, the other members of the Titans are sure to get in to trouble. Trouble or not, the main cast of the Titans are more side-characters to this story, the focus being on Jericho and his mother.

The Titans have suffered dire defeat but also had many reasons to celebrate during the past year. Regardless of the recent celebration, those aforementioned wounds are too deep to be easily healed. Jericho, the new team member introduced during the final battle with Deathstroke who is also the villain's son, was accepted fairly easily into the team in a moment of desperation and with only the word of the newly-christened Nightwing to act as a recommendation. Considering the ultimate betrayal of Terra, a member also taken in by the team without the Titans knowing the full story, Changeling doesn't quite trust Jericho, suspecting he's a plant from Deathstroke to further destroy the team.

Crazy-Eye versus the Menagerie. Tickets?
The plot for the story gets a bit convoluted so here's an attempt to succinctly sum up what happens. Considering she was the wife of Deathstroke for a long time, Jericho's mother, Addie Wilson was also a highly-trained military professional. In fact, she trained Deathstroke in spy work when he was in the military. Notwithstanding, she's not only military contacts in black-ops, but also enemies. More importantly, as a spy, she has enemies that she betrayed. Big breath: the Mid-East nation of Qatar, upon seeing that Jericho is a member of the Titans who recently broke up an arms shipment deal in the United States, come to the conclusion that Addie Wilson, who used to work for the Qatar government, and was selling their defense secrets to the American government; on the flip-side the American government, also recognizing Jericho from the Titans, arrange a meeting with Nightwing to discuss bringing Jericho in for questioning because they suspect he works with his mother collecting defense details from governments. Whew.

Jericho's momma takes 0 shit, gives 0 fucks. Still loses though.
All those words comprise the source of some righteous inter-team conflict. While Qatar has dispatched Cheshire, the poison-obsessed assassin previously seen working for The Monitor to capture Addie and bring her back to Qatar, Nightwing makes the mistake of asking Changeling to make sure Jericho stays put until Nightwing can return. Gar predictably flips his lid, automatically assuming the new teammate is a traitor and the two, in true superhero fashion, fight it out and manage to break some furniture before Jericho hightails it to rescue his mother from Cheshire. Spoiler: Jericho punches Cheshire square in the face and rescues his mother. My sarcasm is probably misplaced there in that for a bit, I figured they would kill Jericho's mother; it is the hero's quest after all, see Batman and Robin. Jericho: bucking the trend that heroes need to be orphans.

Jericho gets a running start on that punch.
'Jericho's Story' is a crowded one, no doubt there. In the beginning especially the plot is out of control but it's in the second part that the audience gets a little meat in the form of information about Jericho. Up until this point all we know about Jericho is that he's Addie's son, Deathstroke's son, and can possess the body of another being by looking into their eyes. Here we learn that he loves art, so much so that he lets the man who tortured his mother escape just to save a priceless piece of art threatened by a live hand grenade. Being mute, art is Jericho's language, it's how he is able to communicate with others and this has given him a different affinity for it than those of us who can vocalize. Jericho, while willing to employ a few kicks and punches on his quest to save his mother is wholly unwilling to take a life. Now, while this is true for most of the DC heroes at this point, it's interesting with Jericho because both his parents are highly trained military operatives who have trained Jericho not just to fight, but to kill. This is a bit different than Nightwing, who Batman trained extensively in martial arts but with no killing attacks. Jericho has the knowledge and shows time and again that he's simply unwilling to use those tactics. Jericho's preferred method of attack is to possess an assailant and just take them out of the fight that way. A pacifist artist superhero? Sure, I'll take that.

He does drop Cheshire with a hay maker though. No one messes with Jericho's momma.

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