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