In Review: Tales from the Dark Multiverse: Teen Titans The Judas Contract (2019) #1

Synopsis: The Dark Multiverse reimagines one of the most renowned stories in comic book history, “The Judas Contract”! In this shocking tale, Terra’s betrayal starts not with the Teen Titans, but with Deathstroke himself! Now, free from her mentor’s influence and supercharged by the same serum that turned Slade Wilson into the world’s deadliest man, Tara Markov will forge a new destiny, written in the Teen Titans’ blood.

Review: Yet another re-imagining of a classic DC story, but this turns out to be perhaps the darkest of them all.

The Story

Having been triumphant after a recent mission. The Teen Titans prepare to say a fond farewell to Kid Flash who wants to hang up his superhero costume for a spot of real-world studies at college, but that isn’t the only thing that is changing. Dick Grayson aka Robin has announced that he is giving up his mantle as the Boy Wonder to fully embrace his role as the groups leader, but when he makes the announcement is spots a moment of recognition in the eyes of Terra Markov, but when he asks her about it in private she takes it the wrong way.

We learn that Markov has been under the tutelage of Slade Wilson aka Deathstroke, but something that Robin says to Terra triggers a remarkable change in her as she seeks to carve out her own Destiny and thus a path of destruction begins as Terra becomes Gaia and all hope is lost.

The Artwork

Tom Raney does both the penciling and inking duties for this comic and produces some epic images as Gaia spreads her brand of terror around the earth and takes out pretty much all the titans as well as the Justice League. The battle between Gaia, Robin and Kid Flash who comes back to help the boy wonder is fairly short-lived, but the image of her impaling them both definitely has an impact. The bigger of the battles is between Gaia and Superman, but when Gar comes back to try and talk her down Gaia’s reaction is rather harsh and it is drawn magnificently by Raney, who doesn’t hold back.

The artwork is helped by some great colors, which are done by Hi-Fi

Overall

Matt Groom and Kyle Higgins do a pretty good job of giving us this darker take on the classic Judas Contract story, but I went away feeling that it was all a bit rushed in that I felt the story would have been done more justice has it been four regular issues of a mini-series as opposed to just 50 pages. Terra descent into darkness and her transformation into Gaia would have worked much better had the two writers had more wiggle room that a four-issue story would have given them. Although it was handled rather well. I can’t help but feel that it would have worked better had they been able to stretch it out a little more so as to create a more nuanced decline.

Overall. This was a fun read and was definitely one of the darker stories from this series, but it also felt rather rushed.