It seems that the Titans have gained yet another member! The new member was spotted earlier today with Cyborg and Starfire in New York, saving people from a burning building and stopping a heist of US Navy-repurposed Atlantean Technology by Orca. However, this new Titan appears to be a hopefully-reformed old enemy of the Titans: Vanadia!
Two months ago, Titans Tower was attacked in the middle of the night by an android who, as Donna Troy, Wonder Girl, explained at the time “had the powers of every Titan. She had a version of my lasso, Starfire’s beams, Cyborg’s arm blasts, and everything else. Vanadia was like our own Amazo.”
Vanadia was created by the supervillain inventor Dr. T.O. Morrow, then working at STAR Labs as part of a villain reformation program, in their Post-Human Project. She was a victim of human experimentation that granted her the superpowers of the Titans, before having her brain implanted into a cybernetic body upon her early death. Her case was brought to light by Cyborg after the attack, and supported with files he took from the STAR Labs databases. Dr. Morrow has since been placed in prison again, and STAR Labs faced large fines, governmental sanctions, and a review of all their ongoing projects.
But despite the attention given to her case, Vanadia was still dead, destroyed by the Titan Raven in her attack on their tower. Her family held a private funeral, attended by the Titans, and reportedly buried an empty casket.
However, apparently Vanadia wasn’t lost forever. Earlier today, she was spotted saving families from the fire of a heavily populated apartment building in the middle of Washington Heights with Starfire and Cyborg. The latter two appeared to be supervising Vanadia’s first outings after her mysterious return to life. Together, the trio saved 58 inhabitants of the building, including all of the pets inside.
Starfire hands a rescued kitten to his thankful owner. (Image Credit: Rino Torcull, Daily Planet)
After the fire, the trio stopped an attack by the gang Whale’s Enders, led by Orca, on the U.S. Naval Combat Capabilities Development Command Research Center (COMDEV). This center is dedicated to repurposing Atlantean technology and making it effective in military applications on the surface.
Orca and her crew attempted to steal ten suits of retrofitted Atlantean power armor, designed to house one person each and give them a collection of high-tech weaponry. If the suits were successfully stolen, “we would be facing a national security disaster of the worst kind,” Dr. Jesse Finley, director of the project, stated. Vanadia interrupted the arrest, first battling Orca directly before seizing control of the power armor with her apparent ability to control machinery.
New Titan Vanadia controls the power armor stolen by Orca, forcing her to surrender. (Image Credit: Rino Torcull, Daily Planet)
Unfortunately, Vanadia’s seizing of the machines apparently affected Cyborg as well. Starfire was forced to catch her fellow Titan and make Vanadia stop, as Cyborg had fallen from the sky. Later, in a post on WayneSky, Donna Troy informed everyone that Cyborg had made a full recovery.
The Titans leader also explained that Vanadia had been under the team’s custody and was reactivated and had Dr. Morrow’s manipulative programming removed by them, in order to give her another chance at life. “Vanadia may have a spotty past, but she is now a fully welcomed member of our team,” she stated. “We will be working to train her in being an effective superhero, so please keep an open mind. We’re very glad for her assistance.”
Hopefully Vanadia will continue to operate on the Titans for a long time, proving to everyone that sometimes, villains can be reformed. We wish her the best of luck!
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So this is my opinion as an amateur writer whose credentials are literally 1) loves storytelling 2) has published fanfics of varying quality before and 3) has been into comics for most of my life but I do think the reason why Titans is just kinda fine is so exemplified in this picture
Donna Troy is literally a photographer lmao. That's her thing. Dick is her best friend who she has a rapport with. I don’t think her being a photographer meant she MUST be the one taking the picture but this'd be such a great opportunity for some character moments especially since it's in Roy's pov and he is closest to the wonder twins so he would pay attention to what they're bickering about. There could have been a back and forth here about what settings Dick chose to take the pic or literally anything with an awareness that you have a photographer, a model and a former actor in your team. This plot is fine it's perfectly servicable in a way that rebirth Titans had an issue with tbh I don’t think we need it to be anything complicated, it just needs to feel like we're watching a bunch of best pals going on all these adventures and them being besties needs to be more than just lip service.
Donna is my fave so obviously I'm gonna be most concerned with her but just a while ago Raven "killed" Vanadia, who she knew was a fan and was inspired by her. That should have factored into her worries about leading way more. And honestly she has so many Donna specific reasons to feel insecure about her new role in the team but if you just read the book it's so vague you could slot in any character and you'd still have these story beats.
SPOILERS!!!!!!!! Vic's been hiding the fact that he's bringing Vanadia back and I understand why he specifically would want to try and help her but like why did he hide it?? Vanadia was a victim from jump, Raven "killing" her was a tragedy, even if Donna wasn't "doing the whole rehabilitation thing" why would she have an issue with this? Why would any of the team besides maybe Roy who's been somewhat understandably distrustful. If he's doing some yikes shit to bring her back then he could just hide it from them without making it so ??? and we could have had a more convincing buildup of Vic becoming more and more obsessive about whatever tf he has to do to fet her back and maybe even connect that to him and his dad? His conflict for so long was all this rage for what his dad did to him under the "guise" of saving him and we could slowly see him maybe start to do the same thing while saving Vanadia instead of just being vague for vagueness sake then having an infodump convo later explaining everything instead of doing any build up?
I wanna feel like a Titans writer actually loves each individual character not just Nightwing or BBRae. Like these characters were dissected to see how they each tick so that when they're put together it feels authentic.
