The Culling (New 52 Crossover in the Young Justice titles)

The Culling is a crossover event in what DC refers to as its Young Justice titles. Yes, again, this review is a bit behind schedule. I am still catching up, and I have about a month's worth of comics to go. Note that there are spoilers in this review because it is so late.

The Young Justice titles include the following titles: Superboy, Legion Lost, and Teen Titans. I am not sure why Blue Beetle does not fall into the category as well, maybe he does and they just chose not to use him for this crossover. The cross over is preluded in Superboy 8, Legion Lost 8, and Teen Titans 8. The main story takes place in sequential order in Teen Titans Annual 1, Superboy 9, Legion Lost 9, and Teen Titans 9. There is an epilogue in the new title, Ravagers (1).

This event has been building in Teen Titans and Superboy since the beginning of the New 52. An "evil" organization known as N.O.W.H.E.R.E. has been kidnapping teenaged meta-humans (superheroes in the DCU) for some unknown reason. Superboy is an experiment from one of N.O.W.H.E.R.E.'s labs as a part of this scheme. The story finally culminates in the three prologue comics when the Teen Titans, Superboy, and our lost Legionnaires from Legion Lost are captured by N.O.W.H.E.R.E.

During the course of the story we get a full introduction to the man (monster) behind N.O.W.H.E.R.E., Harvest. He claims that his motives are altruistic in nature. That he is trying to prepare this generation of meta-humans to stop a great threat that is coming in the future. His story might be believable by the heroes if he weren't experimenting on some of the youth, and forcing all of them to live in an underground ghetto of his creation where they are forced to fight for survival against one another until he decides to have a culling (the point of this whole story).

The Culling is a point in time where Harvest has one of his loyal Ravagers (those meta-humans who have survived past cullings and thus been recruited by Harvest to help him in his plan) incite all of the other meta-humans into a state of aggression where all they wish to do is fight. Harvest then dumps all of the meta-humans into an arena dubbed the Crucible for a battle to the death. Those who survive are offered positions as one of Harvest's Ravagers. Why not just train them and prepare the youth for the coming threat instead of this way is the question by the reader and the heroes involved.

A new team of Ravagers is born from the end of the Cullling, but they are not loyal to Harvest. They are actually escapees from the complex. They are led by the scientist Caitlin Fairchild from Superboy for now, and her goal for them is to teach them how to survive with their powers and as heroic individuals or at least not as villains.

Together with this new team, we also get "new" characters from DC's old universe and the Wildstorm universe introduced to the new DC universe. Warblade from WildCATs is here. Grunge from Gen13 is here. Beast Boy, Terra, Thunder, and Lightning from DC are all here as well. They all have interesting new looks and in Grunge's case even had a temporary upgrade to his powers, which I am sure will get reinstituted if he returns after this crossover.

The whole crossover is well done for the first major event. The lead ups brought the reader to where he needed to be for the event and even the prologues properly set the final stage for the Culling. There are still plot threads that have ran out of the crossover for all of the individual series, while still leaving the major threat of Harvest and/or his upcoming threat intact. The story as a crossover even added to the events for each of the individual titles. Superboy grows more towards his heroic destiny. The Teen Titans finally start bonding together as a true team. And Legion Lost learns that there is more to what's going on for them here and in the future then they all knew, which will no doubt have many repercussions for them in the future.

If you did not pick up the serial comics, I recommend the trade paperback when it is released (as I am sure it will be eventually) or even going out and picking up the crossover issues and reading the event straight through as I did. Even if you have not been reading the three separate series, the event from the prologue to the epilogue can be enjoyed on its own.

Thanks again for reading.