Teen Titans

It’s difficult to imagine any animated show featuring the vocal talent of Keith David failing to entertain. Fortunately, that difficulty will remain a burden to fans of Keith’s work for a bit longer.

The guy who voiced Spawn, Goliath the Gargoyle, and Despero over in Justice League lends his talent to this episode to bring to life a brand new villian, but more on that later.

As one can imagine, “Only Human” features Cyborg in yet another soul-searching adventure. This time around, however, the team behind the Titans knock one out of the park compared to the abysmal “Car Trouble.”

This time around, Cyborg isn’t portrayed as a shallow part time grease monkey, toiling over his T-Car. Instead we are treated to a glimpse at the internalized pain that Vic harbors over what could have been had his life turned out differently.

Fans of the comic book series may recall that before Vic Stone suffered injuries forcing him to become Cyborg, he dreamt of pursuing a life of athletics, in hopes of becoming a seasoned athlete much to the chagrin of his scientist parents.

Life has a way of turning mishaps into fortune, and many would feel that becoming half-man / half-machine would be nothing short of beneficial. They would be wrong.

Unfortunately for Vic, being enhanced to levels of super-strength is not without its drawbacks. What happens when you’ve reached the maximum capabilities that your cyborg body can seemingly allow?

As Cyborg learns during a Titan workout, his new body has limits. One of the key aspects from his athletic past that Vic misses is the thrill of pushing himself beyond his means and achieving his goals in the process.

Yet with a body made of metal, he finds it impossible to exceed the potential for success measured by a gauge on his arm.

While lifting an enormous amount of weight, Vic’s arm gauge informs him that he has reached full capacity and he gives up, feeling that continuing to try is an exercise in futility.

Of course, Cyborg responds to this defeat as any teenager would. He retreats to Titan Tower and proceeds to sulk and play video games.

While participating in an online fighting game, Cyborg encounters a player who answers to the handle “Atlas.” He proceeds to defeat Atlas numerous times, and Atlas turns up at the Tower and to challenge Cyborg to a live re-match.

The aforementioned Keith David provides the voice for Atlas, a militant robot who feels that humans are inferior, yet remains reliant upon one for repairs and upgrades to his arsenal.

Atlas is a character created specifically for the animated series, but his creation is warranted on the basis of what his existence provides in character development for Cyborg. No longer are we stuck with newly created villains who seem to crumble easily whenever the Titans show up.

Cyborg has reached a point where he feels his potential is limited by his cybertronic body. His longing for the ability to carry on a somewhat normal existence is resonate throughout the episode, and when he initially loses to Atlas he sincerely believes that there is nothing more that he could do to save his friends from captivity at the hands of his enemy.

Vic must do what every human being is forced to do sooner or later, and that is to face his fears. Facing one’s fears is a very human thing to do, and in doing so he realizes that he must try not to think of himself as either man or machine, but as a combination of both.

Now, I know this was all mentioned before to an extent in Season One’s “Sum of His Parts,” but for some reason this seems to take a far more internal aspect to the scenario rather than just merely dealing with the external issues, and it makes the repetition all the more bearable.

David’s casting as Atlas is picture perfect, and he inadvertently pushes Cyborg into exceeding his limits and learning that being human means always being able to grow and adapt oneself being their means.

One of the funniest moments of the episode belongs to Beast Boy. Each Titan uses his or her abilities to try to force Atlas into submission, but their efforts fail in the long run. At one point Beast Boy divebombs Atlas from over head, and ends up transforming into a giant whale at the last moment, crushing him but sadly failing to defeat him.

The approach to this sequence is extremely hilarious and is definitely one of the best gags in the series thus far. Most of the other Titans take a periphery role during the episode in order to allow Cyborg the space to grow throughout the episode, and pays off in the end.

Overall, the creative team redeems themselves with “Only Human” because we finally seem to delve into some of the deeper issues Cyborg is facing within.

And besides, who can argue with a Keith David cameo that piggybacks a John Dimaggio cameo as Atlas’ loyal repairman? Honestly?! To anyone wondering, John serves as the voice of Bender on Futurama..

Next Week: What’s that you say? You want new episodes? You’re tired of re-runs? Well, me too, and it looks like we won’t have to wait much further. We pick up finishing up Season Two where we left off with “Betrayal” on July 31st! See you there!

Mario Anima