When we last left our heroes, things were looking bleak, yet in true Teen Titan fashion the opening scrawl reminds us of how dire the situation is while providing a flicker of hope for the future. The Brain’s plot to eliminate an entire generation of heroes is on the verge of success as the Titans fall one-by-one. We learn that Professor Chang has concocted a machine that individually freezes each captive Titan, forming a collection of figurines that seems to poke fun at the collector in all of us.

Glimmer of hope? Oh yeah, that comes in the form of our beloved Beast Boy, who is bound and determined to stop the Brotherhood of Evil against all odds.

And what insurmountable odds he’s facing.

Beast Boy manages to gather a small group of remaining Titan recruits including Mas, Pantha, The Herald, and Jericho. The group, as a whole, is a shamble of rag tag underdogs, and they know it. Ready to disband before they even begin to fight, Beast Boy rallies them together, insisting that they will come out on top in the end.

Take a second to look at the group as a whole: Mas is powerless without his brother Menos, Pantha is strong, and The Herald can use his horn to create rifts in space and time. There is potential there, but not enough to take down the sheer numbers of the Brotherhood of Evil. The impressive move by Amy Wolfram and company is the choice to hold Jericho’s powers off as a trump card of sorts.

In "Calling All Titans" we see Jericho being pursued by Brotherhood cronies, but we never actually see how he defeats his enemies. This all changes in "Titans Together," as Jericho’s power of taking control of his enemies plays an impressive role in Beast Boy’s plan to infiltrate the lair of The Brotherhood of Evil. Setting up a simple trap using Mas as bait allows the team to take control of Cinderblock, sneak into the complex and then mount a full out assault on the Brotherhood.

Although the team puts up enough of a fight the tide eventually sways in favor of the villains, that is, until Raven, Starfire, and Cyborg show up with a gaggle of Titans in tow. What ensues is an even bigger brawl between Titans and foes, all played out atop a black and white chessboard. With this sort of pattern being used so prominently in a Doom Patrol related crossover, it is hard not to be nostalgic, recalling the classic black and white checker pattern used atop the classic DC titles, in my case old issues of Doom Patrol.

The sheer number of characters used in this sequence is insanely overwhelming. As Cyborg puts it upon arriving “I don’t even know where to start.” Imagine Jericho jumping from body to body, explosions galore, and Mas y Menos, finally reunited, piling up villains and freezing them at lightspeed.

A couple of excellent uses of Season Five plotlines actually manages to reward viewers for sitting through the few filler episodes of the season. Namely, we get to see Ding Dong Daddy get power slammed several times, and those brats Timmy Tantrum, Teether and Melvin, from "Hide and Seek" show up in the midst of the fray, and even manage to pull of a pretty funny sequence in the process.

Kid Flash shows up with a newly recruited Jinx, much to the High Five’s despair. Her betrayal of her former team proves a surprise to both Mammoth and crew as well as Cyborg and the rest of the heroes.

Either way, his arrival also provides a rather interesting moment involving Mas y Menos, who were created for the "Titans East" episodes when the creative team wasn’t sure if using a Flash character would go over very well. Sadly, all of these moments come when the series is (allegedly) coming to a close.

In the end, Beast Boy and company manage to defeat the Brain and his cronies only to find the new challenge of an overcrowded Titans Tower. Ironically the episode closes with an unsuspecting Dr. Light holding up a bank, while a collection of heroes wait to pounce on him in the name of good.

Next Up: What looks to be the last episode of the Teen Titans series is coming in the form of Thing Change. Not much is known about the episode, other than…well, things change. However its safe to suspect that this is a reflective effort, recounting the overall series arc, and taking a look back at the Teen Titans.

Mario Anima