Teen Titans S01E06 Review: Scary Mind-Land

Teen Titans, Season 1, Episode 6: Nevermore

I think this is one of my favourite episodes of this season. We now turn the spotlight squarely on Raven, who hasn't really done much but fight and deliver snarky comments for the past five episodes. We start off with the Teen Titans fighting the hilariously goofy Dr. Light*, a dude with a freaking light bulb logo on his chest... who ends up pissing Raven off, causing her to flip off and transform into this towering, growling mass of demonic shadowy tentacles that show us that, shit, Raven's scary. And both the visuals and Raven's voice acting, as well as Dr. Light being absolutely horrified and trembling and practically catatonic when Raven spat him out... yeah.

We know Raven's powers are more magical than the others, with her chanting magical words (Azarath Metrion Zinthos) every time she summons her shadow powers, but this is the first episode that really explored all the magical things surrounding Raven. It's an amazing episode, really, and we sideline two of the Titans, Robin and Starfire, to focus more on Beast Boy, Cyborg and Raven. After the initial Dr. Light sequence, Robin and Starfire are relegated to a running gag where we get variations of Starfire going all 'can we see Raven?' and Robin goes 'we shouldn't bug her, she said she wants to be alone.'

Beast Boy attempts to apologize to Raven for calling her weird -- the kid's a bit of a jerk but he's ultimately kind-hearted. And Cyborg kinda has to be the big brother that forces Beast Boy to apologize. But they instead get sucked into a weird mirror that leads into Raven's psyche, which is what Wonderland would look like if Tim Burton designed it. It's desolate, with weird outcroppings and creepy four-eyed demonic (actual) ravens, and aspects of Raven's personality like her insecurities, her jolliness and her badass sides all running around. These all represent parts of Raven's personality, and we see from all the separate emotion-Ravens and from the real Raven herself that despite the tough emo goth persona she shows, deep down she has, y'know, emotions.

Emotions like actually feeling upset when Beast Boy insults her, some insecurities in being afraid that Beast Boy doesn't like her (shipper horns sound!) and having a funny jokey side underneath it all. It is displayed pretty well throughout the series that no matter how much she is visibly annoyed by Beast Boy's antics, no matter how much she wants to be alone in her room all the time, she still likes being part of the Teen Titans and being part of this dysfunctional family.

Of course, Raven's... anger? Hate? The red-cloaked version of her, anyway, apparently is running rampant in Raven's psyche world after (or during) the dr. Light battle, and it manifests in an image of her father... a gigantic red-skinned deer-horned demon in a loincloth. Which, of course, foreshadows Raven's demonic father Trigon and Trigon's actual later appearance in the show, but it's a great, surreal bit as Raven learns to trust her friends more and manages to find peace with all her separate personality fragments and become a white-robed version of herself.

It's a great, powerful episode. What can I say? It's pretty amazing. Having the two polar opposites of the team -- the self-reserved, snarky, lone wolf, all-business Raven having to interact and deal with Beast Boy, the hyperactive prankster that keeps running his mouth and insulting people? While we get a surreal look into Raven's mind? And we get some really hellish imagery and a cameo of a future villain and hints of Raven's mysterious demonic past? It's all pretty awesome, and I remember this episode quite vividly for its pretty surreal tone even ten years after the fact.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Doctor Light, real name Arthur Light, was a villain that used technology to manipulate light in combat, first emerging as an enemy of the Justice League before being such a memetic loser that he was 'degraded' into a frequent enemy of the Teen Titans, and then even further until he was kicked out of a supervillain team he founded to fight the Titans, and was beaten by a group of non-powered children. And all this while he has the control of motherfucking light. He joined Suicide Squad and almost immediately got killed and sent to hell, brought back to life only to suffocate to death inside his own grave, brought back to life again and defeated by the heroic Dr. Light and stuffed inside a ring. Then came Identity Crisis, which retcon Dr Light to be... well, more sinister (he raped the wife of one of the heroes, for fuck's sake), and his incompetence was the result of several members of the Justice League lobotomizing him with magic. Then Dr. Light ended up being a monstrous fucker of a human being whose every second word is 'rape' and goes around killing children. Man, I get that you want people to take Dr. Light seriously but come on. The dude's symbol is a light bulb. That's like the last person you want to turn into a serial rapist.
• Raven's manifestation of rage takes the form of the demon Trigon. Revealing any more about him would spoil season four for us, so let's not go into that. 
• Raven wearing a white costume actually reflects a costume change she makes partway through New Teen Titans, though she eventually reverts back to black.