Every once in a while, a writer takes on a new series particularly close to a DC Comics event, and they have to write whatever’s required of them going into and coming out of the event before their own run can actually pick up. We saw this to an extent with Tom Taylor’s Nightwing and Dark Crisis, and also I think with John Ridley’s I Am Batman and Fear State.

I can only hope that’s what’s happening with John Layman’s DC All In-era Titans, and that after DC KO, Layman has a grand plan he can begin to enact. Because Titan Vol. 4: Terminated is really subpar, an astoundingly lackluster Titans tale. I’ll keep reading into the DC KO crossover (and beyond, of course, who am I kidding), but the most recent solicitations promise “something new” and that really seems like the best for all involved. (Layman off the title after DC KO, we now know.)

[Review contains spoilers]

Terminated, as the name implies, involves Deathstroke attacking the Titans alongside his new motley Crime Syndicate. Why Deathstroke is attacking them — what’s the aim or goal of the master tactician, what’s he trying to accomplish — I couldn’t say, and I flipped through a couple times trying to figure it out. This seems very basically a story of Deathstroke baiting the Titans to attack him and then attacking them back just because Deathstroke and the Titans are enemies, and Layman doesn’t give any indication of having thought much farther than that.

The hook to Layman’s Terminated, what could potentially separate it from the rest of the pack of Deathstroke stories that seem de rigueur for every Titans run like The Terminus Agenda and The Lazarus Contract, is Terra. Every Titans Deathstroke story is trying to be a sequel to Marv Wolfman and George Perez' “Judas Contract,” but Layman’s has a better opportunity than most given that Terra’s alive again as of Christopher Priest’s Deathstroke.

But Priest was writing Deathstroke and not Titans, and his excellent Deathstroke was a bit iffy on the continuity anyway, so Priest never addressed how it was Terra was alive … and Layman doesn’t, either. Rather the Titans seem not at all surprised by Terra’s return, nor does she cause them much difficulty; there’s a point in which Beast Boy is distracted by Terra, but later the day is saved because the Titans interrupt Clock King’s mind control, and Terra is almost incidental. Obviously Layman intends something by the fact that Terra is now rehabilitating in the Titans' basement, but this really boilerplate heroes versus villains story doesn’t give me much hope for Terra’s future.

Layman finishes off the book with a two-parter in which Beast Boy and Cyborg partner with Dennis Culver’s “Unstoppable” Doom Patrol against a villain from Geoff Johns' 2000s Teen Titans: Beast Boys and Girls. That’s a nice callback, and the story is fine overall, particularly as Cyborg’s heart-to-heart with Robotman Cliff Steele is reminiscent of the excellent Doom Patrol TV show where they costarred.

But equally the stakes here are so small — Cyborg worries about his humanity, Robotman reassures him, and it’s fine; Beast Boy is worried about Beast Girl (whom I’m unsure if he’s even actually met before on the page), but yes, she too is fine, nor does Beast Boy show any ill effects from his encounter with Terra. It’s all just copacetic, which is how many DC titles roll these days, but it doesn’t make for exciting reading.

The book is only saved — and I recognize this is as thin as all the rest — by a final panel blurb, “To be continued in DC KO!” For those who’ve been around a while, a final “to be continued” in a trade is a wonder, letting alone the indication that the Titans' story continues in an event book.

But again, it’s hardly much of anything; while artist Max Raynor has done well with the Beast Boy story in a style reminiscent of Beast Boys and Girls' Tom Grummett, his gathering of heroes in the end look stiff and constipated in a wordless panel, with Flash staring off in the wrong direction. Superman intones that Cyborg and Beast Boy are “just in time,” and Batman finishes, “[For] the end of the world.” This last is delivered with such dour seriousness that it’s near laughable; I wouldn’t be surprised if Layman was told to end on a crossover-leading cliffhanger but wasn’t given much context beside.

I’m a sucker for this, and the reference boxes to Justice League United and Superman sure make Titan Vol. 4: Terminated easy to put on the DC TPB Timeline. I’ll be eager to read the next volume and John Layman’s tie-ins to DC KO, because once upon a time crossover tie-ins might not even be collected, or only sparingly. But otherwise Layman’s Titans could be any team fighting any villains — there’s little here that feels specifically germane to the group — and moreover Layman’s wasted two of the franchise’s biggest properties, Deathstroke and Terra, almost right out of the gate. I’m not optimistic for this run’s conclusion.

[Includes original and variant covers]