The Teen Titans return to DVD with this second disc that finishes off the first season.  The seven episodes on this DVD are just as fun and entertaining as the first volume (reviewed here.)

The series is based on the revamped version of the Teen Titans comic that came out in 1982.  The Titans are five teenagers living together in Titan Tower.  Batman's sidekick Robin is the unofficial leader of the group.  Cyborg, half machine and half human, provides the muscle of the group, and Beast Boy, who can change into any animal, (previously a member of the Doom Patrol,) provides a lot of the comic relief.  The group is rounded out by a pair of women; Starfire an alien who can fly and shoot power blasts from her hands, and the contemplative Raven, a mystic with the power to levitate objects and create solid shapes with her mind.

The disc starts off with a great episode, Switched.  The Puppet Master (no, not the Marvel villain) has taken the Titan's souls and imprisoned them in puppets and controls their real bodies.  Starfire and Raven manage to escape, but their souls get put back in the wrong bodies.  Now the two heroines have to learn how to control each other's powers while fighting their team mates.

Deep Six has the Titans fighting a new menace and making a new friend, and it all happens underwater.  Triton, a villain from Atlantis, has stolen a cargo of radioactive waste and the teens go underwater to find him, and get a little help from Aqualad along the way.

Slade, the Titans mysterious nemesis, makes his first appearance this disc in Masks.  Slade's robotic henchmen are foiled by the Titans when they try to steal a computer chip.  But the mysterious criminal Red X arrives and takes the young heroes out without any trouble.  He wants to join Slade, and is stealing hi tech chips to gain his trust.  The fact that the Titans can't stop Slade, or even know who he is or what he wants, really starts to get on Robin's nerves.  This starts to affecting the way he works with his team mates, and the way they look at him.

The only episode that really sucked this on this disc is Mad Mod.  Apparently the writers couldn't think of anything original for this episode, so they decided see how many movies and comics they could steal from.  The Titans are captured and have to fight their way out of a bizarre school.  The villain, Mad Mod, was an obvious take off on the Marvel villain Arcade.  They lift things from Yellow Submarine, The Monkeys, and even A Clockwork Orange.  This show is the only one that just didn't work.  It wasn't funny or exciting.  I guess they are allowed one bad show per season though.

Cyborg builds his dream car in Car Trouble, and joyously drives the team to a battle.  Though they are victorious in battle, when the come out, Cyborg's car has been stolen.  A funny show that has a good amount of action.

The disc wraps up with a two part story, Apprentice.  Slade (Deathstroke in the comics,) has been taunting Robin for a while, and his plan finally comes out.  He has a bomb hidden in a chronoton bomb city and the Titans have to find it before it goes off.  Since this is Slade though, his plan isn't that straight forward.  What he's really after is Robin.  He doesn't want to kill Robin though, he want Robin to be his apprentice.

Everything that I said about the first disc applies to this one too.  The shows are action filled, but the characters have real personalities.  There is a good amount of humor and the occasional touching scene that works well.  A really good show.

This DVD includes the last seven episodes of the first season on a single disc enclosed in a dreaded snapper case.  The episodes are presented in production order, not the order that they aired.

One odd thing, there are no chapter stops in the middle of the episodes. It would have been nice if they had included one after the opening credits and again half way through the show.

Audio:

There is an English stereo track on this DVD as well as stereo dubs in Spanish and French.  The sound was very good for a TV show.  The explosions and fight scenes were fairly dynamic and there was some use made of the front soundstage.  There wasn't any noticeable hiss or other common audio defects.  There were also subtitles in English, French and Spanish.

Video:

This show looked pretty good.  The fullscreen image was bright and clear, with nice looking colors and sharp lines.  There was a little bit of aliasing, causing some curving lines to have a stair-step effect, but this was minimal.  A nice looking show.

Extras:

A good selection of extras are included with this disc.

Toon Topia: This is an 8 ½-minute pilot for a new cartoon, The Hiro's.  There's a web site address where you can rate the show.  After watching it, I don't think the chances of it getting on the air are very good.  It's a comedy spy show, and they forgot to put in the funny.

Puffy Ami Yumi: A thirteen minute featurette where the Teen Titans interview the Japanese pop duo.

Trident Clones: a DVD game where you use your remote to help the Titans capture Trident.

There are also a selection of trailers for other WB animated kids DVDs.

Final Thoughts:

This is a really good show.  Action, adventure, humor and drama all fit together well.  Entertaining for both adults and kids too, this is a disc is Highly Recommended.