The next comprises spoilers for The Flash #781, on sale now from DC Comics.
The aftermath of the second Red X’s destruction of the Teen Titan’s faculty for younger metahumans has been a troublesome time for the group. With Cyborg and Changeling in comas and Dick Grayson out and in on his quest to seek out Red X, the remaining Teen Titans have been compelled to work additional time to guard and educate their college students. Whereas some members of the group have tailored nicely to their new claustrophobic surroundings and longer work hours, others look like struggling.
In Flash #781 (by Jeremy Adams, Fernando Pasarin, Matt Ryan, Jeromy Cox, Pete Pantazis, and Rob Leigh) Roy Harper, AKA Arsenal/Red Arrow, is proven taking a nap after giving his college students a pop quiz, assuming the stereotypical function of the disinterested substitute trainer. Nevertheless, whereas the joke is hilarious, it additionally ignores the truth that Roy’s expertise as each a troubled teen and a father may make him a superb mentor to DC’s subsequent era of heroes.
In some ways, Roy’s not being ready to tackle a educating function in a college of metahuman teenagers makes loads of sense. Having simply returned to life after being by chance killed by a mentally-unstable Wally West in Tom King and Clay Mann’s Heroes in Crisis and being partially revived as a Black Lantern throughout Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo’s Dark Nights: Demise Metallic, Roy had no concept that his former teammates had transformed their headquarters into a college and change into mentors to the following era of heroes. Arriving shortly earlier than Red X leveled the varsity, Roy has had little time to regulate to the Teen Titans’ new status-quo or get to know any of the academy’s college students very nicely.
On high of that, none of his former teammates knew he was alive. This allowed the Teen Titans to have a cathartic and heartfelt shock reunion with their long-time good friend, nevertheless it additionally meant that the group could not match Roy into their highly-specialized and pre-planned employees. This compelled him to take up a place as the varsity’s substitute trainer. As Roy continues to be processing his current resurrection and the mysterious circumstances that induced it, the founding Titan’s choice to take care of a distant relationship along with his college students whereas he is nonetheless figuring issues out is sensible.
Nevertheless, as soon as Roy’s come to phrases along with his present state of affairs, Inexperienced Arrow’s former sidekick has the potential to change into Teen Titan’s Academy’s finest trainer. Whereas Roy might not be capable to educate a selected topic in addition to the magically-inclined Raven or the tech-savvy Cyborg, he has a capability to attach the academy’s extra troubled college students via his personal experiences with tragedy. A lot of Teen Titan Academy’s college students are orphans and foster kids, and lots of of them weren’t residing below the very best circumstances earlier than they got here to the varsity. Whereas the Teen Titans have proven these college students sympathy, they’ve struggled to essentially have interaction with them and focus on their upbringings in a wholesome means.
In distinction, Roy has an intimate familiarity with the issues that disaffected youngsters face. Earlier than he was taken in by Inexperienced Arrow, Roy lived on the streets, making a residing via pick-pocketing, and he continued to face comparable hardship after he grew to become a hero. All through his life, Roy has struggled with each substance abuse and ideas of self-harm, and the traumatic experiences his heroic profession has uncovered him to have exacerbated his psychological well being points. Having confronted lots of the identical struggles as lots of the Teen Titans Academy’s college students, Roy may also help them in ways in which the opposite Teen Titans cannot.
Nevertheless, what actually offers Roy an edge over his fellow Teen Titans is his expertise as a father. Shortly after he parted methods with Inexperienced Arrow, Roy shared a short-lived however passionate romance with the villainous Cheshire that resulted within the start of his daughter Lian. With Cheshire both on the run or incarcerated, Roy raised Lian as a single father, and he proved himself to be a superb dad or mum. Though Lian’s life can be tragically reduce brief by the Electrocutioner, the years that Roy spent along with her gave first-hand expertise with caring for a kid, an expertise that nearly not one of the different Teen Titans have.
Though Roy has made it clear that his most important precedence is discovering the recently-resurrected Lian, who’s at the moment working as an amnesiac crime fighter in Gotham Metropolis, embracing his function as a trainer may assist him discover some much-needed route. Since his resurrection, Roy has wandered via life with no clear concept of the place he is going and what he needs to do now that he is alive once more. Roy can discover a new goal as a mentor and construct up the braveness he’ll must face (and assist) the violent vigilante that his daughter has change into.