17-year-old Mandy is the daughter of Starfire, but she looks and acts nothing like her - she's overweight, she's a goth, she hates the world, and she doesn't have superpowers. As Starfire wants Mandy to have a better life and pushes her to go to college, Mandy has a secret of her own — she walked out on her SATs and is planning to run off to France to live her own life away from her mother and anything superheroic.
However, when a figure from Starfire's past arrives seeking to tie up some loose ends, Mandy is forced to confront her heritage and answer once and for all if she really isn't like her mother.
Unexpectedly for a young adult book, DC released a promotional trailer for it
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Tropes in this graphic novel include:
- Adaptational Name Change: In this continuity, Beast Boy eventually started going by Beast, probably because the name stopped working when he became an adult.
- Adaptational Skimpiness: Blackfire in the normal comic continuation usually wears full body outfits in contrast to the far skimpier ones her sister Starfire favors. In this comic she wears an outfit that exposes more of her skin.
- Advertised Extra: The promo trailer makes a big deal about Blackfire. But her role in the comic is very minimal, only spying on Mandy from afar before eventually appearing near the end of the book to spark the climax.
- Amazon Brigade: A downplayed example but Blackfire's forces are shown to be all female.
- And the Adventure Continues: The book ends with Mandy embracing the role of a superhero and shooting off to save the day.
- Beta Bitch: Claire's friends are your typical mean popular kids.
- Big Bad: Blackfire is the main antagonist, arriving to fight Starfire.
- Cassandra Truth: None of her peers believed Mandy growing up when she said she doesn't have any powers, and presume she's lying to hide them.
- The Cavalry Arrives Late: The rest of the Titans show up after the matter with Blackfire has been resolved, having been on a mission off-planet when she attempted to attack Starfire and Mandy.
- The Cameo: The other names in the fan's collection of autographs from Teen Titans include "Robin IV(?)" (either Damian Wayne or Stephanie Brown), Aqualad, Speedy, and Kid Flash.
- Close-Call Haircut: Blackfire throws a halberd past Mandy's head, cutting her cheek and lopping off part of her Girlish Pigtails.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Starfire. Her older sister Blackfire was meant to inherit the throne, but because she was a late bloomer for her powers and Starfire was already stronger than her, their father wanted to make Starfire his new heir. Out of anger and jealousy, Blackfire left and assembled an army before returning to claim the throne, in the process killing their parents and then imprisoning her sister. Starfire managed to escape and fled to Earth to hide from her sister, though Blackfire eventually found her and her daughter...
- Didn't Think This Through: Mandy clearly has no idea what she wants to do with her future, as she thinks she can just move to France and relax there for the rest of her life.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Lincoln compares Starfire's parenting to his own Vietnamese immigrant parents; Starfire is an Education Mama, speaks in broken English, and wants a better life for her child than she had.
- Evil Aunt: Blackfire, Starfire's sister, comes down to Earth solely to kill Mandy as a precaution to keep her from claiming Tamaran's throne.
- Flipping the Bird: Mandy once flipped Claire off.
- Fly Or Die: With Starfire down and ready to be slain by Blackfire, Mandy is finally able to awaken her powers and confront Blackfire.
- Goth: Mandy leans into both the "Gloomy" and "Lone Psycho" stereotypes without falling over into either of them.
- Heroic Bastard: Mandy's biological father is not in the picture and neither she or Starfire want to talk about who it is. Starfire is adamant it's not Nightwing, and Mandy is definitely sure that it's not Beast.
- Hollywood Genetics: Even with her hair un-dyed to its natural orange color and green eyes, that's pretty much the extent of Mandy's resemblance to her mother.
- Joke and Receive: Mandy scares Claire's beta bitches by jokingly claiming that instead of going to college, she's going through a Tamaranean passage of initiation in which she finally gets her powers and has to fight a terrifying monster. Then Blackfire shows up with her own idea of "initiation", which is essentially as Mandy described.
- Kids Are Cruel: Mandy's classmates see as her as a loser for not having powers like Starfire, furthered when she became a grumpy fat goth as a response to years of being treated this way. Heck, in the climax when Starfire is fighting Blackfire to give Mandy a chance to escape, one of them jeers "Run Forrest!" as she does so. Luckily he's reprimanded by Mandy's crush, but still...
- Like Father, Unlike Son: Gender-inverted. Mandy is the opposite of her mother in so many ways: she's gloomy, she's fat, she dyes her vibrant orange hair black, and she doesn't have access to her Tamaranean powers yet.
- Mythology Gag:
- Nightwing and Starfire apparently never became an Official Couple, though people think Mandy is their love child. In other Teen Titans media, Nightwing and Starfire are usually together, and in Kingdom Come, they even had a daughter together named Mar'i Grayson, otherwise known as Nightstar. However, Nightwing has had a few other love interests, most famously with Batgirl.
- In the collection of superhero signatures, Robin's has a question mark beside the "IV". This is an amusing nod to the fact that Stephanie Brown's time as Robin has always been a matter of Depending on the Writer.
- Never Trust a Trailer: The promo trailer makes it seems like Blackfire would be more prominent in the book and that would serve as most of the conflict in the story. In truth, the central conflict is about Mandy trying to find her own self-worth from the shadow of her mother's legacy while navigating her senior year and learning that her problems aren't the center of everything. Blackfire only shows up near the end as a means to kickstart the climax and have Starfire reveal her backstory to Mandy.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: It's Blackfire attempting to kill Mandy and allowing her and Starfire to be together in a makeshift prison that eventually allows the two a heart to heart and for Mandy to realize that Starfire's life was far from glamorous and that she hasn't been fair to her mother. Likewise when Blackfire puts Mandy's life in danger, her powers awaken and she proceeds to defeat Blackfire with them.
- Outgrowing the Childish Name: After becoming an adult, Beast Boy starts calling himself Beast instead.
- Please Wake Up: Twice over in the climax.
- Blackfire manages to knock out Starfire. Mandy runs over and pleads for her to wake up to seemingly no avail.
- Blackfire grabs Mandy and tosses her across the football field into a soccer goal, knocking her out. Her friends, Lincoln and Claire, see this and yell for her to get up, Claire especially. It's hearing her that Mandy's powers awaken.
- Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure: At one point Mandy's crush, Claire, comes over to Mandy's place where the Titans are preparing to head out on a mission. Claire meets them and gets a selfie, later posting it on social media. Mandy takes it as Claire just using her to boost her popularity and the two end up in an argument over it despite Claire claiming otherwise. After Lincoln reprimands her over it and the mess with Blackfire has passed, Claire apologizes for it and the two mend their friendship.
- Trailers Always Spoil: The promotional trailer that DC put up for the book virtually spoils the finale of the comic.
- Tired of Running: In this rendition, Starfire fled Tamerian when Blackfire killed their parents and took over the planet, and has been in hiding on Earth for most of her life. When Blackfire finds her and threatens Mandy's life, Starfire proclaims she won't run again and engages her in battle.
- This Cannot Be!: During her Villainous Breakdown, Blackfire says a couple things to this effectnamely when Mandy finally unlocks her superpowers and proceeds to save her mother with them.
- Villainous Breakdown: After she realizes Mandy's powers had awakened, Blackfire begins losing it.
- Who's Your Daddy?: Mandy's biological father is apparently a touchy subject that neither she or Starfire want to talk about, not that Mandy knows who it is... although she claims she has an idea. The public popularly speculates in-universe that it's Nightwing, though Mandy debunks this, and for anyone familiar with his character, it would seem rather odd that he wouldn't want to be more involved with his kid's life if he's still close with Starfire.
- Your Little Dismissive Diminutive: A couple times Blackfire arrogantly calls Mandy "little thing".
