Teen Titans Go #11: Perfect cover, okay comic

I don't regularly read the Teen Titans Go comic book. Not because I don't like Teen Titans Go the TV show or anything; I actually kind of love it, and it's one of my favorite things on television. No, I don't normally read it because the specific charms of the show don't generally translate into the silent, static media of comics well. That said,  this issue sold itself to me on its cover alone.

I'm not a poster guy, and I don't make enough money to consider collecting original art or anything any more, but I would frame and hang a poster of that image on my wall. I'd consider dropping a $150 or so on the original art behind that masterpiece (drawn by Teen Titans Go designer Dan Hipp).

It kinda sorta refers to the story that fills the first half of this particular issue, in which Cyborg attempts to grow a mustache and it immediately gains sentience and tries to take over his body.

Raven is immediately opposed to the idea of facial hair on Cyborg, pointing out that facial hair is a villain thing. And...damn, she's right.

Trying to to think of superheroes with facial hair of any kind, I found the list to be extremely short. DC's Green Arrow (who has been clean shaven for about four years now) is probably the DC hero who has facial hair the longest. Beyond that, the list gets really short. Uncle Sam, if he counts as a DC hero? Warlord? Aquaman went through a beard phase, but that's all it was, really a phase.

Meanwhile at Marvel, Iron Man Tony Stark has always rocked at least a mustache, but he's not exactly the paragon of heroics, is he? In fact, for a few years there he was the greatest villain in the Marvel Universe, and generally deals with moral relativism. Hell, he just went through another evil phase in the pages of the short-lived Superior Iron Man series.

The other mustachioed Marvel is, of course, Doctor Strange, who has spent most of his career on the side of the angels, but can occasionally be something of a douchebag (particularly back when he was a surgeon) and has turned to the dark side a few times.

Anti-hero Wolverine has some severe side-burns, Thor had a  beard phase and...that's all I can think of among the Marvels.

But you don't have to have visible facial hair like Slade Wilson, Deadshot, The Mandarin or The Leader to be a bad guy. As Robin points out, the 100% completely bald, facial hair-free Lex Luthor is a villain, but Raven has an explanation for that too;

Hmm...as a bald man, I would object, but then I am a bald man with a bear, so I've already been maligned by this comic book.

Cyborg's mustache, which quickly grows into a beard with its own mustache and big, bushy eyebrows, obviously doesn't agree. He/It offers a list of the many things men and their beards can do together and...hey, those all sound pretty lame. I don't do any of those things. I would be a lumberjack (I mean, I like pancakes and flannel shirts), but it sounds like way too much physical labor, and I'd feel bad cutting down trees.

Man, why do I have a beard? Oh right, I don't like shaving my chin. Anyway, Teen Titans Go #11: It's mustachtacular!