raul grau
Jul 1, 2005, 06:15 am
<img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/logos/cfdlogo.jpg" hspace=10 align=left border=0 alt="Comics For Dummies logo">By Raul Grau, RJacknite@aol.com
The (Middle-Aged) Teen Titans
Last month, we attempted to unravel the life story of the overly endowed (with origins, at least) Donna Troy. Now, with the 40th anniversary of the Teen Titans upon us, her fellow fresh-faced fighters deserve equal time, especially as they transition into the later half of life. Though comic book time is notoriously slower than our own (just ask Franklin Richards, the thirty-something middle-schooler), the various Teens have grown into adulthood, with most receiving upgraded costumes and codenames along the way... could Aqualad really remain a lad forever?
The founding Titans began their heroic careers partnered with other, more solo title worthy crimefighters. Robin (the Boy Wonder of Batman), Kid Flash (fleet-footed friend of Flash), and Aqualad (who talked to fish with Aquaman) had already foiled some Dooms together, before adding estrogen with a fourth member, Wonder Girl (supposedly the junior Wonder Woman, but we are not getting into that again). Teen Titans launched in 1965, and the team went about helping the young people of the world, whether they were being menaced by Ding-Dong Daddy Dowd, Mad Mod, or the robotic Honey Bun (boy, the 60s sure were swell). In between hanging out in their moist, dank, cavern headquarters, the Titans aided other teen heroes, including Speedy (Green Arrow's lil' archer), Beast Boy (the animalistic Doom Patroler), and Starfire (not the buxom Tamaranian princess, but the pinko Commie of the same name). Aqualad eventually left to pursue his own aquatic goals, but he was quickly replaced by Speedy... the bowslinger might have lacked true superpowers, but, on the plus side, he could spend more than an hour on land without shriveling up.
After accidentally murdering a world-famous philanthropist (a minor mistake, in the grand scheme of things), the Titans were chewed out by their adult counterparts, the Justice League of America, who still retained the moral high ground, as this was before they started mind-raping supervillains on demand. The overly friendly Mr. Jupiter recruited the Titans into his secret training program, where they were joined by Hawk & Dove (the debate over Vietnam brought to life through superheroes) and Lilith (a telepathic redhead)... older benefactor, secret training school, telepathic redhead... hmmm... Anyway, Robin left to pursue his own solo work (the most popular member always does that), but another nonpowered fellow signed up, Mal Duncan, the jive-talking, socially relevant, African American (before that term existed) Titan. The team adopted a costume-less, pacifistic approach to crime fighting, but were forced to don their spandex again, when they realized that harsh words are not always enough to foil evil.
During a time-traveling misadventure (is there any other kind?), Kid Flash and Mal accidentally killed a caveman (the Titans really need to stop doing that), which caused the present to become a Star Trek-esque mirror world with evil (though non-goateed) Titan counterparts. The two undid what they had done, and returned to the present with Gnarrk, the caveman in question... killing him caused a nightmare world, but removing him from history entirely has no apparent ill effect... interesting. Gnarrk received a crash course in English and etiquette (cavemen can be such brutes), then quickly began a relationship with Lilith (as much as some might dislike Cyclops, at least his frontal ridge does not protrude). Lilith spent several back-up tales searching for her true parents (the Titan women have never had much luck with family), but the series was cancelled with #43. Those members whose older counterparts had their own solo series still enjoyed some comic book attention (and, in Speedy's case, heroin), but the others (sadly, even Gnarrk) were left waiting in limbo.
Nearly four years later, Teen Titans #44 was released (and you think thirty days is a long wait for a next issue), though the reformed team quickly established a new status quo. There was a new line-up (well, a random assortment of former members), a new headquarters (built under a Long Island discotheque... swinging!), and new enemies (mostly old Justice League/Society foes, like Dr. Light and the Fiddler). Mal finally earned his own costumed identity, becoming the Guardian (a black guy dressed in the golden helmeted Guardian outfit... obviously Grant Morrison read this story too), and then-- in the very next issue-- acquired Gabriel's Horn (allowing him unspecific, but always useful powers) and redubing himself Hornblower (insert your own joke). Unfortunately, he soon lost his deus ex Horn, and returned to his Guardian threads. Bumblebee (Mal's girlfriend, who was much faster to adopt a permanent codename) and Joker's Daughter (actually, the very confused daughter of Two-Face) also enrolled, though the mere presence of the later practically demanded a confrontation with her acid-scarred, schizophrenic papa. Joker's Daughter later changed her name to Harlequin, after abandoning her love of villainous paternity suits.
Over on the left coast, Lilith (remember her?) organized an expansion team of Titans, which included Beast Boy, Hawk, Dove, Bat-Girl (not any of the later Batgirls, but Betty Kane, partner to Bat-Woman, who was quite like Batman, but carried a utility purse), Golden Eagle (the airborne Charley Parker, who was neither a jazz musician nor the bass player of Drive Shaft), and Gnarrk (now Lilith's fiancée... love really is blind). Teen Titans #53 featured a previously untold tale, revealing that Speedy had actually been a founding member of the team (though he was too much of a slacker at the time to stick with them for very long). With that issue, the series was again cancelled, and the individual members again went back to their individual titles individually... except for Guardian, Bumblebee, and Harlequin, who joined Titans West in obscurity.
Slightly over two years later, Marv Wolfman and George Perez gathered a new team of Teen Titans, whom they called the New Teen Titans (allowing for a new #1 issue). They were brought together by Raven (a mysterious, teleporting empath... every team needs one of those), who wisely included some familiar faces (including Beast Boy, who had grown up enough in the interim to go by Changeling), along with the other new recruits: Starfire (not the pinko Commie, but the buxom Tamaranian princess of the same name) and Cyborg (star athlete turned mechanical man). Starfire kissed Robin to gain a complete mastery of English (fortunately, the Comic Code did not allow Gnarrk to try a similar stunt with Kid Flash or Mal ten years earlier). After encountering some villains who were more dangerous and less groovy, like Deathstroke the Terminator and the Fearsome Five (like the Frightful Four, but with one more), the heroes learned that they had been manipulated into existence by Raven for the sole purpose of defeating her father, the uber-evil dimensional devil, Trigon. Fortunately, Titans are the forgiving sort, and they rallied around Raven to defeat Trigon... well, not so much defeat, as temporarily trap, while miraculously managing to not be killed.
The Titans moved into their newest headquarters, Titans Tower, a non-descript, giant 'T' sitting in the New York harbor (a slight improvement over the discotheque), and then spent their next year tying up loose ends from Doom Patrol (every member of the Patrol might have temporarily died, but their plotlines lived on). Starfire engaged in some intergalactic sibling rivalry with her sister, Blackfire, and the Church of Blood lived up to their messy name, but the real strength of the Wolfman/Perez era was the interpersonal explorations, as even a tale about Changeling roasting hot dogs (no tofu for this Beast Boy) proved interesting. Whether we saw Robin and Starfire trying to make their interspecies relationship work, or Changeling fawning over the new girl, Terra, these stories were more about young people and less about 'heroes who just so happened to be under the age of twenty'. However, in Terra's case, her story turned out to be less about a young person, and more about 'a sociopath who just so happened to be under the age of twenty'.
It is the nature of superheroes to be trusting (something to do with that whole 'seeing the goodness in everyone' ideology), but the Titans had their doubts about Terra initially. Perhaps it was the fact that she first met Changeling while trying to destroy the Statue of Liberty, or the fact that she was a spy, wholly dedicated to ferreting out Titan secrets for the express purpose of destroying them, but something about her rubbed them the wrong way... initially. Fortunately, Changeling (and his hormones) were there to convince the others of her heroism, and she proved herself in staged combat with Deathstroke... he still got away, but she looked plenty heroic while letting him. When the title changed from The New Teen Titans to Tales of the Teen Titans (they were no longer new enough for a New), Terra also made a change, from covertly evil to overtly evil. During the Judas Contract, Robin upgraded to Nightwing, the mute son of their greatest enemy joined the team as Jericho, and the perky blonde Terra went completely insane, bringing a mountain down on herself... seeing the goodness in everyone is obviously overrated.
In addition to everyone's favorite sixteen year old psycho, the Titans made assorted other friends, including Frances Kane (like Magneto, but slightly more temperamental), Jason Todd (the second Robin, back when he was merely disliked, and not actively despised), and Thunder and Lightning (two brothers with barely controllable elemental powers... why they were not immediately recruited remains a mystery). Cheshire, the world's sexiest mercenary, revealed that one of the Titans had fathered her child... you can immediately eliminate Wonder Girl (one would hope), but the always flirtatious, occasionally addicted Speedy was the obvious choice. Azrael (the winged, angelic, non-Batman Azrael) arrived on Earth, and immediately attracted the interest of Lilith (remember her?). Gnarrk, it seems, died off-panel, and, strangely enough, no one seemed to care.
The Titans soon received a second ongoing series of their very own, titled The New Teen Titans... originality is overrated. They finally had the apocalyptic battle with Trigon that they had put off four years earlier, saving the world, but sacrificing Raven's dark side (basically, the creepy evil that made her interesting in the first place). Lilith found her true mother (a decade of searching was finally paying off), who turned out to be a sun goddess, explaining her fire-based powers, which had suddenly appeared without explanation a year earlier... a redheaded telepath with fire powers... hmmm... Anyway, Kid Flash learned that he was slowly dying from an overdose of speed (not the Speedy kind of 'speed', but the running kind), and the crystal-spinning Kole had serious family issues, possibly stemming from her father turning her mother into an evil mutant. The Crisis on Infinite Earths solved both problems, giving Kid Flash enough added life to drop the 'Kid' from his codename, and killing off Kole alongside the peacenik Dove... yup, problems solved.
It was around this time that a third title was added to the burgeoning Titans franchise, Teen Titans Spotlight On. This series consisted of solo tales highlighting an individual (regular title-lacking) Titan character for an issue or two. Basically, this gave people like Hawk and Robotman a place to hang out while their next series were still in production. It was here that Nightwing finally told Batman that, while the student had moved away from the teacher, he still respected his former mentor (a gripping tale that was completely ignored, and then redone on a yearly basis by each subsequent Batman writer). Frances Kane finally earned her own codename while being Spotlighted, though 'Magenta' was an odd choice... 'Magneta' would have been more sensible, but surely less colorful. Unfortunately, characters lacking solo titles usually lack them for a reason, and the spotlights ended with the twenty-first issue. Tales of the Teen Titans had become a regular reprint of the New Teen Titans series (just on lower quality paper), and then was also cancelled, so the 'Titans franchise' consisted of just one title again.
After a few more Doom Patrol-derived adventures (despite what John Byrne might think, that team had a long legacy), the mysterious Wildebeest introduced himself by framing Starfire for murder (not that the Titans ever needed help accidentally murdering people), and Danny Chase, profoundly powerful telekinetic and profoundly annoying kid, became the youngest member of the team. With #50, the title changed to simply the New Titans, as the most of the Titans were no longer Teens (of course, they weren't terribly New either). Danny Chase was fired by Nightwing because he did not want to shoulder the responsibility of someone so young (thankfully, Batman was more patient with Robin, or there might not have been a Nightwing in the first place), and then Chase seemingly died as Titans Hunt began... Danny was not having a good year.
Titans Hunt was intended to invigorate the team in a very unique way... by hunting them down like dogs. Golden Eagle was the first to fall before the Wildebeest Society, who we soon learned were led by the seemingly good-natured Jericho... he had secretly gone a bit insane, and regained the vocal cords needed express his plans in megalomaniacal rants. It turned out the Titans were also being Hunted by a pack of time-traveling Titans who believed that killing Donna Troy would make the future a better place... well, certainly less confusing. There were also a few new Titans who hailed from this timeline, including Pantha (an extra catty Catwoman), Red Star (formerly Starfire... the pinko Commie, not the buxom Tamaranian princess), Phantasm (secretly a quite alive Danny Chase), and, soon after, a Baby Wildebeest (the pre-Teen Titan). The Hunt plodded along for slightly over a year, finally resulting in a dead Jericho, a dead Danny (for real this time), a brain dead Cyborg, and a kinder, gentler Deathstroke... though how nice can you be when you still call yourself Deathstroke?
That temporal contingent of Teen Titans spent the better part of a year searching for Donna Troy (in their defense, she was hiding really well... in plain sight, since she did not know that she was being Hunted), but finally caught up to the very pregnant Troia in a storyline that just had to be called Total Chaos. Spread across New Titans, Deathstroke (who was just enough of a good guy at this point to earn his own series), and the new Team Titans book (Titans love alliteration), Total Chaos featured the future Teens utterly failing in their mission (if you can't kill one pregnant woman, what kind of Titan are you?), but Donna saved the day by renouncing her powers, giving birth to a normal, non-Chaos Lord, bouncing baby boy.
The Team Titans and several hundred of their future teammates all converged on Donna's farm, where she allowed them to stay (as mentioned previously, Titans have always been the forgiving sort). Their title grew to include Bumblebee, Aqualad, the seemingly dead Kole, and Mal (now the Herald... he just cannot keep a codename for very long), but this was a sure sign that the book would be cancelled shortly. Unfortunately, the new creative team managed to wrap up all of the dangling plotlines before the end... which, in this case, was a shame, since their explanation was that everything from Chaos to Kole was a sham. There really is nothing quite like having three years of stories rendered moot all in one issue.
Back in the real Titans title, Raven developed a nasty habit of wearing skimpy costumes and infecting her former friends with evil (well, the later was more of a problem than the former). One of her first Trigon seed recruits was Starfire, who went temporarily insane, then temporarily Xena: Warrior Princess, before temporarily leaving the planet. The Technis, a race of (you guessed it) techno-organic beings, upgraded Cyborg to Cyberion, who was quite like Warlock of New Mutants fame, but minus the sense of humor and funky haircut. Changeling began transforming only into nightmarish creatures (little green monkeys were suddenly so beneath him), and then he too drank of the Trigon seed soup, leaving him evil and loving it. All in all, not a great year for anyone created by Marv Wolfman and George Perez.
The New Titans reformed, with Damage (the walking meltdown), Impulse (the speedster with Attention Deficit Disorder), Darkstar (Donna Troy during her brief flirtation with science fiction), Mirage, and Terra II (also known as the only surviving Team Titans), all under the leadership of Arsenal (a clean and sober Speedy). They soon expanded to include even newer new members, such as Minion (vengeance driven tinker toy), Rose Wilson (another child of Deathstroke... you would think they had learned their lesson after Jericho), and a pair of non-teenaged, but actually popular DCU residents-- Supergirl (the protoplasmic one) and Green Lantern (that eternal rookie, Kyle Rayner). These Titans engaged in a few intergalactic wars, freed the goodness in Raven (though they left out a body), and Mirage finally had the baby that she had been carrying for two years. Strangely, this incarnation of the Titans (the first in years to include multiple Teens) proved lackluster, and when Marv Wolfman departed the title in 1995, their existence went with him.
For the first time in sixteen years, the shelves were without a Titans title (or three)... granted DC had another half dozen ongoing teen-centric books, and four titles featuring former Titans, but, still, a void existed. In late 1996, Dan Jurgens (best known for temporarily killing Superman and temporarily destroying the DC Universe) came to the rescue with his all-new, (almost) original Teen Titans. These Titans were a band of human-alien hybrids who were unaware that they were human-alien hybrids until called into service against their alien ancestors (think WildCATS, only younger).
Led by the deaged, diminutive Atom, they spent twenty-four issues doing everything they could to emulate the original Teen Titans... the long-forgotten Mr. Jupiter became their financier, they headquartered in a dance club (the discotheques of the 90s), partnered with Lilith (now calling herself Omen... everybody needs a codename), and spent time with Mad Mod... throw in Gnarrk, and you could have chalked the entire series up to a bad acid flashback. Captain Marvel Junior (going by the 'hip' handle CM3) was voted onto the team by the readers (the last time readers voted, we had a dead sidekick on our hands), but the second Teen Titans disbanded, after the evil aliens were politely talked into abandoning their plans of conquest... hmmm... guess that pacifistic stuff finally worked.
Cyberion returned to this end of the cosmos with the Technis in tow, planning to turn the moon into their new homeworld... well, it is not like humanity is using it for anything. Everyone who had ever been a Titan (from Nightwing down to Harlequin) showed up for the lunar conflict, and Cyborg got his old personality, along with a new golden body, out of the deal (failed colonization has its benefits). The five original Titans (remember, the Speedy retcon made them a quintet) decided to reform The Titans (being in their mid-twenties made them no longer Teens, and they certainly were not New). They then doubled up with Starfire (back to her flighty, flying self), Cyborg (who felt a little guilty about the whole Moon thing), Damage (still as explosive as ever), Argent (the only Jurgen Teen Titan apparently worthy of screen time), and new member Jesse Quick (with a name with Quick, you know that she can run fast). Changeling (less evil now, and more cuddly again) also received an invite, but decided that he had grown up too much to rejoin the hero game, choosing instead to make his mark on Hollywood... surely, the cultural mecca of maturity.
The founders intended to use The Titans as a training ground for the next generation of heroes, but spent much of their time fighting a demonic Marilyn Manson clone and nihilistic bee people (though, if I were a bee person, I'd be nihilistic too). After two decades of waiting, Cyborg finally became non-cyberized, residing inside of a cloned version of his original body, but retaining his powers... talk about having your network cache, and downloading it too. The team briefly made good on their mission statement with a band of uber-powerful orphans, but when Graduation Day came, the Titans failed the test. The 2003 tale of a rampaging robot left Omen dead (Jean Grey at least made it to 2004), Donna dead (for the moment), and the whole team concept dead, since slaughter has a funny way of making you rethink your priorities.
That brings us to the Teen Titans relaunch of two years ago, which gathered together Cyborg (sadly back to his mechanized state), Beast Boy (yes, Changeling is a 'Boy' again), Starfire (the buxom... ah, nevermind), new members such as Robin (Tim Drake, the current titleholder), and even Raven (reborn in a new teenaged body). Coincidentally, that very same year, the Teen Titans animated series launched, with that very same line-up... if I didn't know better, I'd think the two events were related. Granted, the comic version of the Teen Titans has an expanded roster, including the new Speedy and new Wonder Girl, but that is not helping their originality argument.
The Teen Titans spent the better part of thirty-eight years growing up, so it is disheartening to see them take giant steps backwards for the sake of Geoff Johns-issued nostalgia. Raven coped with his inner demons for twenty years, finally breaking free of her satanic destiny, but now finds herself a teen again, coping with new inner demons and new powers (flight, for example, something she could previously only do in animated form). Cyborg had been rewarded for his years of suffering with a normal human existence (plus powers), but a botched alien war put him right back into his original silver and sardonic state. Changeling faced death, heartbreak, more death, insanity, and even more death, finally emerging as a man capable of making his own decisions... now he is a 'Beast Boy' again, following the other Titans around like a puppy... sometimes literally. A whole new generation of readers can now experience these characters just as they were two decades ago... of course, you could have simulated that simply by picking up the back issues.
So Happy Anniversary Teen Titans... hopefully in another forty years, when you are all collecting your pensions, DC will stop forcing you to be Teens.
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Raul Grau admits that there are certain advantages to being the head of the Comixfan Columns department. For example, if he wanted to have the last word on the Titans anniversary, then he could schedule his rant accordingly.
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The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and are not reflective of Comixfan or its other staff in general.
The (Middle-Aged) Teen Titans
Last month, we attempted to unravel the life story of the overly endowed (with origins, at least) Donna Troy. Now, with the 40th anniversary of the Teen Titans upon us, her fellow fresh-faced fighters deserve equal time, especially as they transition into the later half of life. Though comic book time is notoriously slower than our own (just ask Franklin Richards, the thirty-something middle-schooler), the various Teens have grown into adulthood, with most receiving upgraded costumes and codenames along the way... could Aqualad really remain a lad forever?
The founding Titans began their heroic careers partnered with other, more solo title worthy crimefighters. Robin (the Boy Wonder of Batman), Kid Flash (fleet-footed friend of Flash), and Aqualad (who talked to fish with Aquaman) had already foiled some Dooms together, before adding estrogen with a fourth member, Wonder Girl (supposedly the junior Wonder Woman, but we are not getting into that again). Teen Titans launched in 1965, and the team went about helping the young people of the world, whether they were being menaced by Ding-Dong Daddy Dowd, Mad Mod, or the robotic Honey Bun (boy, the 60s sure were swell). In between hanging out in their moist, dank, cavern headquarters, the Titans aided other teen heroes, including Speedy (Green Arrow's lil' archer), Beast Boy (the animalistic Doom Patroler), and Starfire (not the buxom Tamaranian princess, but the pinko Commie of the same name). Aqualad eventually left to pursue his own aquatic goals, but he was quickly replaced by Speedy... the bowslinger might have lacked true superpowers, but, on the plus side, he could spend more than an hour on land without shriveling up.
After accidentally murdering a world-famous philanthropist (a minor mistake, in the grand scheme of things), the Titans were chewed out by their adult counterparts, the Justice League of America, who still retained the moral high ground, as this was before they started mind-raping supervillains on demand. The overly friendly Mr. Jupiter recruited the Titans into his secret training program, where they were joined by Hawk & Dove (the debate over Vietnam brought to life through superheroes) and Lilith (a telepathic redhead)... older benefactor, secret training school, telepathic redhead... hmmm... Anyway, Robin left to pursue his own solo work (the most popular member always does that), but another nonpowered fellow signed up, Mal Duncan, the jive-talking, socially relevant, African American (before that term existed) Titan. The team adopted a costume-less, pacifistic approach to crime fighting, but were forced to don their spandex again, when they realized that harsh words are not always enough to foil evil.
During a time-traveling misadventure (is there any other kind?), Kid Flash and Mal accidentally killed a caveman (the Titans really need to stop doing that), which caused the present to become a Star Trek-esque mirror world with evil (though non-goateed) Titan counterparts. The two undid what they had done, and returned to the present with Gnarrk, the caveman in question... killing him caused a nightmare world, but removing him from history entirely has no apparent ill effect... interesting. Gnarrk received a crash course in English and etiquette (cavemen can be such brutes), then quickly began a relationship with Lilith (as much as some might dislike Cyclops, at least his frontal ridge does not protrude). Lilith spent several back-up tales searching for her true parents (the Titan women have never had much luck with family), but the series was cancelled with #43. Those members whose older counterparts had their own solo series still enjoyed some comic book attention (and, in Speedy's case, heroin), but the others (sadly, even Gnarrk) were left waiting in limbo.
Nearly four years later, Teen Titans #44 was released (and you think thirty days is a long wait for a next issue), though the reformed team quickly established a new status quo. There was a new line-up (well, a random assortment of former members), a new headquarters (built under a Long Island discotheque... swinging!), and new enemies (mostly old Justice League/Society foes, like Dr. Light and the Fiddler). Mal finally earned his own costumed identity, becoming the Guardian (a black guy dressed in the golden helmeted Guardian outfit... obviously Grant Morrison read this story too), and then-- in the very next issue-- acquired Gabriel's Horn (allowing him unspecific, but always useful powers) and redubing himself Hornblower (insert your own joke). Unfortunately, he soon lost his deus ex Horn, and returned to his Guardian threads. Bumblebee (Mal's girlfriend, who was much faster to adopt a permanent codename) and Joker's Daughter (actually, the very confused daughter of Two-Face) also enrolled, though the mere presence of the later practically demanded a confrontation with her acid-scarred, schizophrenic papa. Joker's Daughter later changed her name to Harlequin, after abandoning her love of villainous paternity suits.
Over on the left coast, Lilith (remember her?) organized an expansion team of Titans, which included Beast Boy, Hawk, Dove, Bat-Girl (not any of the later Batgirls, but Betty Kane, partner to Bat-Woman, who was quite like Batman, but carried a utility purse), Golden Eagle (the airborne Charley Parker, who was neither a jazz musician nor the bass player of Drive Shaft), and Gnarrk (now Lilith's fiancée... love really is blind). Teen Titans #53 featured a previously untold tale, revealing that Speedy had actually been a founding member of the team (though he was too much of a slacker at the time to stick with them for very long). With that issue, the series was again cancelled, and the individual members again went back to their individual titles individually... except for Guardian, Bumblebee, and Harlequin, who joined Titans West in obscurity.
Slightly over two years later, Marv Wolfman and George Perez gathered a new team of Teen Titans, whom they called the New Teen Titans (allowing for a new #1 issue). They were brought together by Raven (a mysterious, teleporting empath... every team needs one of those), who wisely included some familiar faces (including Beast Boy, who had grown up enough in the interim to go by Changeling), along with the other new recruits: Starfire (not the pinko Commie, but the buxom Tamaranian princess of the same name) and Cyborg (star athlete turned mechanical man). Starfire kissed Robin to gain a complete mastery of English (fortunately, the Comic Code did not allow Gnarrk to try a similar stunt with Kid Flash or Mal ten years earlier). After encountering some villains who were more dangerous and less groovy, like Deathstroke the Terminator and the Fearsome Five (like the Frightful Four, but with one more), the heroes learned that they had been manipulated into existence by Raven for the sole purpose of defeating her father, the uber-evil dimensional devil, Trigon. Fortunately, Titans are the forgiving sort, and they rallied around Raven to defeat Trigon... well, not so much defeat, as temporarily trap, while miraculously managing to not be killed.
The Titans moved into their newest headquarters, Titans Tower, a non-descript, giant 'T' sitting in the New York harbor (a slight improvement over the discotheque), and then spent their next year tying up loose ends from Doom Patrol (every member of the Patrol might have temporarily died, but their plotlines lived on). Starfire engaged in some intergalactic sibling rivalry with her sister, Blackfire, and the Church of Blood lived up to their messy name, but the real strength of the Wolfman/Perez era was the interpersonal explorations, as even a tale about Changeling roasting hot dogs (no tofu for this Beast Boy) proved interesting. Whether we saw Robin and Starfire trying to make their interspecies relationship work, or Changeling fawning over the new girl, Terra, these stories were more about young people and less about 'heroes who just so happened to be under the age of twenty'. However, in Terra's case, her story turned out to be less about a young person, and more about 'a sociopath who just so happened to be under the age of twenty'.
It is the nature of superheroes to be trusting (something to do with that whole 'seeing the goodness in everyone' ideology), but the Titans had their doubts about Terra initially. Perhaps it was the fact that she first met Changeling while trying to destroy the Statue of Liberty, or the fact that she was a spy, wholly dedicated to ferreting out Titan secrets for the express purpose of destroying them, but something about her rubbed them the wrong way... initially. Fortunately, Changeling (and his hormones) were there to convince the others of her heroism, and she proved herself in staged combat with Deathstroke... he still got away, but she looked plenty heroic while letting him. When the title changed from The New Teen Titans to Tales of the Teen Titans (they were no longer new enough for a New), Terra also made a change, from covertly evil to overtly evil. During the Judas Contract, Robin upgraded to Nightwing, the mute son of their greatest enemy joined the team as Jericho, and the perky blonde Terra went completely insane, bringing a mountain down on herself... seeing the goodness in everyone is obviously overrated.
In addition to everyone's favorite sixteen year old psycho, the Titans made assorted other friends, including Frances Kane (like Magneto, but slightly more temperamental), Jason Todd (the second Robin, back when he was merely disliked, and not actively despised), and Thunder and Lightning (two brothers with barely controllable elemental powers... why they were not immediately recruited remains a mystery). Cheshire, the world's sexiest mercenary, revealed that one of the Titans had fathered her child... you can immediately eliminate Wonder Girl (one would hope), but the always flirtatious, occasionally addicted Speedy was the obvious choice. Azrael (the winged, angelic, non-Batman Azrael) arrived on Earth, and immediately attracted the interest of Lilith (remember her?). Gnarrk, it seems, died off-panel, and, strangely enough, no one seemed to care.
The Titans soon received a second ongoing series of their very own, titled The New Teen Titans... originality is overrated. They finally had the apocalyptic battle with Trigon that they had put off four years earlier, saving the world, but sacrificing Raven's dark side (basically, the creepy evil that made her interesting in the first place). Lilith found her true mother (a decade of searching was finally paying off), who turned out to be a sun goddess, explaining her fire-based powers, which had suddenly appeared without explanation a year earlier... a redheaded telepath with fire powers... hmmm... Anyway, Kid Flash learned that he was slowly dying from an overdose of speed (not the Speedy kind of 'speed', but the running kind), and the crystal-spinning Kole had serious family issues, possibly stemming from her father turning her mother into an evil mutant. The Crisis on Infinite Earths solved both problems, giving Kid Flash enough added life to drop the 'Kid' from his codename, and killing off Kole alongside the peacenik Dove... yup, problems solved.
It was around this time that a third title was added to the burgeoning Titans franchise, Teen Titans Spotlight On. This series consisted of solo tales highlighting an individual (regular title-lacking) Titan character for an issue or two. Basically, this gave people like Hawk and Robotman a place to hang out while their next series were still in production. It was here that Nightwing finally told Batman that, while the student had moved away from the teacher, he still respected his former mentor (a gripping tale that was completely ignored, and then redone on a yearly basis by each subsequent Batman writer). Frances Kane finally earned her own codename while being Spotlighted, though 'Magenta' was an odd choice... 'Magneta' would have been more sensible, but surely less colorful. Unfortunately, characters lacking solo titles usually lack them for a reason, and the spotlights ended with the twenty-first issue. Tales of the Teen Titans had become a regular reprint of the New Teen Titans series (just on lower quality paper), and then was also cancelled, so the 'Titans franchise' consisted of just one title again.
After a few more Doom Patrol-derived adventures (despite what John Byrne might think, that team had a long legacy), the mysterious Wildebeest introduced himself by framing Starfire for murder (not that the Titans ever needed help accidentally murdering people), and Danny Chase, profoundly powerful telekinetic and profoundly annoying kid, became the youngest member of the team. With #50, the title changed to simply the New Titans, as the most of the Titans were no longer Teens (of course, they weren't terribly New either). Danny Chase was fired by Nightwing because he did not want to shoulder the responsibility of someone so young (thankfully, Batman was more patient with Robin, or there might not have been a Nightwing in the first place), and then Chase seemingly died as Titans Hunt began... Danny was not having a good year.
Titans Hunt was intended to invigorate the team in a very unique way... by hunting them down like dogs. Golden Eagle was the first to fall before the Wildebeest Society, who we soon learned were led by the seemingly good-natured Jericho... he had secretly gone a bit insane, and regained the vocal cords needed express his plans in megalomaniacal rants. It turned out the Titans were also being Hunted by a pack of time-traveling Titans who believed that killing Donna Troy would make the future a better place... well, certainly less confusing. There were also a few new Titans who hailed from this timeline, including Pantha (an extra catty Catwoman), Red Star (formerly Starfire... the pinko Commie, not the buxom Tamaranian princess), Phantasm (secretly a quite alive Danny Chase), and, soon after, a Baby Wildebeest (the pre-Teen Titan). The Hunt plodded along for slightly over a year, finally resulting in a dead Jericho, a dead Danny (for real this time), a brain dead Cyborg, and a kinder, gentler Deathstroke... though how nice can you be when you still call yourself Deathstroke?
That temporal contingent of Teen Titans spent the better part of a year searching for Donna Troy (in their defense, she was hiding really well... in plain sight, since she did not know that she was being Hunted), but finally caught up to the very pregnant Troia in a storyline that just had to be called Total Chaos. Spread across New Titans, Deathstroke (who was just enough of a good guy at this point to earn his own series), and the new Team Titans book (Titans love alliteration), Total Chaos featured the future Teens utterly failing in their mission (if you can't kill one pregnant woman, what kind of Titan are you?), but Donna saved the day by renouncing her powers, giving birth to a normal, non-Chaos Lord, bouncing baby boy.
The Team Titans and several hundred of their future teammates all converged on Donna's farm, where she allowed them to stay (as mentioned previously, Titans have always been the forgiving sort). Their title grew to include Bumblebee, Aqualad, the seemingly dead Kole, and Mal (now the Herald... he just cannot keep a codename for very long), but this was a sure sign that the book would be cancelled shortly. Unfortunately, the new creative team managed to wrap up all of the dangling plotlines before the end... which, in this case, was a shame, since their explanation was that everything from Chaos to Kole was a sham. There really is nothing quite like having three years of stories rendered moot all in one issue.
Back in the real Titans title, Raven developed a nasty habit of wearing skimpy costumes and infecting her former friends with evil (well, the later was more of a problem than the former). One of her first Trigon seed recruits was Starfire, who went temporarily insane, then temporarily Xena: Warrior Princess, before temporarily leaving the planet. The Technis, a race of (you guessed it) techno-organic beings, upgraded Cyborg to Cyberion, who was quite like Warlock of New Mutants fame, but minus the sense of humor and funky haircut. Changeling began transforming only into nightmarish creatures (little green monkeys were suddenly so beneath him), and then he too drank of the Trigon seed soup, leaving him evil and loving it. All in all, not a great year for anyone created by Marv Wolfman and George Perez.
The New Titans reformed, with Damage (the walking meltdown), Impulse (the speedster with Attention Deficit Disorder), Darkstar (Donna Troy during her brief flirtation with science fiction), Mirage, and Terra II (also known as the only surviving Team Titans), all under the leadership of Arsenal (a clean and sober Speedy). They soon expanded to include even newer new members, such as Minion (vengeance driven tinker toy), Rose Wilson (another child of Deathstroke... you would think they had learned their lesson after Jericho), and a pair of non-teenaged, but actually popular DCU residents-- Supergirl (the protoplasmic one) and Green Lantern (that eternal rookie, Kyle Rayner). These Titans engaged in a few intergalactic wars, freed the goodness in Raven (though they left out a body), and Mirage finally had the baby that she had been carrying for two years. Strangely, this incarnation of the Titans (the first in years to include multiple Teens) proved lackluster, and when Marv Wolfman departed the title in 1995, their existence went with him.
For the first time in sixteen years, the shelves were without a Titans title (or three)... granted DC had another half dozen ongoing teen-centric books, and four titles featuring former Titans, but, still, a void existed. In late 1996, Dan Jurgens (best known for temporarily killing Superman and temporarily destroying the DC Universe) came to the rescue with his all-new, (almost) original Teen Titans. These Titans were a band of human-alien hybrids who were unaware that they were human-alien hybrids until called into service against their alien ancestors (think WildCATS, only younger).
Led by the deaged, diminutive Atom, they spent twenty-four issues doing everything they could to emulate the original Teen Titans... the long-forgotten Mr. Jupiter became their financier, they headquartered in a dance club (the discotheques of the 90s), partnered with Lilith (now calling herself Omen... everybody needs a codename), and spent time with Mad Mod... throw in Gnarrk, and you could have chalked the entire series up to a bad acid flashback. Captain Marvel Junior (going by the 'hip' handle CM3) was voted onto the team by the readers (the last time readers voted, we had a dead sidekick on our hands), but the second Teen Titans disbanded, after the evil aliens were politely talked into abandoning their plans of conquest... hmmm... guess that pacifistic stuff finally worked.
Cyberion returned to this end of the cosmos with the Technis in tow, planning to turn the moon into their new homeworld... well, it is not like humanity is using it for anything. Everyone who had ever been a Titan (from Nightwing down to Harlequin) showed up for the lunar conflict, and Cyborg got his old personality, along with a new golden body, out of the deal (failed colonization has its benefits). The five original Titans (remember, the Speedy retcon made them a quintet) decided to reform The Titans (being in their mid-twenties made them no longer Teens, and they certainly were not New). They then doubled up with Starfire (back to her flighty, flying self), Cyborg (who felt a little guilty about the whole Moon thing), Damage (still as explosive as ever), Argent (the only Jurgen Teen Titan apparently worthy of screen time), and new member Jesse Quick (with a name with Quick, you know that she can run fast). Changeling (less evil now, and more cuddly again) also received an invite, but decided that he had grown up too much to rejoin the hero game, choosing instead to make his mark on Hollywood... surely, the cultural mecca of maturity.
The founders intended to use The Titans as a training ground for the next generation of heroes, but spent much of their time fighting a demonic Marilyn Manson clone and nihilistic bee people (though, if I were a bee person, I'd be nihilistic too). After two decades of waiting, Cyborg finally became non-cyberized, residing inside of a cloned version of his original body, but retaining his powers... talk about having your network cache, and downloading it too. The team briefly made good on their mission statement with a band of uber-powerful orphans, but when Graduation Day came, the Titans failed the test. The 2003 tale of a rampaging robot left Omen dead (Jean Grey at least made it to 2004), Donna dead (for the moment), and the whole team concept dead, since slaughter has a funny way of making you rethink your priorities.
That brings us to the Teen Titans relaunch of two years ago, which gathered together Cyborg (sadly back to his mechanized state), Beast Boy (yes, Changeling is a 'Boy' again), Starfire (the buxom... ah, nevermind), new members such as Robin (Tim Drake, the current titleholder), and even Raven (reborn in a new teenaged body). Coincidentally, that very same year, the Teen Titans animated series launched, with that very same line-up... if I didn't know better, I'd think the two events were related. Granted, the comic version of the Teen Titans has an expanded roster, including the new Speedy and new Wonder Girl, but that is not helping their originality argument.
The Teen Titans spent the better part of thirty-eight years growing up, so it is disheartening to see them take giant steps backwards for the sake of Geoff Johns-issued nostalgia. Raven coped with his inner demons for twenty years, finally breaking free of her satanic destiny, but now finds herself a teen again, coping with new inner demons and new powers (flight, for example, something she could previously only do in animated form). Cyborg had been rewarded for his years of suffering with a normal human existence (plus powers), but a botched alien war put him right back into his original silver and sardonic state. Changeling faced death, heartbreak, more death, insanity, and even more death, finally emerging as a man capable of making his own decisions... now he is a 'Beast Boy' again, following the other Titans around like a puppy... sometimes literally. A whole new generation of readers can now experience these characters just as they were two decades ago... of course, you could have simulated that simply by picking up the back issues.
So Happy Anniversary Teen Titans... hopefully in another forty years, when you are all collecting your pensions, DC will stop forcing you to be Teens.
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Raul Grau admits that there are certain advantages to being the head of the Comixfan Columns department. For example, if he wanted to have the last word on the Titans anniversary, then he could schedule his rant accordingly.
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The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and are not reflective of Comixfan or its other staff in general.