Thirty-five years ago The New Teen Titans was DC’s answer to Marvel’s wildly successful Uncanny X-Men. Surprisingly, it worked despite the two sets of characters being very different: Marvel’s team were outlaw mutants the world despised and DC’s Titans were mostly sidekicks trying to get out of their adult mentors’ shadows.
Today the Titans are more well-known for their goofy show on Cartoon Network. It’s OK. I’m glad they kept the same voice actors from the more serious version CN ran a decade ago, equally impressive. I just want to plug this new run of trade paperbacks reprinting the first couple years to younger comic fans. Maybe show them how Beast Boy and Cyborg’s camaraderie originated, why Starfire is naive about Earth culture, where did Deathstroke come from and that not all great superhero comics in the Eighties had to have X-something in their titles.
For me, I have to give the credit to my old high school friend Jon Kulas. Through Mayfair’s DC Heroes RPG and his collection of these comics, I was slowly drawn away from being exclusively a Marvel fanboy. Back then, the X-Men made more “sense.” Their powers were biologically driven and probably resulted from all the nuclear radiation in our atmosphere after WWII. An adult being struck by lightning or being bitten by a radioactive spider lacked credibility. The Titans on the other hand, I was willing to suspend my disbelief because Robin was their leader. When I was a small kid, my favorite Mego figure/doll was Robin. I can’t recall why exactly. His outfit’s colors? His accessories being transferrable to other Mego figures? No idea. I do continue to have a soft spot for Robin aka Dick Grayson. He seemed more relatable than Batman at times.
Anyway…Jon loaned me his back issues and they were pretty good. Unlike other DC characters, the Titans resided in NYC then, a real place. They battled new Villains created just for their book: Deathstroke, Brother Blood (an evil cult leader), Trident, the Fearsome Five and Trigon. They had lives outside being superheroes even though they were unrealistic. Cyborg hated being a superhero. His reconstructed cybernetic body made him ineligible to compete in the college athletics he loved. Robin had a new spin too. Sometime “recently,” he had a falling out with Batman and he wanted to prove to his foster dad he wasn’t a dumb kid anymore.
The Titans went on to be my favorite DC title and I think it was the only non-Marvel book I would by until 1989. By then Tim Burton’s Batman rejuvenated the Dark Knight and I discovered DC’s other, less-tired team books: Justice League (the funny run with Kevin Maguire, Keith Giffen and JM DeMatties) and Suicide Squad (which will be ruined by an awful movie next Summer). The New Teen Titans was also hitting its nadir toward cancellation by the early Nineties too. Co-plotter/artist George Perez left by 1986 to reboot Wonder Woman and Marv Wolfman was running out of gas after Wonder Girl became Troia. Either DC couldn’t find someone to take over the writing reins from Wolfman, they didn’t want to or they thought it continued to sell enough issues.
These trades (currently volumes one thru three, four is due next January) recapture the original lighting-in-the-bottle run by Marv Wolfman and George Perez who were following the Chris Claremont and John Byrne partnership model of X-Men. The difference? I think Wolfman and Perez liked working together since they went on to do the legendary Crisis on Infinite Earths series for DC’s 50th. As I’m reading them now, the writing is rather heavy-handed and super cheesy. It’s like Wolfman was trying imitate Stan Lee with all the hyperbole. Perez’s art wasn’t as solid as I remember neither, probably due to the deadlines. My darn foolish nostalgic lenses! They’re still good comics and a great demonstration of how things were beginning to change as the Seventies gave way to the Eighties and the direct-sales model was taking over.
Volume One contains DC Presents #26 previewing the new team and issues 1-8; Volume Two is issues 9-16; and Volume Three is just 17-20 but includes Tales of the New Teen Titans 1-4 which covered the new characters’ origins in greater depth.
In closing, The New Teen Titans‘ successful formula for me was this:
- The writer and primary artist were partners in telling the story. More often in comic books, the artists draws what the writer scripts, the end. I am in the camp to trust the artist to help me co-write since I can’t draw. Often, they have better ideas than mine. Comic books are also a collaboration even when the artist is the writer; there’s still an editor, a proofreader, a letterer, an inker and colorist.
- They took an old idea, a book starring the sidekicks, but infused it with new blood without throwing away all the old members. It wouldn’t be the Teen Titans minus Robin so he stayed alongside a more interesting Wonder Girl and lovelorn Kid Flash. Beast Boy came over from The Doom Patrol as Changeling (he has since returned to being Beast Boy) which was a gamble, he wasn’t very interesting before Titans. The new blood of Starfire (alien princess), Raven (a solitary, shy mystic) and Cyborg were probably what brought in new interest.
- Wolfman and Perez executed one of the best story arcs in comic books, aka “The Judas Contract.” I find it superior to the X-Men’s “Dark Phoenix” arc. The animated show tried to implement it but it fell apart due to the medium’s limitations. “Judas” led to a permanent shift in the team and the DC Universe, namely Dick Grayson retiring his Robin identity to become Nightwing. This has never been retconned surprisingly given how frequently DC reboots.
Thanks for introducing this title to me Jon and thank you Rogues Gallery for carrying the trades so I can get re-acquainted with what got me to enjoy comic books and superhero role-playing games.