Lately I've been feeling like I'm a bad person for never finding Terry all that creepy, even though I read all those stories way back when.
I, too, read these New Teen Titans stories in the early 1980s, and never thought Terry Long was creepy. Still don't.
The latter-day reaction against him seems to be based on: * changes in fashion. For those of us who lived through the era of unbuttoned shirts, facial hair, and shorts that were actually short instead of Capri pants for men, Terry's look just isn't that strange. * to some extent, changes in mores. Recognition of HIV and sexual harassment gave a different edge to the sexual atmosphere pervading the New Teen Titans. Even though the scripts make clear that Donna is a grown woman, isn't Terry's student, isn't young enough to be his daughter, etc., some people still disapprove of the relationship. * how Terry's character developed later, when he began to act out Marv Wolfman's problems with writer's block and became less refreshing and more annoying. * the paradox that Wolfman put into the character from the beginning: how someone superpowered like Donna was attracted to an ordinary man.
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I, too, read these New Teen Titans stories in the early 1980s, and never thought Terry Long was creepy. Still don't.
The latter-day reaction against him seems to be based on:
* changes in fashion. For those of us who lived through the era of unbuttoned shirts, facial hair, and shorts that were actually short instead of Capri pants for men, Terry's look just isn't that strange.
* to some extent, changes in mores. Recognition of HIV and sexual harassment gave a different edge to the sexual atmosphere pervading the New Teen Titans. Even though the scripts make clear that Donna is a grown woman, isn't Terry's student, isn't young enough to be his daughter, etc., some people still disapprove of the relationship.
* how Terry's character developed later, when he began to act out Marv Wolfman's problems with writer's block and became less refreshing and more annoying.
* the paradox that Wolfman put into the character from the beginning: how someone superpowered like Donna was attracted to an ordinary man.