40 years ago - New Teen Titans #1
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scans_dailyIt was on 10th July 1980 that a certain new comic book arrived on newsstands from DC, one that would go on to be their best selling title for a number of years. (It didn't arrive in the UK for a couple of months after that, but I DO remember seeing it on the shelves when it did finally arrive)
It was a title that achieved what the X-Men had been doing for Marvel for a few years, a title that combined the idea of young heroes growing up, having adventures, both dramatic and soap opera and GREAT hair!
And let's have that cover again at proper size, it is a genuinely iconic cover, being repeated and homaged many, MANY times in the years since,
For those interested, DC have shared a fun little interview where George Perez and Marv Wolfman see the statues of this cover that DC Direct have released over the past year or two.
We stater with an oddly titled piece, an Epilogue comes at the END of a story, not the beginning, but it IS the end of the as yet untold story of this new character Princess Koriand'r, and her time as a slave of the Citadel space empire, and the start of a whole new chapter in her life.
She escapes in that rather vivid pink and purple spaceship. but is pursued, and they mean business!
Meanwhile, in Gotham City, Dick Grayson wakes up from a nightmare, one which readers had already seen in the New Teen Titans preview story which had appeared inserted into DC Comics Presents #26 a couple of months previously.
Yeah Raven, that's just creepy.,, but that's going to be your standard operting practice for quite a while.
And Perez is already starting his admirable trend of showing people not being fully dressed if there's no need for them to be! And not just the ladies.
Now, Dick casually changing clothes in front of a strange lady is a little odd, but I love that Perez casually draws the costume as being an actual outfit, with layers of different clothing rather than something Dick is suddenly wearing! (and he draws such a pretty Dick Grayson AND Robin)
Okay, I HAVE to address Bruce's appearance here! :) This is Golden Age playboy Bruce Wayne seemingly passing through the 80's. The smoking jacket, the cravat, the PIPE!!! And he's wearing it just because.... Back in this time period Bruce had a life beyond being Batman, so he and Dick not being out on patrol EVERY night was entirely a thing.
Dick takes his R-cycle and rides... all the way to Manhattan (must be good mileage on that thing) pondering how he and Bruce seem at a bit of an impasse since Dick quite college. (This reveal was the result of some crossed lines of editorial communication as Dick had never actually been seen to quit college. Marv Wolfman thought it had happened in the Batman comics so was okay to reference, and they thought Marv was going to do it in Titans, as such it's presented here as a fait accompli)
He sees Raven's soul self, which he recalls from his nightmare, heading towards a certain part of town and, he believes, Wonder Girl
Wonder Woman saved her and took her to Paradise Island where she was raised by Hippolyta as her daughter, and younger sister to Diana. The entire Amazon population gifted her each a fraction of their power, and she became Wonder Girl.(The details of her actual past would be told in the wonderful, seminal story "Who is Donna Troy" a few years later)
She hears a sound and...
Gar Logan debuts his new name "Changeling" here, one I STILL prefer to "Beast Boy". He also gets a new costume (which is, as Perez had noted a time or two, shares a lot of design elements with Spider-Man) and from now on he turns into entirely green versions of animals, where previously it was only his head which remained green when he took on an animal form.
Raven now appears to lead them to their next new member, and another new character, who we find at a sportsground.
And so Cyborg makes six....
Raven now leads them to the site where she has tracked their final new member, and they arrive as the Gordanian warriors of the Citadel have appeared at the UN building. A fight ensues (which I have trimmed, sorry action fans, but there are a LOT of important bits of character building to deal with, well, that and topless Dick Grayson, and I am a weak man)
Raven's soul-self uses an ability it never actually uses again, and shuts down muitiple targets aggression. Well, it's one way to cut a fight scene short.
Meanwhile, we find where Koriand'r actually is... and Wolfman's purple prose game is on point!
I love that in the space of five panels we already know a LOT about these newcomers Grant and Carol. Neither of them will be seen much again, though for different reasons, as whilst Catol just fades away, Grant plays a VERY significant part in issue 2.
The Titans arrive just as the Gordanians do. I love the chain weapon here, it's the sort of random thing that Thor tended to do with Mjolnir.
So the Gordanians manage to take Koriand'r back with them...
Hint: Commander Troggar takes the same approach to failed underlings as Darth Vader.
The Titans manage to get on boad, again thanks to Raven (I think, it's not really made clear, but she's the only one who can teleport)
No sooner has she deposited them on board than she's off again...
Both these last two scenes hint of something we do quickly discover, that Raven actively emotionally manipulated Kid Flash. She MADE him fall in love with her, whether he wanted to or not.
This is partly down to her never being allowed to experience strong emotions during her being raised on Azarath, so not being quite aware of the effects of love on people, but it's still a very skeevy trope and makes it hard to like her much.
The Titans find Koriand'r and carry her out... but they do find themselves overwhelmed until..
WWhilst Robin, Wonder Girl and Kid Flash were saving Starfire-to-be, Cyborg and Changeling had been rewiring the Chrga's systems causing it do explode just after they'd all left it.
Troggar is furious, but has the rest of his slave stock to auction, so abandons Earth for now, but promises that the Citadel will return. Which they do, two years later, led by Koriand'r big sister Komand'r, aka Blackfire.
And so we end with our team together, some friendships and internal conflicts already established, and some ominous bits of plot foreshadowing, not only Raven's mysterious threat for the future, but in that next issue debuts a new character who would go on to big things.. though he's better known these days as Deathstroke.
So happy 40th Anniversary to The New Teen Titans!
It was a title that achieved what the X-Men had been doing for Marvel for a few years, a title that combined the idea of young heroes growing up, having adventures, both dramatic and soap opera and GREAT hair!
And let's have that cover again at proper size, it is a genuinely iconic cover, being repeated and homaged many, MANY times in the years since,
For those interested, DC have shared a fun little interview where George Perez and Marv Wolfman see the statues of this cover that DC Direct have released over the past year or two.
We stater with an oddly titled piece, an Epilogue comes at the END of a story, not the beginning, but it IS the end of the as yet untold story of this new character Princess Koriand'r, and her time as a slave of the Citadel space empire, and the start of a whole new chapter in her life.
She escapes in that rather vivid pink and purple spaceship. but is pursued, and they mean business!
Meanwhile, in Gotham City, Dick Grayson wakes up from a nightmare, one which readers had already seen in the New Teen Titans preview story which had appeared inserted into DC Comics Presents #26 a couple of months previously.
Yeah Raven, that's just creepy.,, but that's going to be your standard operting practice for quite a while.
And Perez is already starting his admirable trend of showing people not being fully dressed if there's no need for them to be! And not just the ladies.
Now, Dick casually changing clothes in front of a strange lady is a little odd, but I love that Perez casually draws the costume as being an actual outfit, with layers of different clothing rather than something Dick is suddenly wearing! (and he draws such a pretty Dick Grayson AND Robin)
Okay, I HAVE to address Bruce's appearance here! :) This is Golden Age playboy Bruce Wayne seemingly passing through the 80's. The smoking jacket, the cravat, the PIPE!!! And he's wearing it just because.... Back in this time period Bruce had a life beyond being Batman, so he and Dick not being out on patrol EVERY night was entirely a thing.
Dick takes his R-cycle and rides... all the way to Manhattan (must be good mileage on that thing) pondering how he and Bruce seem at a bit of an impasse since Dick quite college. (This reveal was the result of some crossed lines of editorial communication as Dick had never actually been seen to quit college. Marv Wolfman thought it had happened in the Batman comics so was okay to reference, and they thought Marv was going to do it in Titans, as such it's presented here as a fait accompli)
He sees Raven's soul self, which he recalls from his nightmare, heading towards a certain part of town and, he believes, Wonder Girl
Wonder Woman saved her and took her to Paradise Island where she was raised by Hippolyta as her daughter, and younger sister to Diana. The entire Amazon population gifted her each a fraction of their power, and she became Wonder Girl.(The details of her actual past would be told in the wonderful, seminal story "Who is Donna Troy" a few years later)
She hears a sound and...
Gar Logan debuts his new name "Changeling" here, one I STILL prefer to "Beast Boy". He also gets a new costume (which is, as Perez had noted a time or two, shares a lot of design elements with Spider-Man) and from now on he turns into entirely green versions of animals, where previously it was only his head which remained green when he took on an animal form.
Raven now appears to lead them to their next new member, and another new character, who we find at a sportsground.
And so Cyborg makes six....
Raven now leads them to the site where she has tracked their final new member, and they arrive as the Gordanian warriors of the Citadel have appeared at the UN building. A fight ensues (which I have trimmed, sorry action fans, but there are a LOT of important bits of character building to deal with, well, that and topless Dick Grayson, and I am a weak man)
Raven's soul-self uses an ability it never actually uses again, and shuts down muitiple targets aggression. Well, it's one way to cut a fight scene short.
Meanwhile, we find where Koriand'r actually is... and Wolfman's purple prose game is on point!
I love that in the space of five panels we already know a LOT about these newcomers Grant and Carol. Neither of them will be seen much again, though for different reasons, as whilst Catol just fades away, Grant plays a VERY significant part in issue 2.
The Titans arrive just as the Gordanians do. I love the chain weapon here, it's the sort of random thing that Thor tended to do with Mjolnir.
So the Gordanians manage to take Koriand'r back with them...
Hint: Commander Troggar takes the same approach to failed underlings as Darth Vader.
The Titans manage to get on boad, again thanks to Raven (I think, it's not really made clear, but she's the only one who can teleport)
No sooner has she deposited them on board than she's off again...
Both these last two scenes hint of something we do quickly discover, that Raven actively emotionally manipulated Kid Flash. She MADE him fall in love with her, whether he wanted to or not.
This is partly down to her never being allowed to experience strong emotions during her being raised on Azarath, so not being quite aware of the effects of love on people, but it's still a very skeevy trope and makes it hard to like her much.
The Titans find Koriand'r and carry her out... but they do find themselves overwhelmed until..
WWhilst Robin, Wonder Girl and Kid Flash were saving Starfire-to-be, Cyborg and Changeling had been rewiring the Chrga's systems causing it do explode just after they'd all left it.
Troggar is furious, but has the rest of his slave stock to auction, so abandons Earth for now, but promises that the Citadel will return. Which they do, two years later, led by Koriand'r big sister Komand'r, aka Blackfire.
And so we end with our team together, some friendships and internal conflicts already established, and some ominous bits of plot foreshadowing, not only Raven's mysterious threat for the future, but in that next issue debuts a new character who would go on to big things.. though he's better known these days as Deathstroke.
So happy 40th Anniversary to The New Teen Titans!
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no subject
Date: 2020-07-11 10:42 pm (UTC)Yes, I'm an old man.
It's just as good today as it was back then.
no subject
Date: 2020-07-11 11:03 pm (UTC)Can't see a guy standing right in her line of sight.
(Mind you, none of the other Titans seem to notice or hear Grant or the HIVE guy so...)
And, uh, is there some context that got left out or just gets explained in the next issue, because... why's Grant got such a hate-on for the Titans?
Personally, I think Beast Boy works better for a guy who can turn into beasts, and exclusively beasts.
Admittedly, not so much when Gar's supposed to be an adult, but Beast Man just... doesn't have the same ring to it. And Beastling... hrrn...
Victor's really moody for a guy who survived being mauled by an eldritch abomination.
... though I suppose facing the prospect of spending the rest of your life stuck in metallic shorts would make anyone pissed.
(Just saying. Perez is a good artist, but that design of Vic's ain't his best. The amount of flesh exposed is just... silly.
*cough*starfire*cough*)
Good thing Alfred or Bruce didn't stumble in on Dick and Raven while they were talking. That could've been embarrassing.
And Donna's origin... so simple. So... not convoluted.
What an innocent age that was.
(Also, "KROKKK".
Well, it's different from "oof" or "ugh!" or "argh!" But it's an odd thing to yell out.)
no subject
Date: 2020-07-11 11:26 pm (UTC)Grant's apartment got trashed by the Titans fighting the Citadel and was more than slightly snippy about that, even after told him he'd be reimbursed, he's also a complete areshole..
Victor is particularly pissed that he was a competitive athlete on a path to the Olympics and now can't compete properly ever again.
Gordanian's are reptilian rather than primate in origin, I could imagine that the might make a sort of croaking sound as the, well.... croak.
no subject
Date: 2020-07-11 11:45 pm (UTC)Well, he is Slade Wilson's son, so that's no surprise.
And... reimbursed how, exactly?
(I'm guessing Dick doesn't just hand out Wayne checks, because that'd probably raise some suspicions. And I doubt insurance companies cover "sudden attack of aliens" even in the DCverse.)
no subject
Date: 2020-07-11 11:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-11 11:26 pm (UTC)As the Titans become more and more commonly seen in media adaptations, I've not seen any story beats that take their cues from eras after the Wolfman run.
no subject
Date: 2020-07-12 12:04 am (UTC)So Wolfman and Perez used that to craft Terra, who fans assumed was a take on Kitty Pryde joining X-Men only to set up the Judas Contract.
no subject
Date: 2020-07-12 02:26 am (UTC)I've tried reading Wolfman/Perez Titans a bunch of times, but outside a few bright spots (like "Who Is Donna Troy?") I just couldn't get into it. Issues with execution aside, the team just feels like a confused mishmash of concepts and powersets without any commonalities beyond "here's what Marv and George thought looked cool", and the worldbuilding is almost hilariously rushed (to this day I still can't figure out what made Trigon so Big and Bad that the Justice League were barely a footnote in his invasion of Earth).
The X-Men, at the very least, had the superhero-academy and the "protecting a world that hates and fears us" motifs holding them together (even if writers often mishandled the latter).
no subject
Date: 2020-07-12 05:18 am (UTC)What I think is meant to unify this version of the Teen Titans is the theme of growing up. They all have some serious evolution to undergo here. (As far as Trigon, I think the answer was that he was big and bad enough to eliminate all heroes fairly easily, and only some very specific circumstances made the Titans an exception.)
I don't mean to come off all "No, you see, you actually do like this run, allow me to demonstrate." It;s fine not to like it, and issues with execution by themselves would be enough! It's just the "mishmash" thing struck me as odd, that's all.
(One thing I always appreciated about Watchmen is that it understood the heterogeneity of super-groups and used that to examine how they could come apart, or never form to begin with. The first Avengers movie also understood that pretty well.)
no subject
Date: 2020-07-12 07:01 pm (UTC)I suppose I'm just picky - but when it comes to superhero teams, I tend to prefer them to be all original creations, tailor-made for a team, or all preexisting characters. Combining the two often leads to uneven (at best) results. (See: how the Avengers turned into The Vision And His Amazing Friends for much of the Bronze Age.)
As for the 'growing up' theme - I can see how it works with Dick, Wally (the two characters acknowledged as the title's biggest successes), Gar, and maybe Donna (though I think having an immortal mentor screws that up something fierce). but the three Wolfman/Perez originals all deal with such fantasy-heavy backgrounds that 'growing up' seems a downright inadequate descriptor for their problems. I mean, what's growing up got to do with the fact that your dad's an interdimensional demon conqueror who may be planning another invasion this very minute?
no subject
Date: 2020-07-13 12:38 am (UTC)More seriously, the near-ending of the '03 cartoon that you mention elsewhere has Raven deliver a pretty powerful speech that I think spoke to more than a few kids as they grew up to realize their fathers might not deserve the title "father." That moment in particular is a substantial improvement on the comic (which may back you up a little), but it does show the link.
The best thing I can say about Vic, Raven and (on a good day) Koriand'r is that their problems are real teen problems cloaked in metaphor. Physical alienation, emotional alienation, cultural alienation. Realizing you will NEVER achieve that one childhood dream of being a sports star. Dealing with an abusive parent (and how all-powerful they can seem) or sibling. Wanting to withdraw from the world and feel nothing, or bringing the outsize emotions of childhood to your new reality and feeling too much.
And they speak much more directly than the others to issues of sex.
Now, this all only goes so far. Ultimately, how much escapism you want with your reality is a matter of taste, even within the escapism-rich environment of superhero comics. Vic is, I think, the most successful of the three overall, especially since he's got a side order of race metaphor going on ("They're starin' at me. They'll always be starin' at me"). But it's best not to strain yourself trying to assign meaning to the "soul-self," or learning languages by tongue-kissing, or "a million decibels of white sound!!!"
no subject
Date: 2020-07-12 10:59 am (UTC)Robin and Kid Flash gave access to the JLA through their mentor's.
Wonder Girl did too, but she was also a gateway to Greek mythology, always a good source of weird drama.
Starfire is an alien space princess, so that's space opera available when required
Raven is a mystic with a dad who was an interdimensional tyrant who looked like the devil and was at at least demi-deity power levels.
Cyborg was all sci-fi and personal alienation.
Changeling had the whole Doom Patrol tragedy as his backstory and access to a roster of villains no on else was using as they'd been Doom Patrol centric. (Rouge, Zahl and the Brotherhood of Evil)
I don't think the JLA were being singled out as being ineffective against Trigon. Just that he was going to steamroller over every team who wasn't affiliated to Raven, because Raven was his focus. Raven had tried to recruit the JLA first after all, before forming the Titans, but they wouldn't work with her because Zatanna sensed she had a LOT of evil potential in her.
no subject
Date: 2020-07-12 07:06 pm (UTC)But I suppose my broader point is more along the lines of "having a Darkseid-tier villain out of the gate is really braggy for a new title". I'm not as in love with the '03 cartoon as most kids of my age, but one thing I really appreciated was its moving Trigon to an end-of-series(-before-uncancellation) boss, not the starter.
no subject
Date: 2020-07-12 11:50 pm (UTC)The Trigon who returned some time later had seriously leveled up.
But you are right that it plays better dramatically to push him to the end. Had Marv and George known how successful the series would be, they might have done that themselves, but it seems like they wanted to be sure the Trigon thing got some resolution in case of early cancellation. Everything at the end of issue #6 looked pretty neatly tied up; only gradually at first did we start getting hints that "oh, this... this problem of Raven's... it may not be over."
no subject
Date: 2020-07-12 09:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-12 11:16 am (UTC)I'd say both Claremont andWwoflman both did something the same in their approach; They made the focus the teenage soap opera aspect of it, rather than the heroics.
The JLA and Avengers were professional, adults and are a lot more business. The Titans and X-Men are, mostly, younger than the JLA and Avengers, and are dealing with the world as young people growing into adults, falling in and out of love and assorted relationships, in a way the older teams didn't, for the most part.
no subject
Date: 2020-07-12 01:15 am (UTC)Recently reread the first few issues in a collected volume and posted about it here:http://www.skjam.com/2016/07/31/comic-book-review-the-new-teen-titans-volume-one/
Forty years, good lord.
no subject
Date: 2020-07-12 04:51 am (UTC)In a few places, the art's a bit rough by the high standard Perez would set. Grant talks as if he's observing from a great distance, but looks about four feet away from them in that last frame, and it looks like George hadn't fully settled on what Koriand'r's build should be yet. Still, it's wild to go back to this first issue and realize how much he'd already designed.
It's also impressive how much important material Marv already had in place: Robin's alienation (which will somewhat anchor the whole run), Gar's trauma masquerading as a carefree joie de vivre, Donna's identity issues, Vic's extremely justified anger and self-pity, and in a broad sense, Wally's vacillation about the hero lifestyle. Raven and Starfire are mostly intriguing enigmas right now, but the crumbs of their backstory are also entirely consistent with what follows.
Your point about Wally and Raven is a good one (and it's pretty obvious that's what was always intended to be their story, given how confident Raven is that he'll join). I suspect that Plan A might've been to get them together eventually anyway. Almost everyone else here is given an implied goal that Wolfman and Perez will have them resolve ("stop my demon father," "become my own man," "stop feeling like a damn metal freak," "discover who I am," "find people who'll like me even if I'm not constantly entertaining them with jokes"). Wally's implied goal is "get with Raven," so despite their enormous incompatibilities, it's a genuine shock when that doesn't happen. But maybe that was always the intended subversion. I dunno, and I'm too busy right now to look it up.
no subject
Date: 2020-07-14 08:26 am (UTC)