This post is Filed Under:

Home page Highlights,
Interviews and Columns

Robert Greenberger

by Robert Greenberger

Teen Titans: A celebration of 50 Years

It’s somewhat odd that DC Comics is soliciting teen Titans: A celebration of 50 Years, a hardcover honoring the teen Titans, and is expecting people to fork over $75 without revealing the contents. best of collections are always subjective creations and typically reflect modern preferences and politics than true historic perspective. Still, the teens have endured for five decades and there are much more than enough stories from across the years to make for an entertaining collection.

The brave and The bold #54

Despite DC being the company to pioneer the teen sidekick in comic books, with the introduction of Robin in Detective Comics #38, it fell to Stan Lee to actually take his teenage crimefighters and band them together in young Allies. It wasn’t until 1964’s The brave and the bold #54 when editor George Kashdan chose to pair up Robin, kid Flash, and Aqualad (ignoring fast because by then the green Arrow feature had stopped running). With a story by Bob Haney and outstanding art by Bruno Premiani, the teens left their mentors to rally behind a small town in need, encountering the risk of Mr. Twister.

The brave and The bold #60, the team gets their official name.

Clearly, the sales were strong because a year later, they reappeared in issue #60, this time under the title teen Titans and with the addition of wonder Girl. (Funny story about her: because many editors and writers did not read each other’s works, Haney didn’t realize the wonder girl depicted in wonder woman was actually young Diana prince impossibly teaming up with her younger and older selves in fanciful Robert Kanigher stories.)

Teen Titans #23, possibly the most well-known teen Titans cover. Art by Nick Cardy.

Soon after, the quartet were promoted to their own title and over the course of time, their ranks swelled with the late arrival of fast followed by Hawk & Dove, Lilith, Mal, and even a thawed out caveman named Gnarrk. Haney created an entire teen dialect for his heroes that never came close to resembling how the decade’s pop culture actually spoke. He was rescued time and again by the spectacular artwork of Nick Cardy, who experimented with page design, technique and even color. Haney also had them partner with Batman in some solid B&B stories. In time, though, Haney was replaced by Steve Skeates and new editor Dick Giordano stripped them of their costumes and tried to tell different stories about growing up and responsibility.

East meets West in teen Titans #50

Once Giordano left and the book was returned to Editor Murray Boltinoff, Haney was back action-packed, irrelevant stories took precedent. Whatever radiance the series had was gone and it was cancelled after 42 issues in 1972. It was, however, resurrected in 1976, now written by Bob Rozakis, and for 11 issues, it swelled their ranks, splitting into Titans east and Titans West as Bat-Girl, Beast Boy, Bumblebee, and golden Eagle found their way onto the roster. It was cancelled in 1977, a victim of low sales and new president Jenette Kahn found it lackluster.

New teen Titans #1

Kahn cast a jaundiced eye at Editor Len Wein and writer Marv Wolfman when they sat in her office in early 1980 proposing a revival. They efficiently said, “Trust us” and she did. With artist George Pérez aboard, DC found itself with the first really “cool” bestselling title under Kahn’s reign. The new teen Titans helped propel DC into a new era of creativity, making Wolfman and Pérez superstars. With new characters Starfire, Cyborg, and Raven added to the much more familiar players, Wolfman had all the ingredients to tell stories of science fiction, the occult, and straight out action. The pace rarely slackened and when it did, such as NTT #8, even that was memorable. The series spawned spinoffs and was one of two titles in the debut of a hardcover/softcover publishing initiative that was interesting but never worked.

Teen Titans #1

Even after its premier team left, others stepped in to keep the momentum running as teen Titans and team Titans continued through the 1990s although the book’s time was running out. After a year’s hiatus, teen Titans returned with a brand new lineup of teens, led by Ray Palmer, the Atom now deaged back to a teen himself, thanks to Zero Hour. Dan Jurgens chronicled their adventures for two years.

Titans #1

After a short break, Titans arrived in 1999, spinning out of a JLA/Titans miniseries, and was now penned by Devin Grayson whose Titans fanfiction caught editors’ attention. The team now consisted of Cyborg, Starfire, Argent, Damage, and Jesse Quick. featuring some of the best character writing because Wolfman’s initial run, the book lasted 50 issues.

Teen Titans #1

Geoff Johns loved the concept of the team and wanted torestore them to a premier role within the DC Universe, goals he achieved with the 2003 revival of the book. The team – Robin (Tim Drake), Starfire, Cyborg, Beast Boy, kid Flash, Superboy, wonder Girl, Raven — was now based in San Francisco. In time, the new Speedy, Ravager, kid Devil, miss Martian, Blue Beetle, Bombshell, and even Supergirl joined the team.

Titans #2

Based on that success, Judd Winick and Ian Churchill unveiled Titans in 2008, featuring the original NTT cast: Nightwing, Starfire, Flash, Red Arrow, Cyborg, Raven, Donna Troy, and Beast Boy. In time, though, things got strange when Deathstroke stole the Titans’ name for a villain team.

Johns kept the cast front and center of the various company crossovers best up to final crisis and then everything went dark.

The new 52’s teen Titans #1

When the light returned, it was a new DC universe but there was still a new reason for the teens to operate together. Under Red Robin’s guidance, wonder Girl, kid Flash, Superboy, Solstice, Bunker, and Skitter took on new risks in the form of harvest and the criminal operation N.O.W.H.E.R.E.

Teen Titans Go! #1

Of course, the team thrived beyond the comics, appearing in Filmation’s animated shorts of the 1960s and several cartoon Network series, emphasizing their youth and fun-loving ways (and pizza!). A variation of the team also existed in comics and animation as young Justice but I suspect those tales will not even be considered.

So, what ought to be here? Obviously, it ought to be heavy on Wolfman/Perez and Johns/McKone material but there are much more than a few Haney/Cardy gems that should be included along with the critical first story. One can hope that the once-controversial “Jericho” story that Wein and Wolfman wrote in the 1960s about race, which Neal Adams tried to rescue and ultimately never saw the light of day, would be here. Each incarnation was emblematic of its era and all fifty years ought to be given due consideration, possibly through the all-encompassing retelling of the team’s history from secret Origins annual #3.

Titans Together! is their rallying cry and if ever they ought to share two covers, now is the time.

Purchase

Teen Titans: A celebration of 50 Years

Classic comic covers from the Grand Comics Database.