Tag: Teen Titans

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CBR reports that Teen Titans #30-31 will feature the long-awaited* return of Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew! It seems that Kid Flash is a fan of the series, which never actually got canceled in the DC Universe, and has gone grim-n-gritty with the rest of the DC line. “Excerpts” of a Zoo Crew “parody of Watchmen and Dark Knight and their fallout” will be interspersed with the regular story.

While grim-and-gritty doesn’t seem to go with Captain Carrot, parody does. And to think, I was this close to dropping Teen Titans. It looks like I’ll be staying on a few more issues. Update: It was terrible, and totally not worth it.

*OK, long-awaited by some. Let’s just say it was Captain Carrot that got me into comics at the age of seven, so there’s a serious nostalgia factor at work.

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A recent post on What Were They Thinking? reminded me of a panel from the original Teen Titans series. In it, Robin and Wonder Girl have just been gassed and tossed out of an airplane, waking up in mid-air.

Where are we--? Holy Ozone!

Yes, Robin once uttered the words, “Holy ozone!” And, like the “holey rusted metal,” the words proved accurate in an entirely different way. This was Teen Titans #7 (1967), the issue which introduced the Mad Mod. (Think of him as Austin Powers as a villain.)

Who knew comics could be so prophetic? 😉

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There are two books I picked up recently that demonstrate how not to tell a story with pictures: Teen Titans #27 and the manga of The Nightmare Before Christmas.

First, Teen Titans #27, first half of a two parter by fill-in team of Gail Simone and Rob Liefeld. I’d planned on writing a more thorough review, but Comics Should Be Good beat me to it. And yeah, reviewing Liefeld’s art feels like a cheap shot, but sometimes ya just gotta go for it. Simone’s story isn’t bad, but it’s hard to follow. In particular, there are too many places where the art isn’t about story or action, it’s about showing the heroes or villains in dramatic poses. And yeah, you want the occasional dramatic pose, because you want to show off the costumes. That’s part of the genre. But you need to convey what’s actually happening. As dramatic as the last two pages were, I couldn’t figure out just what Kestrel was doing without looking at the “Next issue” blurb!

And then there are the places Liefeld left out dramatic poses that should have been there. The issue introduces a quartet of teen villains, but only one of them gets a full-body dramatic view, two get only action shots, and one—well, let me put it this way. I had to flip back to the beginning to be sure that there really were four of them and not just three. He’s in two panels with only his head and shoulders visible in the entire book. He’s not named, there’s no sign of powers or special skills, and he’s wearing a shirt and tie. I have to wonder whether Liefeld just didn’t get around to designing a costume since the character gets eliminated halfway through the book.

Anyway, onto The Nightmare Before Christmas. Continue reading →

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[Starfire circa 1990]The Teen Titans’ Starfire is an alien princess from the world of Tamaran. A virtual paradise, populated by a proud, but beautiful and sensual warrior race. (Think of co-ed Amazons without the attitude.) When Starfire—or, rather, Koriand’r—was a child, the world was invaded. The war went badly, and the king ultimately agreed to sell his daughter into slavery in exchange for Tamaran’s freedom. (Years later she escaped her captors and ended up on Earth.)

Tamaran’s story unfolded during the 1980s in The New Teen Titans and The Omega Men (which featured Kory’s brother). Koriand’r returned home to help stop a civil war, but then her sister wrested the throne from their father. Komand’r (a.k.a. Blackfire) surprised everyone by becoming a much better—and fairer—ruler than anyone expected. Eventually Kory returned home to stay.

As The New Titans wound its way to a close in 1996, the story returned to Tamaran, now embroiled in a new war—one which ultimately destroyed the planet. The survivors settled on an uninhabited world to rebuild, dubbing it New Tamaran. (New Teen Titans #126-230, 1996)

Then things got nasty.

Just a few months after the final issue of The New Titans, DC published a prologue to the year’s big crossover, The Final Night. The sun-eater, before setting its sights on Earth, destroyed New Tamaran utterly, with no time for an evacuation. Starfire, exiled just hours before by her suddenly-evil-again sister, was believed the only survivor.
Continue reading →

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A thought: the original Teen Titans are beating the Justice League when it comes to passing on their super-genes. Leaving out possible-future stories and backstories, it comes down to just Aquaman of the core group, and Green Arrow as the most prominent member outside the “Big 7.”

As for the original 5 Teen Titans (now in their mid-twenties):

Speedy – now Arsenal, has a preschool-aged daughter, Lian (by way of international super-villain Cheshire).
Wonder Girl – now Troia, had a son Robert with her husband, but both were killed in a car crash.
Aqualad – now Tempest, has an infant son Cerdian with his wife Dolphin.
Kid Flash – now Flash, nearly had twins, but a villain beat his wife Linda so badly she not only miscarried, but lost the ability to have any more children. Update Nov. 2005: Time travel altered the attack, and Linda gave birth to healthy twins (who have yet to be named in print).
Robin – now Nightwing, no kids.

And of course if you do add in future stories, all five had children in Kingdom Come… who came back to visit the present-day mainstream DCU in “Who Is Troia?” in 2001.

Admittedly the mortality rate is high, but the 60% 80% birth rate certainly beats the core League’s 14%.