I'm sorry. I am so, so, so sorry. I never wanted this to happen, I never wanted the current Teen Titans book to be just as infuriating as the current cartoon, but I have no control over these things. Today on "Current Issues" I talk about the ill-fated Teen Titans book from DC Comics.
Artist: Kenneth Rocafort
Even before their cartoon-one of my personal favorite cartoons-The Teen Titans were one of DC Comic's greatest superhero teams. If you didn't like The Justice League this is where you went. A team comprised of sidekicks, the first Teen Titans were made up of Robin (Dick Grayson, later Nightwing, first sidekick in comic book history), Aqualad (Garth, apprentice of Aquaman), Wonder Girl (Donna Troy, adopted sister of Wonder Woman), Speedy (Roy Harper, later Red Arrow, much later Arsenal, notorious one-time junkie, ward to Green Arrow) and Kid Flash (Wally West, The Flash's nephew and the third Flash in history) in 1964. The next lineup-and the one people know best-was the 1980 "New Teen Titans" featuring retuning characters Robin/Nightwing, Wonder Girl, and Kid Flash, with new characters like Beast Boy (Garfield Logan, animal-shapeshifter), Raven (Rachel Roth, daughter of a demon named Trigon), Starfire (Princess of planet Tamaran), and Cyborg (Victor Stone, half-machine crime fighter). These and many on-and-off characters were written beautifully by Marv Wolfman, who established this team as comic's first "soap opera super-team". As time went on The Titans went through many revisions, Young Justice featured 90's-to-early 2000's characters like Superboy, Robin/Tim Drake, Wonder Girl/Cassandra Sandsmark, and Impulse, The Team Titans featured older Teen Titans like Nightwing, Flash/Wally West, and Tempest/Garth, finally leading to another incarnation of The Teen Titans featuring Blue Beetle/Jamie Reyes, Ms. Martian, Static Shock, and Supergirl. Before 2011, The Teen Titans were no longer just about young heroes dealing with personal problems, the Teen Titans were about family and legacy. And then in 2011 DC Comics rebooted.
I didn't read The Teen Titans when The New 52 started, but I know it was bad. Scott Lobdell struggles to write actual "character" in characters and his representation of these young heroes fell far too far from good. Characters including Red Robin/Tim Drake, Superboy, Bart Allen/Kid Flash, Cass Sandsmark/Wonder Girl and new characters Bunker and Skitter where given rare shines of personality, the stories themselves just didn't fit the team, and the worst thing about The New 52's Teen Titans is that "they were the first". There was no team before them as of the New 52. No classic team of Robin, Starfire, Cyborg, Beast Boy and Raven, no passing of the torch between the young and grown heroes, just a bunch of moody teens trying to fight stupid villains. Without the legacy factor the team was just unappealing to me, but I decided when DC announced a new Teen Titans book I'd give it a chance.
And now we get to this book. Red Robin, Wonder Girl, Raven, Bunker and Beast Boy. By the way, Beast Boy had red fur when The New 52 started, because they wanted to tie the character into Animal Man, another animal-related character who had a connection to a mystical force between all blood-sharing creatures called "The Red". But now he's green again for no reason outside of "people complained". Pfeifer seems to press the ego of this team, and even use the tropes of teenagers as a way of making them more relatable, this fails more than it helps. The Teen Titans are on Twitter, Wonder Girl has legions of fan-one of which looks like Bumblebee, but is actually the new Power Girl and is pretty much Wonder Girl so what's the point-Bunker is highly critical towards haters because he is homosexual and he thinks all the criticizing has to do with that. The Teen Titans become backed by Cadmus, a super-lab corporation ran by Manchester Black. In the Pre-New 52, Manchester Black was a British telepath who fought Superman. How could they possibly screw the character up? They make him claim to be an ally, but ever so obviously be a villain, then they have him coerce Wonder Girl and Power Girl into joining his newer, better, sexier teen team called The Elite. And they point out that Wonder Girl is seventeen and Manchester is nineteen which immediately made my skin crawl over the idea of them writing Wonder Girl into a relationship with this punk-rock slime. The Elite, by the way, are made up of Guardian (nobody cares), Klarion (had his book cancelled after four issues), Trinity (an Indigo Lantern, so mysterious), and Kid Flash (who is angry at The Teen Titans for something nobody reading this book knows about). In the most recent issue, Red Robin and his Titans are fighting Wonder Girl and The Elite over the fate of Superboy, who has apparently killed several civilians and picked up an orange alien chick named Chimera. When Red Robin tries to pull The Titans together as a family to save Superboy, Superboy is nowhere to be seen in the issue and Chimera-who has been on the team for half a day-is all like "Yeah guys, we're Titans! We're a family". It's all just infighting and angst and not what people want out of a Teen Titans book.
I know the older series was all about personal problems mixed with superhero adventures, but the problems of modern teens are not all about angst and rebellion and I feel that is often the problem for people writing teenage characters. If you're going to take things slow for the characters sake, make them interesting beyond "I don't like this" or "I want that". The idea of The Teen Titans being celebrities isn't awful, I could even see a version of the team being like MTV reality show heroes as a fun alternate take, but it is only briefly touched upon and squandered in concept. Characters just don't act the way they should. Example: So Superboy "kills" some civilians and the question of his alignment is in check, Red Robin-the smartest teenager on Earth and used to being on a team-tries to help clear his friend's name. That works. But Wonder Girl-who was not only a founding Titan along with Red Robin and Superboy in this version of the team-also happened to have a romantic relationship with Superboy, and she's the one trading sides and trying to catch the guy. Logically, shouldn't this be reversed? Red Robin is a tactical thinker, logical, he'd be just as quick to question Superboy as Batman would be quick to question Superman in the same situation. And Wonder Girl had a relationship with Superboy, broken up or not she isn't heartless. And by the way, this story started maybe a month or two ago and it is still going. Is there no interesting idea for a plot besides "corporate mystery and interfamily fights" rolling in these writer's heads? Oh, the art is really nice too.
I wanted to like this book. I wanted to believe this would be a second coming, a redemption, not a rip-off of the cartoon but special in its own way. But like everything with The Teen Titans, it's never the same thing twice. As much as older readers may love Marv Wolfman's run, we won't be having that soon, as much as younger viewers may love the cartoon, we won't be having that either (screw you "Teen Titans Go") and the best-the very best-hope we have for The Teen Titans is in the upcoming book "Titans Hunt" featuring older Titans like Dick Grayson, Donna Troy and Aqualad. Maybe this new book will reinvigorate the team and push DC to make better decisions in how they present one of their greatest superhero teams.
Thank you for reading.
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