posted
This year marks the 30th anniversary of Marv Wolfman and George Pérez’s launch of the hugely successful New Teen Titans, one of the definitive super-hero teams of the last three decades. Herewith is a retro review of that first issue and an analysis of the New Teen Titans' appeal.
New Teen Titans (first series) # 1 Nov. 1980 Writer & Co-Creator: Marv Wolfman Penciller & Co-Creator: George Pérez Finisher: Romeo Tanghal Letterer: Ben Oda Colorist Adrienne Roy Editor: Len Wein
Plot Snapshot: Raven assembles the New Teen Titans for a mysterious reason—but first, they have to rescue Starfire from her Gordanian captors.
Okay, a little more detail: The story opens with an “epilogue” in space, in which Princess Koriand’r flees from a shipload of Gordanian slavers, steals a smaller ship, and then “space slides” into hyperspace (or whatever it’s called).
Meanwhile, on earth Dick Grayson awakens from a nightmare in which he and several new “Titans” are battling a yellow protoplasmic something. He receives a Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come-like visitation from Raven, one of the Titans in the dream. She tells him that it was no nightmare but a premonition, and that Dick—as Robin—must assemble a new Teen Titans post haste. Dick calls Wally (Kid Flash) West, who is busy with college and turns him down flat. Raven says not to worry, she’ll take care of Wally.
In short order, Robin finds himself reunited with Wonder Girl, ex-Doom Patrol and Titans West member Beast Boy (who now insists that everyone call him Changeling), and—surprise, surprise—Kid Flash, who exhibits a strange loyalty to Raven. The ad hoc team goes to meet its next member, Victor (Cyborg) Stone, an angry young man whose coach has just kicked him off the team. It seems that Victor’s new cybernetic enhancements—a result of his father’s experiments gone wrong—make him overqualified to play college sports. Coaches can be unreasonable that way.
Vic joins the Titans to be “a freak among freaks,” and Raven sends the team to rescue its final member—Koriand’r—from the Gordanians, who have pursued their prize to the United Nations Plaza. The battle continues in the East Village apartment of a young man named Grant Wilson, who becomes rather ticked off when the Titans and Gordanians demolish his apartment and drive his girlfriend away—so ticked off, in fact, that (I’m not making this up) he sics the evil organization H.I.V.E. on the fledgling team. As Grant and an unseen H.I.V.E. rep spy on the Titans, Raven tells the others that they were assembled to deal with another “menace” that is “growing,” and which “only your powers can overcome!”
[ May 30, 2010, 03:02 PM: Message edited by: He Who Wanders ]
-------------------- The Semi-Great Gildersleeve - writing, super-heroes, and this 'n' that
From: The Stasis Zone | Registered: Jul 2003
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Overall Impressions: If one ignores certain gaping plot holes (which I’ll get to later), this is a competently written and magificently drawn comic. Accolades have been heaped on George Pérez, and I’m not going to belabor the wondrous beauty of his art—except to say that the accolades are well deserved. (That does not mean his art is perfect. Pérez specializes in postcard-like picture art, in which characters stand still and pose for the camera; as a result, some of his action scenes appear static. Likewise, his Titans are model-perfect super-heroes with few distinguishing facial characteristics or expressions.)
No, my focus is on Marv Wolfman’s story—the story that launched a thousand super-hero teams in the 1980s, that set the tone for the dawning decade, and which elevated the Titans from a mediocre, almost forgotten team to one of the most successful franchises DC has ever had.
So, was New Teen Titans # 1 really all that?
Yes and no.
As noted, the story is competently written. Wolfman gets us into the action fast and wastes no time assembling the team. He draws upon reader familiarity with Robin, Wonder Girl, and Kid Flash, so he doesn’t provide us with unnecessary back story or a wasteful recap. In fact, Wolfman handles exposition in a brilliant, almost off-handed manner. Dick, who has dropped out of college and still lives in the penthouse apartment of his mentor, talks on the phone with his old friend Wally, who is still in college. That’s pretty much all we need to know to get oriented to these young people and their world.
Not every attempt at exposition succeeds. Donna (Wonder Girl) is introduced while wandering around the burned-out wreckage of the building where she was rescued as a toddler by Wonder Woman. Donna is searching for clues to her mysterious past—well and good, but would such ruins remain standing after some 17 or 18 years? That’s an awful long time for the city to leave a safety hazard with broken glass and rubble in front standing.
Three new Titans are introduced: Raven, Cyborg, and Starfire (Koriand’r). Wolfman provides just enough information on each to intrigue readers and make us care about them.
The Titans aren’t given much reason for banding together. They simply go along with Raven’s oblique references to a mysterious threat. Wally, the only holdout, changes his mind (for reasons, we shall see, in later issues). In a way, this lack of clear motive works in the Titans’ favor. These heroes are still teenagers, and being a teenager is all about joining something—sports clubs, glee clubs, online chat rooms (nowadays), etc. They don’t have to think through the matter or consider their other obligations as older heroes might—they just dive right in. That isn’t to say that they should dive right in—Dick (the detective, remember?) should at least be questioning things more than he does. Instead, he goes right along with the others in following Raven’s unknown plan. Were nights in Bruce’s penthouse that lonely?
(I have to say that now that I’m teaching freshman comp, I have a somewhat different perspective on the idea of teenagers being super-heroes. I try to imagine my students as super-heroes—they would bring fresh energy, single-minded devotion, and unbridled creativity to the job. Of course, some would also insist on running the show, showing up for battles late or only when they didn’t have something else going on, and complaining because Dick never calls on them during maneuvers. I have yet to see similar depictions in any teenaged super-hero comic.)
Once in battle, the Titans do what super-heroes always do. Each Titan showcases his or her abilities. They make short work of the aliens at the UN Plaza, then they follow Raven to Grant Wilson’s apartment, where Wonder Girl (with some marginal assistance from Robin) saves Wally, Vic, and Gar from being sucked into a vortex (amazing how the Gordanians just happened to have one). Then it’s on to the Gordanians’ ship for the final showdown and rescue of Starfire.
Wolfman and Pérez excelled at this sort of non-stop action. They made it seem fresh, even though we’d read it many times before. I’m tempted to say that the personalities of the Titans contribute to that freshness, but, on re-read, the Titans merely go through the usual personality tropes: Robin questions Raven’s motives, Kid Flash staunchly defends her, Changeling makes suggestive remarks about Wonder Girl, she calls him a chauvinist pig (“chauvinist pig”? In 1980?), Vic loathes himself even while he’s helping to save the day. I suppose what makes this seem fresh is the fact that it isn’t fresh. Wolfman understands all the super-hero tropes, and he expertly feeds them to us, telling us we’ll love it. And we do.
One trope that grates on me upon re-reading the issue, however, is Victor Stone. He is portrayed as yet another Angry Young Black Man. True, Vic’s reasons for being angry are unique—being disfigured and turned into a robotic “freak” by his own father—but he’s an AYBM just the same. To drive home just how unoriginal this portrayal is, Vic first appears while trying to convince his coach to let him back on the team. (It’s unclear what sport is involved, since Vic says he could be the ideal all-around athlete.) Yes, not only is Vic an AYBM, but he was also a sports figure. We learn in later issues that Vic has many other talents—Raven even says his father trained him to use technology in this issue—but it’s a shame that our first impression of him has to be of a two-fold stereotype.
Vic’s inclusion as a member of a major super-hero team in 1980 should not be overlooked. He was in many ways a ground-breaking character. Perhaps it’s too much to expect more originality in a series which (at least in its first issue) demonstrated so little originality in every other aspect, from the other Titans’ personalities to the alien villains to the mysterious reasons for their formation. But during the re-read, I found myself wishing that he and Gar had exchanged personalities. An angry young green man and a happy-go-lucky African American would have been original.
Overall, New Teen Titans #1 did what it was meant to do: It hit the ground running. That’s all one can legitimately expect of a first issue.
Now, about those plotholes.
Given that Raven describes the “growing menace” as so terrible, why doesn’t anyone question why she didn’t approach the JLA? Surely, they would be of more use than a speedster, an amazon, a detective, a shapeshifter, a cyborg, and an alien princess, most of whom have never met each other before? Perhaps this question is answered in later issues (I don’t remember), but here it stands out like a wooden leg on a body builder. Knock it out, and the premise comes tumbling down.
Why, for that matter, does Dick contribute virtually nothing to this story? Though nominally the Titans’ leader, he does little except express doubts that the new team and its tactics are going to work. He does not motivate the Titans or keep them focussed on their mission. He seems to have been included just because it’s the Titans and you gotta have Robin.
And are we to believe that Grant Wilson is so pissed off at the Titans for wrecking his apartment (“You’ll be well compensated,” Robin tells him; it’s a nice thing to say when your mentor is richer than a Middle Eastern oil cartel) and driving away his girlfriend (who was about to leave anyway) that he sics more bad guys on ‘em? True, there is more to Grant Wilson than we get here, as subsequent issues show, but this is a silly and sloppy way of introducing a subplot. It’s the most trite form of comic book writing.
-------------------- The Semi-Great Gildersleeve - writing, super-heroes, and this 'n' that
From: The Stasis Zone | Registered: Jul 2003
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The Appeal:New Teen Titans # 1 transcended the lackluster merits of its first issue, in part, by capitalizing on its familiar team name and the inclusion of Robin, Kid Flash, and Wonder Girl. Changeling provides a vital link between the old characters and the new, between the familiar and the unknown. As such, NTT provides an equal mix of three and a half familiar characters and three and a half new ones. Previously, when new hero teams were created from established groups, creators tended to use all new characters except for one mainstay from the original team (Doom Patrol, X-Men) or to inject one or two new characters into a team with already existing dynamics (Invaders). The first practice often led fans to wonder what became of the other old friends; the second resulted in new characters being “foisted upon” the readers and taking screen time away from the established favorites. NTT gets the mix just right.
And that mix strikes at the heart of the New Teen Titans’ appeal and why they are still popular after all this time—and why subsquent versions have failed to recapture the Titans’ appeal. To illustrate, a personal recollection: I was 16 when this issue hit the stands—the same age as Gar and two or three years younger than Dick, Wally, and Donna. People at that age grow up and see the relationships around them change. They graduate from high school and go off to college, their friends absconding to different schools or trades. It is a scary time—a time of looking back, even as it is a time of looking forward to new friends, new adventures, and new responsibilities.
Perhaps no other series captured the metaphor of that time in a teenager’s life so perfectly. Through the Titans, the reader could hang on to old friends (Dick, Wally, and Donna) while meeting new ones and embrace with confidence the sometimes frightening challenges that lay ahead (challenges that, for the Titans, would include the Fearsome Five, Deathstroke, and Trigon). The Titans’ appeal sprung from the camaraderie, the relationships, generated in childhood and sustained in young adulthood. In this respect, the New Teen Titans were somewhat like the Legion. But whereas the Legion represented a futuristic, fantastic version of teenaged heroes (few members actually left the Legion once they had joined), the Titans appeared to be more grounded in reality. They had endured break-ups, drug addiction, and college woes (Dick had dropped out). They were still searching for their identities (Donna) or coping with dashed sports dreams (Victor). In essence, they connected with what many of their readers were going through at the time.
And with that powerful connection, who needs an original story?
-------------------- The Semi-Great Gildersleeve - writing, super-heroes, and this 'n' that
From: The Stasis Zone | Registered: Jul 2003
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Excellent review! Just one point of clarification, it is revealed later (I think in issue #4) that Raven did indeed go to the JLA first, but they sensed the evil in here and turned her away.
-------------------- Touch the magic...
From: Morganfield, KY | Registered: Jul 2003
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-------------------- The Semi-Great Gildersleeve - writing, super-heroes, and this 'n' that
From: The Stasis Zone | Registered: Jul 2003
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This book marked the first time for me that I was in on the ground floor of a new group. Yes, the Titans had been around before but this was a new start. It was exciting for me to be part of something from the beginning.
I completely agree with your assessment of Vic.
And as a kid, I never once doubted Grant's motivation, but looking back at it, yeah it does seem contrived.
-------------------- Touch the magic...
From: Morganfield, KY | Registered: Jul 2003
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Wow, HWW, that's one hell of a good review. Perceptive, insightful, and even-handed.
I hope it won't be the last non-Legion comic that you Retro Review in detail.
I didn't read this issue until about a year ago, when I bought the first volume of NTT archives. I came into superhero comics during the early 90s, when the Titans were in decline. I was lucky that at the time, I had a really good comic shop that sold back issues at reasonable prices, so I still got to enjoy the NTT in their long-past prime, but the early NTTs were still out of my price range.
I agree in theory that an angry young green man and a happy go lucky young black man would have been refreshing, but I guess since I was introduced to Victor in the later NTTs, after he had become more fully-rounded, I'll always prefer him a little on the gruff side. Interestingly, Perez says that there's a lot of himself in Victor, as well as of Latin and black guys he grew up with in the Bronx.
posted
Thanks, Fanfic Lass. I'm not making any promises for future reviews, but I'd love to continue to review the early Titans issues for awhile, just to see how they developed and how my impressions of them have changed over time.
I was being partly facetious when I said that Vic and Gar should have exchanged personalities. I have no problem with Vic being a somewhat tough and gruff character. But I wish we'd gotten to see a better rounded personality for him in this issue. Wolfman didn't need to give all the Titans equal treatment, but, considering Victor's importance as an African American hero in an industry underrepresented by them, it would have been nice to see something in Vic that challenged preconceived notions.
-------------------- The Semi-Great Gildersleeve - writing, super-heroes, and this 'n' that
From: The Stasis Zone | Registered: Jul 2003
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Great review, HWW! Like FL said, I'd like to see you do a few more of these Titans ones.
What's interesting is how New Teen Titans #1 used all the various superhero tropes, as you point out, but in and of itself became the blueprint for just about every other superhero team in the 1980's, specifically their #1 issue. Almost like Marv & George took all the best introductory issues of comic's past, cherry-picked the best parts, polished into a blueprint and then thereafter everyone used it. Even in the 90's, all of those superhero teams were a Titans/X-Men mash-up.
Also, Raven was such a cool, dynamic character early on in the NTT run. Marv does a great job at using her as a reason for tension between Wally & Dick, who are longtime friends. This immediately makes the reader a little wary of her, to come between these two good friends. It also shows from the get-go that the line-up will not be 'older members' and 'newer members'; they will be mixed up in every way possible.
From: If you don't want my peaches, honey... | Registered: Sep 2003
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I've read every Wolfman/Perez issue of NTT but never in the correct order and there were years between the first one I read and the last.
But one day I really need to sit down and re-read them all in order to get the full magic of what those guys created with this book.
Because even in the jumbled-up, piece-meal order I did read it in - I could tell it was something pretty damn special.
From: Australia | Registered: Dec 2003
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Set
There's not a word yet, for old friends who've just met.
posted
quote:Originally posted by He Who Wanders: I have no problem with Vic being a somewhat tough and gruff character. But I wish we'd gotten to see a better rounded personality for him in this issue. Wolfman didn't need to give all the Titans equal treatment, but, considering Victor's importance as an African American hero in an industry underrepresented by them, it would have been nice to see something in Vic that challenged preconceived notions.
Vic as an athlete, instead of a scientist, bugged me even then.
When a white character has tech-based powers (Tony Stark, Hank Pym, Victor Von Doom, Invisible Lyle) it's because *he invented them.*
When a female character (Janet Van Dyne, Night Girl, She-Hulk) or a black character (Luke Cage, 'Black Goliath,' Invisible Jacques, War Machine) gets their powers from technology or a chemical serum or whatever, entirely too often, it's something that was either *done to them by a white guy* or because they used some white guy's invention.
Granted, Victor's father was black, so it's not like some random white guy made him a cyborg, but it still takes the power out of his own hands and makes him kind of an unwitting participant in his own rise to super-hero-dom. He didn't *choose* to get super-powers, he didn't *choose* to become a super-hero, and he not only didn't develop his own abilities, he wasn't even conscious, having been made a cyborg by his father against his own wishes.
In a vacuum, Cyborg's origin doesn't bug me at all, but in a genre *filled* with female and black characters who are using powers and inventions handed down to them by white guys, yet another under-represented hero being an unwilling participant in his own rebirth as superhero just bugs me.
All that aside, Cyborg remains one of my favorite black characters. He doesn't have some fairy tale origin from an all-black paradise, like T'Challa or Tyroc, he's not 'faux black' like the white haired, blue-eyed, caucasian-facial-structured Ororo, he's not a stereotype like Brother Voodoo or a blaxploitation cliche like Luke Cage used to be (he's come a long way!) and he's not a mid-season replacement for a white character like Steel or Black Goliath, doomed to be backbenched (or killed) when the white dude comes back.
There's a fine line when introducing an under-represented character of thinking too much about it (and losing the character in attempting to serve the 'representation') and not thinking about it at all (leading to 'unfortunate implications' in some cases). Victor might not be some ideal representation, but he's a good character, and has grown to become the tech-savvy sort of individual he was not when introduced.
I remember getting Teen Titans 1 and being very excited to see a mix of new and old characters. Robin, Wonder Girl and Kid Flash never really excited me (I didn't really 'get' Robin until he started calling himself Nightwing), but I was intrigued by Changeling (who I didn't know well) and Raven, Starfire and Cyborg.
Given the nature of the business, the fact that all three of these new Wolfman/Perez characters are still in print after all these years, and haven't gone the way of other 'new creations' (like the new Doom Patrol, with Celsius, Tempest and Negative Woman, or some of the new characters introuced in the first Outsiders line-up, like Geo-Force, Halo and Katana, who struggle to remain relevant, or even in-print) is a testament to their skills.
Registered: Aug 2006
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You're right that characters can become lost when they're seen first and foremost as representations of a group. But Vic still comes off as one dimensional even in the second issue, which I just read. The one bit of originality he displays is when he helps Wonder Girl with a pulled muscle--but even that help comes from Vic's knowledge as an athlete.
I find it interesting that you never "got" Robin. I grew up on the Batman TV show and the Teen Titans cartoon (which featured Robin, Wonder Girl, Kid Flash, and Speedy). Robin was as essential to the Titans as Mick Jagger is to the Stones. More, he's the quintessential teen sidekick. I think he embodies the Teen Titans more than any other single character.
Of course, that's mostly a symbolic role. It doesn't always give him something meaningful to do in a given story.
-------------------- The Semi-Great Gildersleeve - writing, super-heroes, and this 'n' that
From: The Stasis Zone | Registered: Jul 2003
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my take on TAYBM (the angry young black man). It's been a while since I;ve read these stories, but I always got the impression that he was angry because of his then situation. He was a great athlete, but the one thing that he loved was taken away from him...by the hands of his own father. Yeah, TAYYBM thing has been done to death, but his story was I think believable whether he had been black or white.
It took years, even in comic time...for him to come to terms with what happened to him.
Besides, getting Vic also gave us his Grandparents...scene stealers every time they appeared.
From: Turn around... | Registered: Jul 2003
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Set
There's not a word yet, for old friends who've just met.
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quote:Originally posted by He Who Wanders: I find it interesting that you never "got" Robin. I grew up on the Batman TV show and the Teen Titans cartoon (which featured Robin, Wonder Girl, Kid Flash, and Speedy). Robin was as essential to the Titans as Mick Jagger is to the Stones. More, he's the quintessential teen sidekick.
I think it was that very nature that made it hard for me to accept him. He *was* the sidekick to Batman. The quippy peanut gallery to the ultimate terribly serious 'straight man.'
And then he was a Titan, and he was in the very serious 'Batman' role, and Garfield was playing the insouciant 'Robin' role, and my world was all askew.
Once he changed to the Nightwing costume, it was like lead turning into gold, and I saw him as someone who was *not* 'Batman's sidekick' any longer, but a serious young hero who was leading his own team (and had been for years, by that point).
I think that Wolfman/Perez even foreshadowed this, with the annual where Adrian Chase's family is blowed up and Robin shows up at the mobster's door and punches him or whatever.
The mafia guy mocks his short-pants, IIRC, and it felt like a light went on for me. '*This* is why I can't take him seriously. He's still dressing like Robin, Batman's quirky kid flunky, and *he's not that person anymore.*'
Once he was Nightwing, he rapidly became one of my favorite characters. He'd been the leader of the Titans for years, but now it felt real to me. He'd been boinking Starfire for who knows how long, but now he felt like a man, and not a boy.
Yeah, I'm that shallow, that a change of name and costume could change my perception of a character that much...
Registered: Aug 2006
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I don't think you're shallow, Set. I think that's a very astute analysis of Robin and his transformation into Nightwing.
I never had problems accepting Robin as the jokey sidekick of Batman and the serious leader of the Titans. Those were two different roles requiring two different sides of his personality. We all "code shift," if you will, between behaviors that are expected of us when we are among family, friends, co-workers, and strangers.
Also, the Robin of New Teen Titans is older and has mostly outgrown his teen sidekick role, as you point out. But he hadn't outgrown the identity, at least not yet. Growth is a process that takes several years.
It's interesting that when Dick finally did cut the apron strings, he adopted a completely different identity (albeit one borrowed from Bruce's friend, Superman), whereas Wally took over the Flash's identity, effectively becoming his mentor. Yet in NTT # 1, at least, it's Wally who professes to have moved on. If not for the meddling of Raven, he might well have.
-------------------- The Semi-Great Gildersleeve - writing, super-heroes, and this 'n' that
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