Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities Oh Yeah, That Forum: The Titans The Titan du jour!

Somewhere in the back of my head is a fanfic solo-series about Duela and her previously unknown twin sister Duecy, teaming up as various supervillains 'daughters,' to fight crime.

As Ivy's Daughter, she'll have wooden composite armor and a thorny whip that administers a paralytic curare derivative, as well as pollen grenades that cause severe allergic reactions in others.

As Freeze's Daughter, she'll wear clunky armor that includes 'frost-throwers' that spray people with a quick-freezing solution of water and some unknown chemical agent that she 'acquired' from police lockup after a raid on one of Mr. Freeze's laboratories.

She'd have a secondary character who works at the Gotham PD and maintains the evidence locker, who allows 'his girlfriend' to sneak into the locker and admire the cool super-villain tech they capture, unaware that his ladyfriend admirer is none other than Duela Dent, using him to learn how to replicate various super-villains gear for her own ever-changing series of costumed identities!

Duela is such a tragically underused character!

And, really, given how the Joker has evolved over the last decade or so, one that no longer has a real place in the DCU. Can you imagine someone masquerading as 'Joker's Daughter' these days and not ending up dead?

The Joker's not quite the 'Clown Prince of Crime' he used to be...

Original Duela was the closest thing we had to a Titans Marlena Dietrich. They should never have tried to "improve" her.

hey whos next? I am hoping for the following Titans: Bumblebee, Golden Eagle, Bat-Girl/Flamebird....

working on it ... (since I seem to have taken over this thread ... power corrupts HAHAHAHA!)

I'd like to let Duela run for a few days 'cause I know there are lots of fans out there.

.. and then I'd like at least two of your suggestions on here in the very near future!!

So he can fly. And he cries a lot.

He could get a job as a mourner at funerals, with the angel motif and all.

Grife, at least all his weeping served to highlight how strong the Titans women were!

I vote for the neglected Titans women! Kole (especially Kole), Bumblebee, Flamebird, Mirage!

And I loved Duela as the crafty daughter of Two-Face. The one who hid her identity from even Dick Grayson, and came up with all those awesome gadgets. She rocked.

Catch-up:

Raven: Like the compassion, but was annoyed at the self-pitying moments. It was understandable, though, given her past. I prefer the current, more stable Raven now. Cartoon Raven is still the best.

Jesse Quick: Liked her in JSA, but not quite a fave.Her rapport with Hourman and with Damage was great, though, and a nice nod to their past history.

Flash (Wally): First exposure was also as a Justice Leaguer in Giffen's Justice League Europe. Loved him there as a hero who was growing into his role. Loved him in Morrison's League too. Reading him as Kid Flash is weird, but also shows how much he'd grown.

Damage: Liked him better as the guy with the attitude in JSA. I usually hate when tragic events happen to heroes just cause, but with Damage it was realistic. I always felt it was a waste to off one of the JSAers with unique powers, when the team is so full of generic strongman types...

More catch up:

Danny Chase - he was snotty, but it made sense. He was a smart, talented kid after all. He did grow a bit, though - particularly in the recently-released Games. Still, he was hard to like. I think that was the intent right?

Power Boy - meh. Creepy stalker vibe was annoying. Understandable, but still annoying.

Miss Martian - adorable, and one of the few "pure" heroes. Pure in the sense that she really wanted to do good; she wasn't forced into it, not in it for the money or the fame, and she had little emotional baggage. Hate the thought of her being Sun Girl's future slave.

Dick Grayson - another hero who really grew into his role. Even though he's nearly perfect, it's hard to "hate" him because he's such a nice guy.

Rose Wilson - salvaged from the scrappy heap! Glad she's back, she hates her dad (who deserves it), and is now her own woman.

Argent - her character growth was believable, and she's awesome powerful so I am now a lifelong fan. I hate her new costume, though. Bring back the old one!

Tempest - another fave (Roy is the only one of the original 5 I dislike). His issues with father figure Aquaman were interesting. His death is one of those I mourn most.

I never got Azrael. Yeah, you can fly. So can Starfire. *And* she's super-strong. *And* she can shoot energy beams. *And* she'd look better than you do in that ridiculous outfit!

Wolfman/Perez run on the Titans introduced some rich backgrounds for Kory and Raven (and, potentially, Victor, although they never tapped that well), but holy crap, were some of the later characters pulled out of someone's nether regions...

Kole's parents gave her the power to make crystal and turned themselves into bugs? She was captured by gods and used to make pretty stuff for them? Azrael is an amnesiac alien that looks like an angel and acts like a chump? Oy. I can get better character ideas from They Fight Crime!

Back away from the china cat, when designing new Titans, guys!

Duela still rocks.

A meeting between her and the more modern interpretation of the Joker could be intense.

Kole's origin I can forgive, since she was created to die in Crisis. (Argh!)

I think Wolfman/Perez skimped on her origin AND her characterization in the Titans comic. She was unsure of herself and somewhat weepy. But boy, did they ever pour it on in Crisis itself! She was confident, optimistic, and powerful. She stopped Black Adam from beating up Dove and Robotman by turning him into crystal. Heck, she had so many moments I thought she was a Titans mainstay (I was unfamiliar with the team then).

I even liked her costume, though it was decidedly impractical (and must have been an awful pain to draw).

For that matter, Azrael wasn't awful in Crisis either. He never cried, not once (no, Pariah landed that role in Crisis).

Powers-wise, though, anyone can mop the floor with Azrael...

Whatever happened to Duela Dent:



Funny her waist looks trim ...

Kole is one of my favorite Titans. I still think of her as one of the main Titans despite her short tenure. And I've made up my own origin for her, something about her being some sort of mythological character the Titans of Myth were enslaving .... none of this mutant and kidnapped to the Titans of Myth realms.

*Keep it simple* when creating origins for new Titans. and drop the China Cat.

Maybe she's really Barbara Gordon ??? Or BatMan ??

In that last encounter, Duela was testing out a new formula that allowed her to temporarily assume the identity of 'Clayface's Daughter.'

Sbe hadn't worked the kinks out, hence the saggy jowls and appearance of being older than Dick.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it!

(And yeah, Kole was awesome. I love that power-set, and it seems to always be underused in comics. DC had Crystal Kid and Kole, and Marvel had Krystalin, from X-Men 2099, but none of them really got the kind of play that the dozens of visually/thematically-similar ice-creating characters seemed to get.)

Duela Dent:

Duela is Bob Rozakis's greatest gift to the world of comics. He had many. Rozakis was always more of a fan than a serious writer. His stories were crazy and fun, but frequently had major holes in them. That was just fine for the 12 year old me who eagerly bought all the issues of Duela's introduction in Batman Family and Teen Titans off spinner racks.

The holes and questions Rozakis left in Duela's origin followed her through all of her subsequent appearances in the DC universe. Every attempt to write her off failed. She always managed to make some bizarre cameo a few years later. Every attempt to give her an origin that made sense failed. Hero? Villain? Lunatic? Cypher? No matter where she appeared she always brought a sense of mystery and fun. I predict that her current state of death won't last. She will appear somewhere and somehow in the post Multiversity DC universe. Any writer who tries to make her a serious hero will be missing the entire point.

Ice vs. crystal, hmmm. I'm no scientist, so I wonder what the advantages of one versus the other are? Crystal has usually been depicted as having abilities to refract and focus light; and I guess it's advantage over ice is that when you use crystal to carry bystanders, you don't have to worry about giving them frostbite...

Todays a Double Du Jour ... or ... DU JOUR DOUBLE

<span style="font-size: 24px;">KOLE</span>



Since he's being discussed already.

She's now the center of attention of three of the the four Titans threads ... (besides the top featured two. )

AND ...

<span style="font-size: 24px;">GOLDEN EAGLE </span>

Charlie Frickin Parker!



Who starred in the very last Titans Comic I bought 'Secret Files and Origins Teen Titans' I think from 1989.

Catching up...

Aquagirl - LOVE! Especially her costume/look. I read Crisis before I became a Titans fan though so I've probably found it easier to make peace with her death there than some.

Azrael - While not exactly a *fan* of this character, I do think he has a LOT of potential. He has a great 'look' for one thing and all sorts of things could be done with his powers/story. I'd actually really love to see this character come back toughened up. (Or I would have if I was still reading DC Comics and thought that managament there cared one iota about this era and its characters rather than the Young Justice-ification of the Titans universe.)

Duela Dent - A lot of fun. I'm probably not as much a fan of her as I am nearly all her 70s teammates but that could just be because I've unfortunately missed most of her stories.

Kole - LOVE! I've made more comments about her in her outfit thread but this is a character that I was formerly at peace with being gone, but would now love to read new stories about again. It's a shame that I don't see a place for her at DC ever again though.

Golden Eagle - My first exposure to him was the issue he died in and man was it a great one! Titans Hunt was a really excellent storyline IMO! (With the exception of that saggy Team Titans focused/War of the Gods interfered middle.) Even though I'd never seen him before my first thought was - sucks to lose such an awesome looking character. (I am a big fan of George Perez-style busy costumes, if you can't tell.) He's probably the least-developed of all the 70s Titans but he has potential. I really need to read that run of Hawkman that he appeared in!

Wow, just realized I forgot to comment on Duela.

I loved her as the daughter of Two-Face who was crafty enough to make Dick Grayson really wonder at her identity. I think she should have been kept that way, but maybe make it ambiguous as to whose daughter she really is.

Kole - I agree with Blacula in that Kole seemed to represent a "purer" time. She was just so... so... innocent! Even her wanting Jericho to make love to her was innocent - she saw it as an ultimate expression of love. Poor lovestruck Kole. Yet, she was innocent (and slightly naive) without being weak. If they could find a way to bring her back, that would be great.

Golden Eagle - also love the visuals. Not really a fan of his personality as written in his early Titans' appearances. Say, wasn't the poor guy turned into Forerunner's sex slave briefly? Man...

Yeah, that's, of all the strange things to happen to former Teen Titans, near the top of the list.

I'm really enjoying the return of <span style="font-size: 24px;">FLAMEBIRD</span> in the pages of Batwoman!





I was also introduced to her in ... Secret Origins Annual 1989.

I love Bette. Whether the writer is choosing to portray her as pestering or competent, I've always been charmed by her earnestness (and crush on Dick). I really like the concept of an average girl wanting real bad to be "one of the super-heroes" and glad we're finally seeing more of Bette's efforts to make that dream come true in Batwoman.

My introduction to her, as well as many past Titans, was in the JLA/Titans mini-series in the late 90s. Phil Jiminez's pencils and her tennis scene made her look a lot of fun.

As a catch up, I can't say I know much about Kole or Golden Eagle. I think Kole's a great visual and her brief and tragic heroic career definitely makes you sympathize and I like her well enough for it. Golden Eagle, like most winged characters, I'm not fully interested in for whatever reason. Whoops.

Golden Eagle suffered, I think, from his association with Hawkman, who may or may not be an Egyptian alien reincarnated police officer this month, and makes my brain hurt to even think about.

I don't understand how the Stargate movie, all about aliens in ancient Egypt, could be so freaking awesome, and Hawkman (and offshoot characters like Golden Eagle) could be so blah.

Power Girl has a crazy stupid variable origin, too, but at least she has enormous chesticles to distract the reader from how little she makes sense... If Golden Eagle wore assless chaps or something, nobody would care if he made sense.

If Golden Eagle wore assless chaps, he'd never get around to heroing because everyone would make him a sex slave!

As for Bette, I fell in love with her while reading JLA/Titans too. Glad she was one of the obscure characters to benefit from recent years. Her climb to being taken seriously as a hero was fun to follow, and goes to show that determination and spirit count for as much as natural powers do!