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

The introduction to Betty Kane's first appearance in 1961 says it all, I guess:

"Criminals beware! A new crime-fighter is coming your way! You thought you had trouble battling Batman and Robin -- You thought you had to be wary of Batwoman -- but wait till you come up against a pretty teen-ager! You better scram -- take it on the lam -- because here comes Bat-Girl!"

From the same issue:

Betty: How am I doing, Robin?

Dick: Not bad -- for a girl!

Betty: Dick!

Dick: What?

Betty: Never mind.

There's a reason why he was called "Dick".

He certainly went through the ladies ... even the 6' Tamaranean warrior who can blast holes through concrete.

I like the costume on Flamebird in that top picture.

Other than that, I got nuthin.'

After a certain number of them, all the line-swinging bat-peep spin-offs all turn into a blur, for me. Spoiler, Damien, whichever Robin we're up to, etc. Yawn.

I like Nightwing. Everyone else, Batman, Batwoman, Batwing, Batgirl, Bat-Boy, Bat-Toddler, Bat-Zygote, Bat-The-Gleam-in-the-Milkman's-Eye, Robin, Red Robin, Red Rage Robin, Yellow Fear Robin, can all go die in a fire.

Bette was recently ousted from Batwoman's tutelage ....

Batwoman told her something like "this is just a hobby for you, you're not even fighting for anything."

Which is exactly why I like Bette. Can't a girl just want to be a superhero because it's the right thing to do and she's awesome and athletically gifted ?

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






I actually really like Conner! I;ve never been a fan of the big three ...

Catching up -

* Flamebird: Love her! So great to see her getting some spotlight over the last couple years after the decades she spent in limbo. Totally agree about her fun-loving, fighting-crime-for-the-fun-of-it (and to attract Dick!) nature being the qualities that make her great. Making her all grim and gritty like the rest of the Bat-family would be a disaster IMO.

* Superboy: Loved his introduction and he had a great solo series back in the day. But hate him as a Titan. Super-characters should be kept OUT of the Titans IMO. I hated when Matrix-Supergirl was a member too. His period with the Titans ruined this character for me actually. He was one of my faves once upon a time - Geoff Johns made him a character I would not miss one iota if he were to be killed off.

Superboy grew up too fast. I liked his solo stuff, and loved his time in Young Justice, but, as a Titan, he got a little too serious (probably as a side-effect of how 'Teen Titans' seems synonomous with misery and tragedy, lately).

I sort of think of the scrawny kid in the tights-and-jacket and the bulky young adult in the jeans and t-shirt as two different characters.

I'm used to characters changing outfits, but Conner's changed outfits, powersets, personality *and* body-type, and it's all a little much. The difficulty is that I like some aspects of *both* of these stages of Conner's evolution as a character...

hmm this 'Titans Connor' seems to have been very different or have had some stuff happen to him. I'm curious about the polarity now!

I am more interested in him as a clone and having most of the super powers than i've been interested in anything super, bat, or wonder in a long time. Conner seems the most relatable and understandable IMO.


I liked him in the Legion too. I'm also curious about the cartoon superboys who seem to have anger management problems.

my old avatar:

And because she looks awesome in skintight clothes!

Re Connor, I iked the teen stage where he was going through growing pains. He was more mature than Bart then, but still very much a teen I could relate to.

The much requested:
<span style="font-size: 24px;">BUMBLEBEE</span>

I prefer Bumblebee full sized and with Mal. She should be a major player in the DC universe. How do we make that happen?

One of my absolute fave DC characters and HELL YES to wanting her full-sized and back with Mal again!

I adore the Perez version of her outfit and wish she would go back to that rather than the unexciting (though still kinda cute) Teen Titans Go! one or the ugly, Queen Bee retread look she's sporting in that Doom Patrol pic.

She totally could (and should!) be a major player in the DCU too. She's DC's FIRST black female hero! (Mal is only beaten as DC's first black male hero by Vykin of the Forever People who debuted a month or two before him I think.)

I gave up on Giffen's Doom Patrol so I'm not sure what he did with her there, but Geoff Johns seems to be a fan so hopefully he'll do something with her (and her husband) down the line somewhere.

<-------- still can't believe Mal & Karen survived their fairly prominent roles in Infinite Crisis! I read every issue of that series with a tissue handy, ready for their inevitable killing - and it never came! Such a relief!

Bumblebee with her take-charge kick-ass attitude was one of my favorite adapted characters in the Teen Titans cartoon. The comic book version, I'm less familiar with, but I liked her in the old days, long before the Doom Patrol 'stuck at six inches' stuff. (Who said every member of the Doom Patrol had to have something wrong with them? Elasti-Girl didn't have anything wrong with her!)

I never much cared for any iteration of Mal, 'though.

Dead to me.

I j'adore Karen, as is well known.

I've been thinking about Donna Troy quite a bit lately. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that, I guess.

For a character of perpetually uncertain origin (not that that really means all that much) and sometimes nebulous relationship to her 'mentor', she sure leaves a hole, at least for me.

Whereas Diana is manifestly 'touched' by Athena (or was till this fathered by Zeus business), Donna, I feel, could well have been especially gifted by Hestia, goddess of the hearth. Oh, she's still a warrior (though whenever she says she is, I kind of cringe)- but I think the more central trait of her character is that of creating connections with people. She's the kind of character that will make of whoever surrounds her a family.

Which isn't a thing to be sneezed at. In fact, what if Amanda Waller recognized this trait and exploited it by recruiting Donna for a new Secret Six or a less-death filled group than the Suicide Squad?

She shares this trait with Dick Grayson- a similarity that makes them more sibling-like than most brothers and sisters.

Nurture has long been considered primarily feminine. Is that why it is discounted so? Could a super-strong woman who flies and can take out 99.999%, but is at heart a nurturer not still be an effective heroine?

I wonder...

...and I agree. That was a beautiful post, Todd, and it makes me miss Donna more than ever.

Demeter is more of a fertility / agriculture / nature / seasons sort of diety, with Hestia being the (woefully underappreciated!) goddess of hearth and home, IIRC.

Donna did always seem to be very much the 'heart' of the team (and Dick the brain, not necessarily in the 'smart' sense, but in the one that provides direction). (It was also cool that she was the 'paragon' or powerhouse of the team, the flying brick, usually occupied by a Superman-like figure.)

She had a special relationship with Dick (that transcended romantic, as you say, more like siblings, which is wicked rare for a comic book relationship between a non-related male and female character, to the point that some writers can't even write *actual* brothers and sisters without throwing in dubious romantic subtext...).

She had a powerful friendship with Kory, and, passed the 'test' of talking to Kory about stuff other than guys.

She had a bit of a big sister vibe with Garfield, and, back in the pre-Wolfman/Perez day, with Wally (who would flirt with her, but it was never taken seriously).

With her mystical background, and her extremely empathic nature, she would have been a natural to become good friends with both Raven and Cyborg, but, IMO, the appearance of he-who-shall-not-be-named in her life, sidelined her from being as well-integrated into the team as she could have been.

One thing that struck me soon after the introduction of Cassie Sandmark, the second Wonder Girl, was how utterly irreplaceable Donna was, in personality and nature. I've come to accept a new Robin, a new Superboy, a new Speedy, a new Kid Flash, even, begrudgingly, a new Aqualad, but every time I see Cassie, I am struck instead by how much she fails (for me, anyway) to live up to Donna's role and legacy as Wonder Girl.

I never understood why DC couldn't just leave Donna's Wolfman/Perez origin as-is. There was nothing wrong with it, for crying out loud.

I enjoyed the Titans cartoon quite a lot, but still felt like there was something missing without Wonder Girl there.

Buy the company.

Bumblebee is awesome in Tiny Titans. Once you've read her there, Mal is yesterday's news. She BELONGS with Plasmus, darn it!

(Though I think my kids will seriously flip out when they "graduate" to older books and find out that Plasmus is evil and that he and bumblebee aren't a couple)