Before the 1960s, DC dominated the superhero scene. With characters like Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, they were the establishment company. But things began to change when Marvel came along. With the creative and artistic genius of both Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, along with the modern and in-tune dialogue and writing approach taken by Stan Lee, Marvel seemed modern and more dynamic compared to the aging DC. Teams such as the Avengers and heroes like Spiderman seemed more real, relatable, and interesting compared to the Justice League and other DC heroes. Despite DC’s best efforts to claw back some ground, this trend continued during the 1960s and throughout the 1970s. But in 1980, things suddenly changed. To update DC with the times, writer Marv Wolfman and artist George Perez (both of whom had worked at Marvel) relaunched one of DC’s old titles, the Teen Titans, as The New Teen Titans. In effect, the creative team Marvelised the team by mixing DC’s tradition of great plotting with Marvel’s fantastic history of characterisation and relationships. It turned out to be one of DC’s bestselling titles. While the team included many familiar faces to DC readers, it included a roster of new characters who were given a Marvel-like treatment and became loved by fans...
From 1980 to 1996, the New Teen Titans stood as one of DC’s major and best-selling titles. With somewhere between 200 and 300 individual issues during Marv Wolfman’s long time writing for the Titans, it would be exhausting to look at everything in such detail. Therefore, I think its best to look at a miniseries which defined the title in its prime. Since their creation in 1964, Robin, Wonder Girl, and Kid Flash had always been members of the team. With the arrival of Wolfman and Perez, four new members were introduced, one of whom had encountered the Teen Titans previously. That character was Beast Boy, otherwise known as Changeling. However, the other three heroes were entirely new and with their own unique origin stories – this included Cyborg, Raven, and Starfire. Although present since the first issue, much of their lives before the Titans remained a mystery. And that is where The Tales of the New Teen Titans came in.
Published from July to September 1982, this miniseries written by Wolfman and pencilled by Perez explores the backstories of Cyborg, Raven, Changeling, and Starfire in each of the four respective issues. While some of the details have been mentioned previously, and story details from the mainstream title are conveyed here, this miniseries works as a stand-alone piece. Each of the four issues are inked by a different artist, including Brett Breeding, Pablo Marcos, Gene Day, and Ernie Colon. This miniseries is reprinted in The New Teen Titans Omnibus Volume One
The main background for this miniseries is that the Teen Titans need to take a few days break from crimefighting. They decide to relax in the Grand Canyon. The first few pages show the Titans not as superheroes, but as ordinary young adults. Enjoying one another’s company, the heroes sit down to eat and talk. This may seem minor and entirely irrelevant by today’s standards of stories, but for DC, this seemed different and new. As I said, The New Teen Titans was DC’s attempt to create a Marvel title. A part of doing that with great success was to make the characters come across like real people, with personalities and relationships. Before this, you’d never imagine the Justice League taking a break like this one, where the characters would get on like houses on fire and eat hot dogs. Wolfman sets the scene well and each member of the team is given a panel or two to establish themselves and their personalities before the meat of the first issue begins. For example, Robin appears beginning the campfire, while Wonder Girl collects the wood, Kid Flash looks out for Raven and cooks the food, Raven herself appears awkward in the sunlight, Beast Boy jovially admires both the mountains around him and Starfire, who is relaxing in her summer shorts. That leaves us with Cyborg, a grimmer member of the team who enjoys the attention of the first issue.
The four new characters in the Teen Titans group (and by new I also include Beast Boy here) are memorable and unique compared to other heroes that DC created during the years before 1980. The reason why Cyborg, Raven, Beast Boy, and Starfire are remembered isn’t all to do with plotting and their backstories, but also their characters and how fresh they felt. This fantastic mixture of emotionally strong plotting and exceptional characterisation is present in spades for Cyborg, who tells the team around the campfire about his origin story. The son of two scientists, Vic Stone was a bright boy and his father tried desperately hard to push him towards science as a profession. After all, Vic was a genius. However, Vic never wanted to follow the path he father created for him, and he decides that sports is for him. This is where Wolfman writes some social commentary in Vic’s story. Many of Vic’s friends, who are also black, fall in with a gang and they ask for his help in a fight. Vic experiences race warfare between white and black gangsters, and this disappoints his parents. But on the whole, Vic stays on the path of innocence, but that doesn’t rescue him from his fate. With both of his parents working for STAR Labs on mysterious projects, Vic finds that his father has accidently summoned a deadly creature from another dimension into his lab. Not only does Vic’s mother die, but Vic himself is burnt and heavily injured. His father may send the creature back into its dimension, but the damage is done. Vic should be dead, but thanks to his father’s scientific knowledge, he rebuilds Vic with metals and circuits to create the Cyborg we know today. Vic’s story goes from disappointment to despair as he loathes his half-human half-robot appearance. He loathes his father for what happened to him and his mother. But despite everything, Vic remains on the side of justice and believes that he can use his powers for good to stop the race warfare. This very serious and saddening backstory is broken up well with reactions in the present from other Titans members. Beast Boy intervenes a fair bit with funny dialogue, showing how strong the character bond between he and Cyborg is. But on the whole, Cyborg’s origin feels different from many of the usual DC stories written in that time. Wolfman’s use of race is powerful, and showing Vic from birth onwards and his life makes him a more interesting character. The twists and turns in the plot, with a range of different emotions, make this definitely the most intriguing and emotionally engaging part of the miniseries. Wolfman tells it with drama and a nice positive spin is placed at the end – without the disastrous evident which transformed Vic into Cyborg, he would never have met his best friends in the Teen Titans.
For the second issue, the focus is on Raven. As the most mysterious and potentially important new character of the run, this one is set up to be the most interesting story of the lot. In the early issues of The New Teen Titans run, the heroes forced to fight Trigon, a demon who wanted to destroy Earth and then the whole universe. It’s revealed that Trigon is in fact the father of Raven, and that she was created basically to ensure his insidious power could live on. Haunted by Trigon, Raven awakens in night screaming. The other heroes rush into her tent and that’s when the recollection begins. Raven’s mother was a human being with a love of magic. She once summoned Trigon, who took advantage of her and made her pregnant with Raven. Trigon’s plan was to use Raven, after her birth, to destroy Earth. Raven’s mother was banished by Trigon, but then she was taken in by the people of Azarath, a mystical plane consisting of humans who fled from Trigon. Azar, the cherished leader of Azarath, believed that upon her birth, Raven was to learn her teachings to resist Trigon’s internal influence. Raven had no childhood to look back on – her life has been one long fight against Trigon. But over the years, Trigon’s presence grew greater and he finally confronted Raven months before she left Azarath to meet the Teen Titans.
While that story carries on in the first issues of Wolfman’s run, this backstory fills in many of the blanks. It can often be bogged down by the tiresome world of Azarath, a place full of characters which, although important, feel too boring and uninteresting. Trigon himself appears like a generic bad guy, but his impressive physical appearance and power makes him an interesting threat, especially since his relationship with Raven is so close. As a protagonist, Raven is distant and mysterious, but that’s the way it always should be. Even though Wolfman reveals many details of Raven’s life here, that sense of mystery remains and that’s perfect. The second part deals with more unfamiliar areas of the universe than the first part, but a strong leading character makes it a good story.
The third part pauses much of the tragedy shown in previous parts. This is where Beast Boy shines. As a character who is clearly in love with himself, Beast Boy tells his story with drama, hyperbole, and to some extent, lies. Born as Garfield Logan, his father was also a scientist like Vic Stone’s. However, disaster hit much earlier for Garfield as he caught a deadly illness. In order to cure Garfield, his father tampered with his genetic code. It worked and Garfield was cured, but his skin turned permanently green and he had the power to transform into any creature or animal he wanted. This seems far more comedic compared to the stories of either Cyborg or Raven, but the mood darkens when Beast Boy fails to save his parents from death and he fails to fit in with friends his age. A lot of the story may be familiar to readers of the 1960s Doom Patrol title. After all, Beast Boy was adopted by Steve Dayton, husband of Rita Farr, also known as Elasti-Girl of the Doom Patrol. He was present in that team (back when he was purple) before joining the original Teen Titans. Therefore, Beast Boy isn’t a new character, but Wolfman has updated him by enhancing his wacky but friendly character, and his love of women. Wolfman then writes about Beast Boy’s first solo outing as a hero, where he fights a villain known as the Arsenal, a kitted out foe who once took on the Doom Patrol. This villain, however, is only using the mask of that villain. The man inside is revealed to be a previous foster-parent of Garfield who used to abuse him. It’s a fairly anticlimactic reveal, especially since the character is barely shown in the story before. Nevertheless, Beast Boy’s story works because of it’s a mixture of humour and grimness. Beast Boy’s storytelling is flawless here, especially since his dialogue doesn’t often reflect reality. While he talks about his fame and money, it’s shown by Perez’s art that he failed to make any money at all. You’ve got to love an untrustworthy narrator.
For the final issue, it’s Starfire’s turn. Her whole world has been defined by her home planet Tamaran, and her sister Komand’r. As a daughter of the King of Tamaran,
Starfire is proclaimed a Princess and made successor to the throne. Her sister, Komand’r, hates her immensely because of this. Her hatred for her younger sister is incredibly excessive and often unbelievably so. Starfire’s pets are killed by Komand’r, and she tries whenever she can to bully or (at times) kill Starfire. For some reason, the parents don’t seem to notice any of that until Komand’r is banished by the Warlords of Tamaran for brutality and her lust for destruction. From there, life seems quiet until alien warships invade Tamaran. It turns out that Komand’r not only left the world, but she revealed all the planet’s secrets to these alien invaders. In order to stop the war, Starfire is handed over to the aliens. It’s then revealed that Komand’r is the leader of these aliens, and she uses her power to torture Starfire and make her life a misery. Starfire’s relationship with her sister does feel a bit cliched. It just feels far too excessive to believe really, but I guess it does contrast well with the heavenly appearance of Tamaran. Throughout, we witness Starfire resist the urge to kill. She has several opportunities throughout to kill her sister, but none of them are taken. It makes her stand out as an innocent, but often novice, hero. The story leads right from her escape from alien captivity to her arrival on Earth. While Starfire’s origin has the same amount of drama and despair as the stories of Cyborg and Raven, I just think it fails to connect in the same way. It may be because Komand’r is a pretty sorry excuse for a villain. She may be cruel, but it feels so unnecessary and pointless. The fourth issue works because, once again, there are outside voices present. Dick Grayson as Robin is a big part of Starfire’s life, so he is a voice of reassurance and understanding here. But overall, the story isn’t a bad one and it makes us more familiar with Starfire as a character.
Naturally, the four origin stories take up the vast majority of time here, but often the scenes away from the past and more on the present can be even more enjoyable. It should be remembered that the Titans are taking time away from their heroic jobs to relax. This explanations why they are on a hiking trip, but it’s also interesting to see these characters converse like real friends. They eat hot dogs, they plans their break with different activities, and they spend time just having fun. These moments are made even more powerful by the fact that the characters are likable and realistic. Some like Raven may feel detached to some extent, but others like Kid Flash ensure that she isn’t ignored. In short, everyone (bar Wonder Girl) has a few moments throughout the four issues which makes for fun reading. Wolfman writes these characters so you can care about them, and it comes across excellently. I just wish there was more of it during the story. The New Teen Titans is remembered because of its great cast and their relationships with one another. While there is plenty of that in the main title, some of it here would have been nice.
While Robin, Kid Flash, and Wonder Girl aren’t the main focus of this miniseries in any way, they do have useful roles here. Firstly, Robin acts as the glue that binds the team together. The fourth issue ends perfectly with all the heroes giving a toast to the Titans teams, proud of their friendships. Robin also is important for Starfire, since their relationship (which develops further in the run) begins in these early years. Secondly, Kid Flash is important here not just for his extremely quick journeys to the supermarket and back for more food, but also for his personal support and care for Raven. He is important for the second issue in that regard. As for Wonder Girl, she is something of an outlier. During Wolfman’s run, Wonder Girl is often a character of complete mystery. Her origin and real parents remain disguised for the best part of a decade, and many good stories focus primarily on her (such as New Teen Titans (vol 1) 38, and New Titans 50-54). However, she has little to do here aside from deliver moral and friendly support to others. Wonder Girl is the only character here who could have been used better, but at least Robin and Kid Flash had some kind of purpose.
Visually, the miniseries is amazing. George Perez defined The New Teen Titans title for much of the 1980s. His realistic style is great, but it’s aided by some of the most creative panel breakdowns and storytelling I’ve ever seen. Compared to some of the previous DC storytellers (barring Neal Adams, Jim Aparo and a few others), Perez makes each and every page special and memorable. All the inkers do a great job with the pencils given, even though Ernie Colon is probably the weakest as some details appear missing. Nonetheless, Wolfman’s writing is brought to life wonderfully by Perez and it makes the miniseries even more memorable.
VERDICT
Overall, The Tales of the New Teen Titans is only just four of the hundreds of issues written by Marv Wolfman during this excellent run. But I think he and Perez capture what made the title work here. While much of the plotting isn’t too dissimilar to previous DC stories, it’s the characters and their relationships which make the stories great. The Cyborg story is easily my favourite – it feels relevant, fresh, and easy to be emotionally drawn to. The Raven tale – despite some of its pretentiousness – conveys a powerful father-daughter relationship with huge drama. Beast Boy’s story is mostly good fun. Meanwhile, the Starfire is probably the weakest due to a dreary villain and the dull royal setting. That being said, Starfire grows as a character and seeing the relationships between the heroes at the end is perfect.
Next Week: The Demon: Rise The Demon Etrigan (The Demon 1-8). Written and pencilled by Jack Kirby, with inks by Mike Royer.
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