TITANS #18: Discussion and Spoilers

[Mel Dyer]

I am hoping this isn't the prelude to a 'Dark Troia Saga', because that is the last thing this comic needs! Furthermore, it's Raven, who's the tragic Titan, haunted by her own dark future ..and how her own teammates might have to kill her, to stop her from destroying the world - that's Raven's deal, and not (ever) Donna's. Seriously...very, very bad direction for the Titans brand! The comic should be finding a clear, totable, catchy justification for its existence, right now, ..and I'm not sure it can, anymore.

I'm not sure writers - ANY writers - know what to do with this team, anymore.

This issue is so far off the mark of what a Titans comic needs to accomplish, it makes me ask myself what do we need the original Titans for, anymore? They aren't the executive class heroes of the Justice League, and they aren't the young, ingénue heroes-of-tomorrow in-training of Teen Titans or Young Justice; so-ooo, ..what exactly are they and why should I care?

Why should you care? Why should any of us care? Yes, we're here to discuss Titans #18, but, I would like to discuss that, also.

Have the original Titans outlived their usefulness? Is it time to pack Troy - Nightwing and (I think) Arsenal already have one - off into her own title and cancel the current comic, ..maybe, for good? Is it really time for them all to go?

[CRaymond]

They’re both tragic characters. One wallows in the terror, the other chooses to move past it.

[Mel Dyer]

They’re both tragic characters. One wallows in the terror, the other chooses to move past it.

Apparently, one is taking a big, codenameless, black and silver swan dive into terror and darkness, ..and I honestly can't see how this moves the ball forward for the Titans. Right up to now, they've been X-Men Lite, the Nice Suicide Squad or a young Doom Patrol or don't know, anymore, but #38 makes them ..the people, who are destined to kill Troia, to save the world! This is a team, without a clear, understandable purpose, and this 'Dark Troia' thing just feels like it's a ruined thing, adrift in the narrative void.

Raymond, I love this team, loved Wolfman and Perez's New Teen Titans, grew up with and love the characters, ..but, after #18, I just don't know where it's going, anymore. It looks very bad, from where I'm standing.

[Doctor Bifrost]

I've made my comments in the Teen Titans Appreciation thread, so I won't repeat them in detail here. They were not, I now realize, very appreciative comments - but I appreciate the Titans as an aspirational idea, not as the currently-published version.

I disliked almost every aspect of the Justice League denigrating and shutting down the Titans, which I found wholly unfair and hypocritical, and thought the Titans should simply not put up with it. I hate what's being done with Donna Troy, where they are keeping the worst aspects from her New 52 origin, and now basically treating her like a child.

And I think DC is setting up the Titans to have such a complicated backstory (with the memory shifts and all) that I can't imagine most writers making effective and coherent use of it. Mainly I suspect they'll just ignore it and treat them like "the pre-Flashpoint Titans we know and love," even though they are actually saddling them with a history and baggage very different from that. They could actually clean it up, using Doomsday Clock, but I doubt they'll bother.

[Mel Dyer]

I think the original Titans - Dick, Donna, Roy, Wally and Garth - have gone the way of Doom Patrol, being a team that does something that other teams, current Teen Titans and Suicide Squad, do better and in a more entertaining way. Yes, I understand they're still powerful, but, they've also become somewhat irrelevant, these days. Furthermore, Cyborg, Raven and Starfire have been stolen, like parts stripped off some old jalopy, and are now used to make other comics, successful - no editor with enough respect for the game-changing New Teen Titans to keep the team together. That's what hurts some of us NTT fans, who remember, when they were DC's answer to the X-Men...

The top of the pile? Not anymore, I think.

The spectre of Trigon, an ancient fictional demogorgon, possessing his enigmatic, elegant, alluring daughter and enslaving the world ..has been replaced by Dark Troia. Apparently, the Titans creative team has decided that Donna Troy will stand in for all of that. If this isn't an indication that DC Comics doesn't know what to do with these characters, anymore, I don't know what does.

At some point, we must ask ourselves why we're reading this comic...if the day of the Titans being a publishing phenom has passed. In the 80s, there was a sense of urgency and relevance in NTT stories - the idea that, should the Justice League ever fall, these guys had to ready to protect, save or avenge ..the world. That sense of urgency that Marv Wolfman's writing gave NTT, that the actions of the Titans have a grave, worldly importance, something that made the comic unique, ..is gone. Are they Suicide Squad Lite or the Slightly Older Titans; who knows what their role is, anymore? Their present state, Dark Troia and the rest of it, is pretty sorry. It's so sorry that I almost wish some opportunistic editor would just cancel the comic and put us all out of our misery.

To my friends from the Wonder Woman forums, Raymond and Bifrost - thanks for supporting this thread and joining the discussion.

[protege]

Well, having read this after not reading the troia saga, i have to agree. The titans, and dick in particular, rolled over like whipped puppies , when the justice league showed up to chastise them. The titans should be the league’s equals by now, instead of the lost generation between the mentors and the kid sidekicks. If they can’t be treated as equals, instead of impetuous young adults, maybe they should go back into retirement. Donna accepts diana’s help, when diana has all but forgotten her, and dick asks bruce if he’s disappointed him. Sheesh. I am curious about what happened to donna, and gnarrk, but i’m not sure i’ll pick this book up again when the team reunites. Just don’t really care anymore.

[Mel Dyer]

Well, having read this after not reading the troia saga, i have to agree. The titans, and dick in particular, rolled over like whipped puppies , when the justice league showed up to chastise them. The titans should be the leagues equals by now, instead if the lost generation between the mentors and the kid sidekicks. If they can’t be treated as equals, instead of impetuous young adults, maybe they should go back into retirement. Donna accepts diana’s help, when diana has all but forgotten her, and dick asks bruce if he’s disappointed him. Sheesh. I am curious about what happened to donna, and gnarrk, but i’m not sure i’ll pick this book up again when the team reunites. Just don’t really care anymore.

I think Donna, Wally, Tempest and Lilith desperately need development, as individual characters - as concepts, narratively speaking. What's so great about any of them, that I should want to read about? What do we need Wally, Donna or Tempest for that we can't get from their mentors? How do they put a new spin on what their mentors are doing? Once we've established all of that, what happens when we put them together on a team? We should be excited about that, I think, ..but we aren't, and therein lies the problem.

Maybe, with Barry Allen roosting in Central City, Wally's a word-travelling speedster hero. Maybe, Wally couldn't wait to get out of Blue Valley and, with that in mind, he has adventures, all over the world. Maybe, it's just the opposite, and he settles down in Blue Valley, with his telekinetic GF, Frances Kane, ..and they launch adventures - smaller-scaled adventures, than Barry's - from there.

If Wonder Woman is like a female Tom Strong or Doc Savage - an adventurer, whose stories play out on a grand stage, like lost civilizations and bizarre dimensions - what does Donna do? Maybe, she's an adventurer, with similar skills and a similar style, but, with a totally different attitude. While Diana averts global and cosmic disasters, maybe, Donna's a 'Wonder' for common people. Maybe, Donna will help you find your lost kid or a brother, who disappeared, overseas. Maybe, she lives in a small town, and you can walk up to Donna and just ask for help, and she'll say, "It's gonna be okay, hon," ..like she used to do.

Lilith needs to be completely redone and restored as the too-cool, Bohemian psychic superhero that she was in the 70s and 80s - female Doctor Strange in bell-bottoms and flip-flops.

Though it seems like DC doesn't do it, anymore, there've been some great back-up series that defined superheroes we still love, today. The Huntress back-up in pre-Crisis Wonder Woman comics, being one of them. That's one way the Titans could be developed individually, while this Titans comic flounders, a little while longer. This title needs that.

[Dred]

I think Donna, Wally, Tempest and Lilith desperately need development, as individual characters - as concepts, narratively speaking. What's so great about any of them, that I should want to read about? What do we need Wally, Donna or Tempest for that we can't get from their mentors? How do they put a new spin on what their mentors are doing? Once we've established all of that, what happens when we put them together on a team? We should be excited about that, I think, ..but we aren't, and therein lies the problem.

Of all the characters to say this about, Wally is the worst possible example. To the point where the opposite of that question is the more pertinent one.

[protege]

I think Donna, Wally, Tempest and Lilith desperately need development, as individual characters - as concepts, narratively speaking. What's so great about any of them, that I should want to read about? What do we need Wally, Donna or Tempest for that we can't get from their mentors? How do they put a new spin on what their mentors are doing? Once we've established all of that, what happens when we put them together on a team? We should be excited about that, I think, ..but we aren't, and therein lies the problem.

Maybe, with Barry Allen roosting in Central City, Wally's a word-travelling speedster hero. Maybe, Wally couldn't wait to get out of Blue Valley and, with that in mind, he has adventures, all over the world. Maybe, it's just the opposite, and he settles down in Blue Valley, with his telekinetic GF, Frances Kane, ..and they launch adventures - smaller-scaled adventures, than Barry's - from there.

If Wonder Woman is like a female Tom Strong or Doc Savage - an adventurer, whose stories play out on a grand stage, like lost civilizations and bizarre dimensions - what does Donna do? Maybe, she's an adventurer, with similar skills and a similar style, but, with a totally different attitude. While Diana averts global and cosmic disasters, maybe, Donna's a 'Wonder' for common people. Maybe, Donna will help you find your lost kid or a brother, who disappeared, overseas. Maybe, she lives in a small town, and you can walk up to Donna and just ask for help, and she'll say, "It's gonna be okay, hon," ..like she used to do.

Lilith needs to be completely redone and restored as the too-cool, Bohemian psychic superhero that she was in the 70s and 80s - female Doctor Strange in bell-bottoms and flip-flops.

Though it seems like DC doesn't do it, anymore, there've been some great back-up series that defined superheroes we still love, today. The Huntress back-up in pre-Crisis Wonder Woman comics, being one of them. That's one way the Titans could be developed individually, while this Titans comic flounders, a little while longer. This title needs that.

Lilith to me, seems like a watered down version of raven, filled with self doubt too much to be taken seriously. I kind of liked where they were going with gnaark- but he’ll never be drveloped as a character outside the titans.

[oasis1313]

I think the Titans book should be cancelled to make way for a new Nightwing title, team-ups or something. Sick of the 60's coming back to haunt me. Are Titans and Teen Titans selling at all anymore?

[Rac7d*]

I think the Titans book should be cancelled to make way for a new Nightwing title, team-ups or something. Sick of the 60's coming back to haunt me. Are Titans and Teen Titans selling at all anymore?

they sell fine
better then cyborg and birds of prey
much bettter and consitent

[WonderScott]

I love the Titans, but this ain't the Titans. <shoulder shrug>

This version of Donna is unrecognizable when you get to the core of who is Donna Troy. (Sorry, had to make the pun - but it's so true a sentiment in this run.)

[Mel Dyer]

Lilith to me, seems like a watered down version of raven, filled with self doubt too much to be taken seriously. I kind of liked where they were going with gnaark- but he’ll never be drveloped as a character outside the titans.

I couldn't agree, more.

All of the originality of Lilith has been undone by this misguided idea of suiting her up in hood and cape, as this truly awful stand-in for Raven. Lilith is soulful, loving, unpretentious, open-hearted and the most Bohemian superheroine in comics, and that's been the character, since the 70s. Putting her in a mask and cape, which is TOTALLY out of character for her, completely extinguishes all of what makes her so idiosyncratic. I just don't recognize her, anymore - a shame, because she's so cool - and, apparently, that's what somebody wanted, when they put her in this hideous Miss Spectre costume.

She isn't Raven. She doesn't need to be.

As for the Titans...still think they're adrift, for now. I look at the Avengers, the Justice League and the X-Men, and the mission is pretty clear. What's the mission for the Titans? Can anyone answer that?

Being 'a family' isn't enough. There's got to be a reason that they're doing what they're doing. I think that, when a writer figures out what that is, we'll have a new golden age for this team, ..and not until.

[WonderNight]

them having that tower sucks, leave that for teen titans. this team should be like the YJ show and be and strike team that deals with threats before they get too big.

[Dred]

I couldn't agree, more.

All of the originality of Lilith has been undone by this misguided idea of suiting her up in hood and cape, as this truly awful stand-in for Raven. Lilith is soulful, loving, unpretentious, open-hearted and the most Bohemian superheroine in comics, and that's been the character, since the 70s. Putting her in a mask and cape, which is TOTALLY out of character for her, completely extinguishes all of what makes her so idiosyncratic. I just don't recognize her, anymore - a shame, because she's so cool - and, apparently, that's what somebody wanted, when they put her in this hideous Miss Spectre costume.

She isn't Raven. She doesn't need to be.

As for the Titans...still think they're adrift, for now. I look at the Avengers, the Justice League and the X-Men, and the mission is pretty clear. What's the mission for the Titans? Can anyone answer that?

Being 'a family' isn't enough. There's got to be a reason that they're doing what they're doing. I think that, when a writer figures out what that is, we'll have a new golden age for this team, ..and not until.

Lilith predates Raven. Raven is the edgier, darker version of her. All the things she does with premonitions and wonky psychic powers getting the team in trouble came long before Wolfman was writing the Titans.

Not that that makes Lilith original since she was just a Marvel Girl/Jean Grey rip off.