How do you see the Titans?

[SiegePerilous02]

The issue faced by the Titans and pretty much every younger hero is that they will never be allowed to truly grow up.

They will never be allowed to become the true mentors and heroes of earth because for that to happen...

Batman, Superman, etc. will all have to grow old. And DC refuses to let that happen. DC refuses to have a Batman/Superman in their forties or fifties except in elseworld titles.

I honestly would have so much more respect for DC if they allowed time to truly pass.

We were in a good place prior to the N52 I thought. 3rd Generation characters (Tim, Cassie, Connor, Bart) were all coming into their own. They were all starting to reach that Nightwing level of Graduation.

But that means Bruce, Clark, and Diana are getting older. That cannot happen.

The only way for the Titans to matter is for DC to let time matter and retire their older heroes.

I'm a millenial. Batman/Superman/Wonder Woman are not my heroes...they're my mentors. They're my legends. My heroes are Nightwing, Red Robin, Wonder Girl, Superboy, Starfire, Arsenal etc.

Those are my heroes that I want to see grow...but I never will. Its bittersweet.

I can empathize a bit with the frustration, but DC has no incentive to age up and retire the big name heroes. It's not the fault of those characters or their fans that the Titans aren't working. They can find a way to make them matter without getting rid of the old heroes, especially as their is no endgame to progress towards as these stories are designed to be published indefinitely. And especially since those characters, despite how old they are, are always new to somebody. I'm a millennial too, and Batman was already 50+ years old when I first "met" him.

Diana in particular shouldn't be aged up and retired now of all times. If she is as ostensibly as important as the other two members of the Trinity, she and her world should be utilized more because she has a LOT of catching up to do compared to them. Retiring her and replacing her with someone like Donna Troy, who has spent more time out of her franchise than in it, wouldn't be the wisest move on DC's part. Especially not with Donna as the husk she is now.

[adrikito]

I see his members like the New Justice League generation...

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

Justie League can easily be 20 people and thus include both mutiple people familiar with said monster and Superman.

Who else besides a member of the Titans would be familiar with Trigon or Deathstroke? The latter once took out a whole squadron of Leaguers by himself. In all fairness, he's also taken out the Titans before in Judas Contract, but it just goes to show that the League isn't necessarily the "best" solution to a problem. And Trigon is easily more powerful than Superman.

A lot of people ITT are trying to defend the Titans by saying that other "superhero" teams are also redundant, but that's not true. The Avengers protect the planet from conquerors and destroyers. The X-Men ARE different, they are specifically meant to protect mutants from humans and vice versa. They also protect the planet, but they have a political and social bent to them that helps them stand apart.

The same is true with the JL and the Suicide Squad. The JL is the best of the best heroes working together to protect the Earth. The Squad is a group of supervillains doing Waller's dirty work in exchange for reduced prison senses. It would make no sense for members of the Squad to be JL members (although Harley is probably going to become a JL member one day). The Squad can be involved in more morally suspect stuff that we'd never accept from the JL. You can have the SS kill civilians, betray each other, and basically just be a-holes without it getting repetitive.

But the Titans don't have that right now. They ARE at the moment, just the Junior Justice League. Not important enough to handle the big threats like Darkseid or follow up on the Rebirth plotlines. They're not young enough so that you can do the whole "figuring out what heroes they want to be" like the TT. They should already know exactly what they want to be, Dick has already decided he wants to be his own man with the Nightwing identity. Personally I'd have them handle the more down to earth matters. I'd have them get involved with politics because they're young and not afraid to upset the status quo like the League tries to avoid doing.

The whole redundancy argument still runs into the same problem once we consider all of the other teams in the Marvel and DC Universes. In DC, there's the Doom Patrol, Shadowpact, the Outsiders, Challengers of the Unknown, Justice Society, Birds of Prey, Metal Men, etc. At Marvel, there's still the Fantastic Four, Alpha Flight, Defenders, Invaders, Exiles, X-Force (and all other X-Men spin off teams), Champions, etc. You can't say the Titans are what push the envelope of redundancy when there are like 20 other teams in the DCU that are less famous and with less of a defined history.

[Trey Strain]

The books trying to beat each other probably wouldn't be in DC's best interests. They would obviously want fans picking up both, not to choose the Titans over JL. And it would just invite more JL comparisons, which is the last thing the property needs.

If you're going to write a comic for DC, then of course you should try to write DC's best comic. And if the readers think one comic is going to be better than yours, then that's the one you should watch.

The problem isn't a writer trying to be the best writer. That's exactly what the writers should do. The problem is DC saying, "This one is the A comic, and that one is the B comic." And writers and readers going along with that stuff, which has failed every time it's been attempted. If DC tells a writer that his title will be the B comic, then the writer should think, "Yeah, hold your breath while I write it that way."

[josai21]

I can empathize a bit with the frustration, but DC has no incentive to age up and retire the big name heroes. It's not the fault of those characters or their fans that the Titans aren't working. They can find a way to make them matter without getting rid of the old heroes, especially as their is no endgame to progress towards as these stories are designed to be published indefinitely. And especially since those characters, despite how old they are, are always new to somebody. I'm a millennial too, and Batman was already 50+ years old when I first "met" him.

Diana in particular shouldn't be aged up and retired now of all times. If she is as ostensibly as important as the other two members of the Trinity, she and her world should be utilized more because she has a LOT of catching up to do compared to them. Retiring her and replacing her with someone like Donna Troy, who has spent more time out of her franchise than in it, wouldn't be the wisest move on DC's part. Especially not with Donna as the husk she is now.

I agree with you on Diana actually. As an Immortal, I'd actually say she should be a permanent member of the league.

[9th.]

The issue faced by the Titans and pretty much every younger hero is that they will never be allowed to truly grow up.

They will never be allowed to become the true mentors and heroes of earth because for that to happen...

Batman, Superman, etc. will all have to grow old. And DC refuses to let that happen. DC refuses to have a Batman/Superman in their forties or fifties except in elseworld titles.

I honestly would have so much more respect for DC if they allowed time to truly pass.

We were in a good place prior to the N52 I thought. 3rd Generation characters (Tim, Cassie, Connor, Bart) were all coming into their own. They were all starting to reach that Nightwing level of Graduation.

But that means Bruce, Clark, and Diana are getting older. That cannot happen.

The only way for the Titans to matter is for DC to let time matter and retire their older heroes.

I'm a millenial. Batman/Superman/Wonder Woman are not my heroes...they're my mentors. They're my legends. My heroes are Nightwing, Red Robin, Wonder Girl, Superboy, Starfire, Arsenal etc.

Those are my heroes that I want to see grow...but I never will. Its bittersweet.

And there you have it

[Trey Strain]

Comics characters not aging isn't a bad thing. It's a good thing.

Showing characters aging out and being replaced by younger ones might seem "cool," but what if the new ones don't go over as well as the old ones? Then it's, "Oops! Now what'll we do?

Remember, we're talking about an industry that can't even kill a villain and make it stick.

Maybe DC should bring back imaginary stories, where people who want to see that can see it.

[Aahz]

no team in the DCU is on the same level as the Justice League. not even the JSA. it doesn't mean the Titans are superfluous. it's just that up until the first Avengers movie, the Justice League was arguably the most iconic/historic superhero team in comics. but the Titans have always seemed special because unlike any other DC team, they really feel like a family. i think many of us have those friends you have known all or most of your life that you consider family. that's the Titans. all the other teams seem like co-workers. i can't imagine any other team making a group hug an appropriate way to celebrate. but for some reason i wouldn't bat an eye if Dick, Donna, Roy, Wally, Garth, etc. hugged it out.

I Would actually claim that the JSA feels much more like a family than the Titans. The Titans feels at best like bunch of old friends and even that isn't true for any incarnation.

When it comes to the level, I agree they can not be on the Level of the main Justice League but they should be closer than like they are usually written now. At the moment it feels like Titans are not even on the level of Suicide Squad, Outlaws and Gotham Knights (but probably still above Birds of Prey) and the Super Sons seem also more competent as the Teen Titans.

[SiegePerilous02]

The whole redundancy argument still runs into the same problem once we consider all of the other teams in the Marvel and DC Universes. In DC, there's the Doom Patrol, Shadowpact, the Outsiders, Challengers of the Unknown, Justice Society, Birds of Prey, Metal Men, etc. At Marvel, there's still the Fantastic Four, Alpha Flight, Defenders, Invaders, Exiles, X-Force (and all other X-Men spin off teams), Champions, etc. You can't say the Titans are what push the envelope of redundancy when there are like 20 other teams in the DCU that are less famous and with less of a defined history.

The thing is, all the major teams you mentioned have a niche that makes them unique from the League (the "freaks" who handle the really out there ****, the mystical team, the all female vigilante team, the team of A.Is, etc), and don't have the former sidekicks of the League at the forefront. The Justice Society's problems could be solved by going back to Earth-2 where they and the League wouldn't step on each other's toes. The X-Men and their spin-offs aren't filled with former sidekicks of Captain America, Thor and Iron-Man. The less famous teams with less defined histories also have less expectations heaped onto them because they weren't red hot like the Titans used to be.

If you're going to write a comic for DC, then of course you should try to write DC's best comic. And if the readers think one comic is going to be better than yours, then that's the one you should watch.

The problem isn't a writer trying to be the best writer. That's exactly what the writers should do. The problem is DC saying, "This one is the A comic, and that one is the B comic." And writers and readers going along with that stuff, which has failed every time it's been attempted. If DC tells a writer that his title will be the B comic, then the writer should think, "Yeah, hold your breath while I write it that way."

You shouldn't try to write DC's best comic, you should write the best story you can and shape a book that you would want to read. That's how Wolfman and Perez approached it: they expected the book to be canceled in six issues and didn't have any expectations that anyone would care about the Titans, and DC editorial didn't care enough to pay attention to what they were doing, so they wrote the book as something they would have liked to read. And they got a positive response. Deliberately trying to one-up the JL book doesn't seem to have been on their minds.

Do writers and readers actually go along with that mentality though? Do we have evidence that Abnett is deliberately writing this as a lesser book because he agrees with DC that JL should always be better, or is it just an underwhelming comic because he isn't suited for the franchise? It's a B comic because it's not a good comic.

I agree with you on Diana actually. As an Immortal, I'd actually say she should be a permanent member of the league.

Clark is immortal too. I wouldn't mind a Trinity-lead JL with him, Diana and Dick as Batman. But a JL comprised of them and every other sidekick of Dick's generation taking over their mentor's role is pretty boring to me. I saw it the first time, y'know?

I do agree that in an ideal DC universe, the stories of the JL would come to a close and the Titans would take over as the premiere superhero team on Earth. As the Titans (sans "Teen"), not a new Justice League, and with their own identities (ex: Dick as Nightwing, not Batman II). And full of new members in the same vein as Cyborg, Starfire and Raven who are not former sidekicks. In a perfect world, DC would have allowed the pre-Crisis universe to come to a close and rebooted completely, but kept a few books set in the prior canon such as the Titans to showcase such a setup, while they started from scratch with the main line. Dick could come into his own as Nightwing in the old universe, and still be Robin in the main one with the rebooted Frank Miller Batman.

[My Two Cents]

I think there are not enough people with the writing skills and passion for the characters at the same time.
I have seen many times the ideas look great, but the writing is terrible and than there
are times when the writing is very good, but than after a few months the books is forgotten because there
is no sense of any kind of super heroics within the story.
Marv Wolfman and George Perez brought in both writing ability and passion for comics and the characters with whom
they developed a closeness too over the years.
Geoff Johns came into the business with a high ceiling on writing ability and a life time of passion from following
these characters long before he got his first professional job and that was showcased in his first Teen Titans run.
I just don't believe any writer can maintain any sense of passion in a business that is predicated foremost on squeezing out
the most money every month.

[Raijin]

Still waiting for a LEGIT answer on how the Titans aren't redundant.

[Thor2014]

They SHOULD be their own thing, but they're seldom portrayed that way. In-universe they have almost always been portrayed as in the shadows of their mentors. The Titans were never really allowed to be their own thing like Marvel's X-Men. Despite a successful cartoon, DC seems to have a set-ceiling on high they can rise.

[Jon Clark]

Still waiting for a LEGIT answer on how the Titans aren't redundant.

Because even the League can't be everywhere at once.
Because sometimes you want the smartest detective in your story not to be an arrogant self-important jerk or your super-strong female heroine to be saddled with representing every feminist aspiration or you want a team that doesn't have the UN looking over their shoulder every second.
Because not every fan wants the same flavor of ice cream every day for eternity.
Because a good writer can tell the same basic story but come out with radically different books depending on if the trinity are Bruce/Diana/Clark or Dick/Donna/Kori.

[skyvolt2000]

But that means Bruce, Clark, and Diana are getting older. That cannot happen.

If that is the case why do BOTH of them have KIDS?

Aquaman had a child.

Black Lightning had kids.

Ollie had a son.

Reed, Sue, Peter & Luke Cage had kids.

If that is the case why was Dick, Wally and others allowed to age? Why do the Simpsons where you have 30 years worth of holidays yet no one ages.
Titans became a huge JOKE in 2006 where they became a butchering field for events.

Along with folks in CHARGE taking issues with Silver Age Fanboyism with certain guys mainly those name Dick, Donna, Garth & Wally.
You can't build up a franchise when you constantly DUMP on it.

Still waiting for a LEGIT answer on how the Titans aren't redundant.

They provide a different story. There are things that can be TOLD with THEM that can't be told with Justice League or Doom Patrol or GLC or Outsiders.

The MAIN issue we have is when PETS & FANBOYISM is in play-you don't get those stories.

So you get the redundant comments because one group gets to shoved in your face and the other doesn't. That is the issue Titans as a WHOLE face, John Stewart, those two former Batgirls, the entire POC population, Wildstorm, Legion and others constantly face.

I can't give you the best if I have to fight editors and ownership over it (as seen with Cyborg) and then you wonder why folks go elsewhere.

So you get Batman & his selected friends on top and everyone else at the bottom. Then when it's movie time-you wonder why no one is interested and a guy in catsuit kicks your behind. Because every sees the lack of interest.

I don't care if Darksied WIPES the floor with Titans-I just want to see it.

[SiegePerilous02]

Black Panther did better than JL because the latter was a bad movie, not due to lack of interest in characters in said bad movie....