Titans/Teen Titans Appreciation 2019

[WallyWestFlash]

Teen_Titans_by_Ross.jpg

Fab five for life.

[byrd156]

Teen_Titans_by_Ross.jpg

Fab five for life.

I wish Alex Ross drew them more.

[Agent Z]

I...don't really notice much difference. The bottom shot does look brighter.

For one thing, the top image looks dustier and Evans isn't as groomed as he is in the bottom shot. You show the top image in a movie and people will not be impressed by Steve's look.

[Pohzee]

Is that really a pic on set and its corresponding look onscreen? Because the colors of his sleeves and stripes on his chest are different in the two pictures. But he looks fine in both.

[HandofPrometheus]

Should I continue with Marv Wolfman's run after issue 39 of 'The New Teen Titans' (1984)? I heard it gets worst from here. Thoughts?

[Sam]

Should I continue with Marv Wolfman's run after issue 39 of 'The New Teen Titans' (1984)? I heard it gets worst from here. Thoughts?

So you just finished Loving You, right? That's honestly a good stopping point for the series. There is some good stuff afterwards. Who is Wonder Girl? is a great arc, even if it feels totally unnecessary given that Who is Donna Troy? was ultimately a stronger story. Titans Hunt is honestly pretty exciting, even if it is a giant mess that got sidetracked one too many times and almost everything afterwards is terrible. The Wildebeest Society is a pretty cool antagonist as well.

However, you also have to deal with Danny Chase, and the characters you know and love leaving the comics one by one only to be replaced by very poor substitutes who Wolfman clearly doesn't particularly like. The quality keeps dipping and dipping as Wolfman starts being held prisoner by the editors on the title and the characters get hilariously more X-Treme and 90s.

It's really comes down to how curious you are about what comes next. There will be some enjoyable bits, but there will also be increasing levels of terribleness.

[Lee Stone]

Should I continue with Marv Wolfman's run after issue 39 of 'The New Teen Titans' (1984)? I heard it gets worst from here. Thoughts?

#39-100 is a mixed bag of good ideas, bad ideas, too much editorial interference, some burnout and a few wasted opportunities.
I think it really gets bad after #100.

[Krivus]

The best moment to stop is that or read until you discover Danny Chase and then close with The New Teen Titans: Games.

[Lee Stone]

Here's a thought...

What if DC really had tried to make the Titans into an X-Men-sized franchise?

While I do think that Peterson's influence on tone was detrimental to the title... he did have some good ideas about strengthening the Titans as a franchise by bringing Deathstroke back into the book and giving the Titans a second team title.
However, I don't think Team Titans was the best way to go.

Looking at Marvel's tactics with X-Men, especially in the '80s and '90s, they would periodically re-invent the line-up of the X-Men and launch new teams by splitting off some of the popular characters into a new series.
Excalibur used Kitty, Nightcrawler and Rachel.
X-Factor was the founders, which included Cyclops, someone that had been in X-Men for forever.

Imagine if, instead of getting a team of unknown nobodies and an alternate reality Terra... we got...

The Titans West team that Wolfman had been planning, but with Cyborg and Changeling being the transfers to the new team.
I've looked at his original thoughts for the line-up, and after adding Changeling, I would drop Diah H for two females: Bumblebee and Dr. Light (Kimiyo).
This would've given a line-up of:
Cyborg (leader)
Changeling
Bumblebee
Red Star
Thunder
Lightning
Dr. Light II

A much stronger pull than Team Titans, I think.

And since DC and Marvel are always taking cues from each other...
A second Titans spin-off team could've been the Fab Five (ala X-Factor): Nightwing (leader), Troia, Tempest, Flash and Arsenal.

As for who would remain in the main book, they'd still have Starfire (who would naturally become leader), Raven, Pantha, Jericho and some new members.
Wolfman could've been already building up the new members to replace Changeling, Cyborg, Nightwing and Troia... if they had been thinking about expanding like this.
And constant crossovers with the other two books would ensure that they would still be making regular appearances.

[Krivus]

I would love to see Red Star with the Titans again.

[HandofPrometheus]

So you just finished Loving You, right? That's honestly a good stopping point for the series. There is some good stuff afterwards. Who is Wonder Girl? is a great arc, even if it feels totally unnecessary given that Who is Donna Troy? was ultimately a stronger story. Titans Hunt is honestly pretty exciting, even if it is a giant mess that got sidetracked one too many times and almost everything afterwards is terrible. The Wildebeest Society is a pretty cool antagonist as well.

However, you also have to deal with Danny Chase, and the characters you know and love leaving the comics one by one only to be replaced by very poor substitutes who Wolfman clearly doesn't particularly like. The quality keeps dipping and dipping as Wolfman starts being held prisoner by the editors on the title and the characters get hilariously more X-Treme and 90s.

It's really comes down to how curious you are about what comes next. There will be some enjoyable bits, but there will also be increasing levels of terribleness.

#39-100 is a mixed bag of good ideas, bad ideas, too much editorial interference, some burnout and a few wasted opportunities.
I think it really gets bad after #100.

The best moment to stop is that or read until you discover Danny Chase and then close with The New Teen Titans: Games.

Thanks for the feedback! Loving You, is now one of my favorite issues and it really did feel like an end to Wolfman's run. I think I might continue for a bit and see how it goes.

[Sam]

Thanks for the feedback! Loving You, is now one of my favorite issues and it really did feel like an end to Wolfman's run. I think I might continue for a bit and see how it goes.

Yeah, Loving You is a great issue that seems to get overlooked most of the time, but it does such great stuff with Raven and Kori.

[SiegePerilous02]

Should I continue with Marv Wolfman's run after issue 39 of 'The New Teen Titans' (1984)? I heard it gets worst from here. Thoughts?

So you just finished Loving You, right? That's honestly a good stopping point for the series. There is some good stuff afterwards. Who is Wonder Girl? is a great arc, even if it feels totally unnecessary given that Who is Donna Troy? was ultimately a stronger story. Titans Hunt is honestly pretty exciting, even if it is a giant mess that got sidetracked one too many times and almost everything afterwards is terrible. The Wildebeest Society is a pretty cool antagonist as well.

However, you also have to deal with Danny Chase, and the characters you know and love leaving the comics one by one only to be replaced by very poor substitutes who Wolfman clearly doesn't particularly like. The quality keeps dipping and dipping as Wolfman starts being held prisoner by the editors on the title and the characters get hilariously more X-Treme and 90s.

It's really comes down to how curious you are about what comes next. There will be some enjoyable bits, but there will also be increasing levels of terribleness.

I think my stopping point (once the new trades reach that point) will be the conclusion of the arc where they recover Raven from Brother Blood. From what I remember, that's where it all wraps up semi-satisfactorily. I bought a lot of the post-Perez issues from back issue bins, and the "Sequelitis" definitely set in, since it was essentially sequels to earlier arcs that lost something with the lack of Perez drawing them. But they were still solid (the Kory/Blackfire stuff is actually really good). After that, it's all Danny Chase, Titans Hunt, post-Crisis Donna alterations*, X-Treme Team Titans and Lord Chaos. I think I'm good on avoiding all of that.

*I read the Who is Wonder Girl arc as part of the Who is Donna Troy? trade that came out a while back. I liked it, it definitely helped that Perez was a co-creator there, but as a straight up replacement to the earlier, much more elegantly simple origin it falls far short. I would have liked those elements like New Cronus and the Titan Seeds coming into play while conforming to the earlier origin and tied to Wonder Woman, instead of replacing it.

[K7P5V]

I wish Alex Ross drew them more.

Agreed. Maybe Alex Ross might be the one who could return the Titans/Teen Titans to their former glory. Ross could do something remotely similar to his Earth X/Universe X/Paradise X from Marvel.

[Harpsikord]

SNIP

This isn't a super bad idea. Maybe Lilith on either Titans West instead of Kimiyo or as the sixth ranger in the Fab Five? As for Starfire's team, this would have been the perfect opportunity to bring back Terra like they did in Team Titans as a repentant member of the team, and make use of some other young characters (Batgirl, perhaps?) as well as creating new ones.