How about a Titans line reboot ?

[king81992]

DC keeps effing them up.

One problem is that they keep messing up the core cast when they're the main sellers of the Titans franchise. Cyborg lost all connection with his closest friends, Raven can never stay an adult and is forced to be part of every young generation, Garth just gets ignored, Donna can never have a stable fanbase due to terrible management, Wally just keeps getting shi$$ed on, and Roy just keeps getting himself in horrible stories. X-men do stupid stuff with their main cast but you would always see them at large and in top billing.

Second, DC does nothing to build upon the secondary characters at all. Bumblebee and Mal are stuck in the same storylines and always appear in 5 issues then goes into limbo for another century. The rest are always killed off or placed in limbo. Then you get unnecessary new characters every relaunch. While the X-men introduce a lot of new characters they utilize their secondary cast waaay better than the Titans franchise. New Mutants, X-Force, X-Factor, Excalibur, etc.

Third, mediocre writers are always placed on the comic. No high talented writers are placed within the Titans franchise. Johns was the latest one (arguable to some) and that was YEARS ago.

I agree with new editorial or management. It's time to clean house.

Titans is successful but I didn't expect it to have an impact. Hell, the cartoon barely had an impact and a lot of people love that.

The cartoon made the Teen Titans franchise mainstream again.People liked how the cartoon handled the characters but the people writing the comics never bothered to use those characterizations(with the exception of Raven who is much closer to her cartoon version)even when they would have benefitted the characters.

Comic Cyborg is still dealing with the 'am I a man or monster' angst/debate when cartoon Cyborg overcame that by the second season. Thankfully, JLO is ignoring the whole 'am I a man or monster' nonsense to deal with cosmic shenanigans.

The writers tried to make Terra closer to her cartoon version in the New 52, she became a better character but the book she was in was garbage and those changes didn't stick.

Starfire's characterization was reverted to cartoon version because of the bad taste Lobdell's Red Hood and the Outlaws left in everyone's mouth. We got a fun book out of that, but I always felt that Starfire was a bit too silly in that run. Current Starfire in JLO feels like an older, smarter version of the cartoon version and that's a good thing.

The darker aspects of Beast Boy's character got toned down after the cartoon and he became a more comedic character. Abnett bought those issues back and pretty much used them as a diabolos ex machina to screw to create forced drama. There's also the possibility that he might wind up on the Batman Who Laughs payroll in the coming months.

I didn't like how the cartoon handled Dick, he was angry and angsty all the time(with good reason). However, he was cool and the writers did tone down his angst/anger after the 1st season. The current writers at DC have forgotten that Dick is supposed to be cool and they have him living as a crazy hobo loser named Ric.

[Krivus]

DC keeps effing them up.

One problem is that they keep messing up the core cast when they're the main sellers of the Titans franchise. Cyborg lost all connection with his closest friends, Raven can never stay an adult and is forced to be part of every young generation, Garth just gets ignored, Donna can never have a stable fanbase due to terrible management, Wally just keeps getting shi$$ed on, and Roy just keeps getting himself in horrible stories. X-men do stupid stuff with their main cast but you would always see them at large and in top billing.

Second, DC does nothing to build upon the secondary characters at all. Bumblebee and Mal are stuck in the same storylines and always appear in 5 issues then goes into limbo for another century. The rest are always killed off or placed in limbo. Then you get unnecessary new characters every relaunch. While the X-men introduce a lot of new characters they utilize their secondary cast waaay better than the Titans franchise. New Mutants, X-Force, X-Factor, Excalibur, etc.

Third, mediocre writers are always placed on the comic. No high talented writers are placed within the Titans franchise. Johns was the latest one (arguable to some) and that was YEARS ago.

I agree with new editorial or management. It's time to clean house.

Titans is successful but I didn't expect it to have an impact. Hell, the cartoon barely had an impact and a lot of people love that.

Even if his Titans ended up being a disaster, Abnett is far from being a mediocre writer. Many of the things that went wrong in Titans (like "friendship is a problem") seem more like editorial decisions.

[caj]

Even if his Titans ended up being a disaster, Abnett is far from being a mediocre writer. Many of the things that went wrong in Titans (like "friendship is a problem") seem more like editorial decisions.

Speaking of Abnett, was Wally supposed to be a part of his Titans Hunt series? It always seemed like that storyline was leading to something else and then it just ended.

[Godlike13]

The sad fact is that Titans, as we think of it (Dick, Donna, Garth, etc), doesn't have a real hook other than our attachment to a book that ended 25 odd years ago and characters whose relevance is equally faded. It sucks, I know, but every attempt to try to recapture that magic has failed. Dick struggles to maintain a decent book despite being the first Robin, and easily the most marketable.

It's the new audience, who can't get Teen Titans Go! as an ongoing comics (or even the previous Teen Titans show), as "adult" comics need to be too serious and melodramatic. Cyborg and Starfire are with Justice League and Robin (no, they don't care it's not Dick Grayson or that he is now Nightwing) is with the Teen Titans. They can't get a more grown up book based on the show they like. The Titans book, that featured those characters was unrecognisable to a new audience and was trying to deliver exactly what we wanted to the small audience of us. We know these characters are fantastic, but it's not us that DC needs to attract, as we'll buy it regardless. We are the unfaltering 15k or whatever who buy every book these characters are in (don't bother to correct me, I'm using this as a turn of phrase, rather than actual figures).

This is further compounded by there being two generations of side-kicks/young heroes after them. The Young Justice generation has now taken their place, and newer readers want Damian Wayne, New 52 Wally, etc.

Don't get me wrong, no book branded Titans since New 52 has been great. I've often questioned the choice of creative team, but even before the reboot, when we get pretty hot teams on the book sales have never set the world on fire, and faltered pretty quickly.

I've often said the best thing that ever happened to the original Titans was The Outsiders book. Re-vamp these characters as 20-somethings with a specific mission (be pro-active), a great set of big name villains, and a chip on their shoulder. Even struck with bizarre editorial edicts and changes, it managed to be an incredibly fun read under Winnick. That is until DC, in all its wisdom, decided to try to recapture the magic of Batman and the Outsiders from the 80's. The BatO relaunch failed, the Titans relaunch failed, so nobody won.

No editor wants a book to fail. It looks bad on them, and (should theoretically) harm their career. No publisher wants a book to fail. No one at DC is trying to punish you for liking these characters. But we, as an older audience, have to understand that what we feel is one of the greatest line of characters in the history of comic books, is not necessarily a viable ongoing comic book.

Maybe the New 52 should have just retconned them all back to (late) teenagers, perhaps that would have solved this problem.

Titans and Nightwing’s problem isn’t that their books are hard to sell or can’t maintain an audience. Despite never really seeing “hot teams”, even before the reboot. And it’s not like the generations under them are lighting the market on fire more then they have, and they are seeing far more creative support then Dick’s gen has seen in decades.
I’d argue thier problem is more quality support rather then audience support. While conventional thinking would be that the editors and publishers don’t want a book to fail, or punish readers, then something like Ric happens that makes you have to question that.

[Zero Hunter]

The main problem is management and Didio in particular hates the "sidekick" generation (Dick, Roy, Wally, Donna, Garth, ect), and would rather have them all just gone. They really are not fans of the 2nd gen sidekicks either which is why most of them were absent or revamped to such a bad degree in the Nu52. They want to push the "new kids" more than anything like Damian and Wally II. The main problem with that is they know when most people hear the name Titans they think of the 1st and 2nd gens and not the new kids so they know they cant just get rid of the older characters no matter how much they want too.

Young Justice animated series gave them a good blueprint on how to do the teens characters right in the DCU in my opinion, but DC just seems hell bent on not going in that direction.

[Adset]

I've always been a bit surprised that DC has the problems it does finding the right creative choices for Titans. Same thing with the Legion of Super-Heroes. NTT and LoSH were such trendsetters in the 80s, I'm always taken aback that creators nowadays didn't grow up loving these books and dreaming one day of taking them over. I guess maybe Waid falls into that category w/ the Legion, and the Threeboot didn't turn out so hot? I digress.

[Zero Hunter]

I think one of the big problems is books like TT and LoSH when they were at their peaks were more about the characters and their interaction than it was about the big story arcs, and so many current writers just don't know how to write that way anymore. They were basically soap operas with big fights mixed in, and that just doesn't seem to be the direction management like these days. You need a certain kind of writer to pull off that style of book.

[Timothy Hunter]

I've always been a bit surprised that DC has the problems it does finding the right creative choices for Titans. Same thing with the Legion of Super-Heroes. NTT and LoSH were such trendsetters in the 80s, I'm always taken aback that creators nowadays didn't grow up loving these books and dreaming one day of taking them over. I guess maybe Waid falls into that category w/ the Legion, and the Threeboot didn't turn out so hot? I digress.

I think the core issue with the Legion of Superheroes and the Titans is that they played it safe when they needed to take a risk with the franchise, while they took a risk when they probably should have continued the status quo.

[Digifiend]

The main problem is management and Didio in particular hates the "sidekick" generation (Dick, Roy, Wally, Donna, Garth, ect), and would rather have them all just gone. They really are not fans of the 2nd gen sidekicks either which is why most of them were absent or revamped to such a bad degree in the Nu52. They want to push the "new kids" more than anything like Damian and Wally II. The main problem with that is they know when most people hear the name Titans they think of the 1st and 2nd gens and not the new kids so they know they cant just get rid of the older characters no matter how much they want too.

Then perhaps the new generation should've had a new name instead of Teen Titans. Basically, the New Teen Titans are like Marvel's New Warriors (though predate them by a decade) and Young Justice are like the Young Avengers (again, DC's team came first). So why is DC's Champions counterpart using the same team name as the first and second generation sidekicks?

[Thor-Ul]

I've always been a bit surprised that DC has the problems it does finding the right creative choices for Titans. Same thing with the Legion of Super-Heroes. NTT and LoSH were such trendsetters in the 80s, I'm always taken aback that creators nowadays didn't grow up loving these books and dreaming one day of taking them over. I guess maybe Waid falls into that category w/ the Legion, and the Threeboot didn't turn out so hot? I digress.

I think the maybe is the editorial interference what made the most damage in this case. Titans became an initial success because a good editor who gave the writer creative freedom, but in other cases the editorial interference has been more harmful than successful.

The cartoon made the Teen Titans franchise mainstream again.People liked how the cartoon handled the characters but the people writing the comics never bothered to use those characterizations(with the exception of Raven who is much closer to her cartoon version) even when they would have benefitted the characters.

Comic Cyborg is still dealing with the 'am I a man or monster' angst/debate when cartoon Cyborg overcame that by the second season. Thankfully, JLO is ignoring the whole 'am I a man or monster' nonsense to deal with cosmic shenanigans.

The writers tried to make Terra closer to her cartoon version in the New 52, she became a better character but the book she was in was garbage and those changes didn't stick.

Starfire's characterization was reverted to cartoon version because of the bad taste Lobdell's Red Hood and the Outlaws left in everyone's mouth. We got a fun book out of that, but I always felt that Starfire was a bit too silly in that run. Current Starfire in JLO feels like an older, smarter version of the cartoon version and that's a good thing.

The darker aspects of Beast Boy's character got toned down after the cartoon and he became a more comedic character. Abnett bought those issues back and pretty much used them as a diabolos ex machina to screw to create forced drama. There's also the possibility that he might wind up on the Batman Who Laughs payroll in the coming months.

I didn't like how the cartoon handled Dick, he was angry and angsty all the time(with good reason). However, he was cool and the writers did tone down his angst/anger after the 1st season. The current writers at DC have forgotten that Dick is supposed to be cool and they have him living as a crazy hobo loser named Ric.

We can guess than the Titans liveaction is what is going to be the template for the next Titans series. Except for Cyborg, who is going through his monster/Identity crisis in Doom Patrol.

The main problem is management and Didio in particular hates the "sidekick" generation (Dick, Roy, Wally, Donna, Garth, ect), and would rather have them all just gone. They really are not fans of the 2nd gen sidekicks either which is why most of them were absent or revamped to such a bad degree in the Nu52. They want to push the "new kids" more than anything like Damian and Wally II. The main problem with that is they know when most people hear the name Titans they think of the 1st and 2nd gens and not the new kids so they know they cant just get rid of the older characters no matter how much they want too.

Young Justice animated series gave them a good blueprint on how to do the teens characters right in the DCU in my opinion, but DC just seems hell bent on not going in that direction.

I would say that is not only the biggest problem for the Titans only. The sidekick generation, and most teenage superheroes always had the problem of being the most evident characters who shows change and this in an industry which works with perpetual IP, the growing characters is a problem. I mean, Superman and Batman always will look like in their mid-30s,tops, but when Dick Grayson goes from 12 to 20s, you have problems. So,you have to clean the slate to represent the pass of time but at the same time, keep things the same.

(In Marvel, they have a similar trouble with the New Warriors and Gen-X/New Mutants: they also had become cannon fodder)

And why not to keep in line with the animated Young Justice show? Because that is a limited story. Meanwhile the comics going on ad on. Maybe DC should left the shared universe idea behind, and return to a selfcontained limited stories. But part of the charm is to see the characters grow and change, but that is also their prblem from an IP perspective.

[Thor-Ul]

I think the core issue with the Legion of Superheroes and the Titans is that they played it safe when they needed to take a risk with the franchise, while they took a risk when they probably should have continued the status quo.

The Titans itself it was a risk at the beginning: Wolfman and Perez created three new characters for the New Teen Titans instead just reunite the sidekicks and then expanded from there. And the legion at being in the future could had grow by themselves and integrate new members. Instead, as you said, the played sure.

[married guy]

I think the title is quite a tough nut to crack.
Use the main Titans, but where do they fit? It's not enough to just get together because they're 'family'. Abnett banged on about that during his run and it was AWFUL.
Why should a Titans team exist in a world with the Justice League?
And I think that's why each Titans series eventually just keeps going back to the Wolfman/Perez well.
Yeah, we'll get a new spin, but it's still Brother Blood, or Jericho or Trigon.
The great thing about Jurgens' run was for the first year at least, something NEW.
Other than a de-aged Atom, all the lead characters were new. I remember having my interest piqued by an article in Wizard and giving it a shot. (Yes, I'm old)
He juggled the old and new VERY well - but it ultimately was canned after 2 years.
Could that approach work now? Or would it be dismissed by fans as 'not their Titans' and bomb?

[king81992]

I think the maybe is the editorial interference what made the most damage in this case. Titans became an initial success because a good editor who gave the writer creative freedom, but in other cases the editorial interference has been more harmful than successful.



We can guess than the Titans liveaction is what is going to be the template for the next Titans series. Except for Cyborg, who is going through his monster/Identity crisis in Doom Patrol.




I would say that is not only the biggest problem for the Titans only. The sidekick generation, and most teenage superheroes always had the problem of being the most evident characters who shows change and this in an industry which works with perpetual IP, the growing characters is a problem. I mean, Superman and Batman always will look like in their mid-30s,tops, but when Dick Grayson goes from 12 to 20s, you have problems. So,you have to clean the slate to represent the pass of time but at the same time, keep things the same.

(In Marvel, they have a similar trouble with the New Warriors and Gen-X/New Mutants: they also had become cannon fodder)

And why not to keep in line with the animated Young Justice show? Because that is a limited story. Meanwhile the comics going on ad on. Maybe DC should left the shared universe idea behind, and return to a selfcontained limited stories. But part of the charm is to see the characters grow and change, but that is also their prblem from an IP perspective.

I'd prefer if they avoid the tone of the TV show. A dark TV show is okay but whenever the Titans franchise goes dark in the comics, the body count rises. I feel like the Titans line as a whole would benefit from being less dark.

[king81992]

I think the title is quite a tough nut to crack.
Use the main Titans, but where do they fit? It's not enough to just get together because they're 'family'. Abnett banged on about that during his run and it was AWFUL.
Why should a Titans team exist in a world with the Justice League?
And I think that's why each Titans series eventually just keeps going back to the Wolfman/Perez well.
Yeah, we'll get a new spin, but it's still Brother Blood, or Jericho or Trigon.
The great thing about Jurgens' run was for the first year at least, something NEW.
Other than a de-aged Atom, all the lead characters were new. I remember having my interest piqued by an article in Wizard and giving it a shot. (Yes, I'm old)
He juggled the old and new VERY well - but it ultimately was canned after 2 years.
Could that approach work now? Or would it be dismissed by fans as 'not their Titans' and bomb?

The team being together because they're 'family' is a good concept but it was terribly executed by Abnett. Abnett didn't understand how to be subtle, he kept blatantly stating the obvious and it got tiresome. Readers aren't stupid, we could tell that the Titans were family.

The Titans should exist in a world with the Justice League to serve as rivals who have their own brand of justice. There is enough bad blood between the Titans and JL(all of it created by the writers in the past few years) to justify the Titans being fed up, distrustful and pissed off at the JL. With the current editorial, this angle wouldn't work. They'd turn the Titans into strawmen to make the JL look good.

Jurgens approach won't work now because of YJ and TT(which is 'not their Titans' personified) existing. Fans will want to see Dick's generation and the NTT cast in action again because nothing positive is being done with them right now and the other young heroes are in the spotlight.

[skyvolt2000]

I think the title is quite a tough nut to crack.
Use the main Titans, but where do they fit? It's not enough to just get together because they're 'family'. Abnett banged on about that during his run and it was AWFUL.
Why should a Titans team exist in a world with the Justice League?
And I think that's why each Titans series eventually just keeps going back to the Wolfman/Perez well.
Yeah, we'll get a new spin, but it's still Brother Blood, or Jericho or Trigon.
The great thing about Jurgens' run was for the first year at least, something NEW.
Other than a de-aged Atom, all the lead characters were new. I remember having my interest piqued by an article in Wizard and giving it a shot. (Yes, I'm old)
He juggled the old and new VERY well - but it ultimately was canned after 2 years.
Could that approach work now? Or would it be dismissed by fans as 'not their Titans' and bomb?

I supported that series.

Sadly Dan used Sideways to trash that versus when Hotspot was in it. Aside from him-that version has not been seen in 10+ years.