It's 1985, Crisis arrives - what are you going to do with the New Teen Titans

[caj]

Marv Wolfman admitted that he had writer's block after COIE. Without Perez to co-plot the book, it went downhill fast.

[nhienphan2808]

I think the same as Wolfman that never letting Dick be happy and settle down was a mistake. Dickkory had problems back then i think because of Jason's death and everything that was happening back in the Batoffice during and after crisis with Dark Age coming. It created a true crisis and dilemma for Dick : instead of growing up healthily with Earth-One Bruce as a foundation, he was more angry and insecure due to being fired by the new Bruce and people dying. He lost his emotional foundation. Dick was kinda "meta" for me that way, not in the superpower sense, it's he just stays unchanged but unknowingly reacts to everything happening across the multiverse through crisis after crisis OUTSIDE of the book he stars in. I do think Earth-One Dick at his best and at Wolfman's best would have been calmer and more competent regarding Kory and all that drama. He would have just been like "Sorry I have to take care of my family, maybe i need time, this just doesn't work out right now." Something more mature. Same for Kory. And then i'd let them cool down but still pair them later as true adults, because dragging Dick back into the Bat-office damaged his character in the long run, too.

Wally always belongs in the JL to me, or at least advancing to something greater, regardless of whether Barry dies or not. He should honor and love Titans, but I feel he didn't quite "click" with anyone or anything during NTT. I don't know how to express it, he's just THAT kind of character.

[Jackalope89]

The worst of it is that she's back just a few issues later. And she and Dick are dating again soon after. The entire storyline just ends up being a waste with no real consequence.

Way too late for that change. He was introduced much earlier and they were already married.

His brief tenure (and close age to Tim, pre-Flashpoint) left him in an awkward place. He doesn't have his own group of peers - what other kid sidekicks were even around when he was Robin? He ends up getting Kory and Roy, who were Dick's friends first. And in fanfic, he's most often shipped with them or with one his brother's exes (or with Tim or Dick) . And they even hit on the Barbara thing in canon (terrible idea). It's difficult for him to find people to hang out with who weren't already tied to Dick of Tim, because they have a lot connections in the DC Universe. He did get his own group with Artemis and Biz, even if they aren't exactly peers.

See, I would make Jason more in the middle of Dick and Tim (take your pick of aging up/down the character) so that there's a bit more difference. And I agree with the issue of him being with Roy and Kori; they're too associated with Dick to suddenly being Jason's best friends out of the blue.

Perhaps introduce Artemis and Biz (Artemis as younger, Biz about the same) and they have their own little adventures? Biz, when not made into a super genius, is much like a child. And him being the youngest, but the biggest of the group, would be interesting. And Jason does seem to get along with Amazons fairly well, so befriending Artemis before he died wouldn't so out there for him.

Or maybe even just hanging out with Kid Devil every now and then.

[Tzigone]

See, I would make Jason more in the middle of Dick and Tim (take your pick of aging up/down the character) so that there's a bit more difference.

That doesn't work for me, because I think it's important that Dick already be out on his own when Jason arrives. And, unless Jason is already grown when killed (or leaving, if you don't like death and resurrection), he can't have the same gap between himself and Tim and himself and Dick. I really hate when there's twice the gap between Jason and Tim as their is between Jason and Dick and Jason is basically made Dick's peer. This happens fairly frequently in fic where Bruce gets all the kids - or at least the four boys - at a younger age. You'll have a 13 year old Dick, and 11 year old Jason, a 6 year old Tim and a baby Damian or whatnot. N52 had a more middle road, and it just messes up prior stories in my mind.

Or maybe even just hanging out with Kid Devil every now and then.

I might like that.

[SiegePerilous02]

Crisis on Infinte Earths should have either:

A) Never been done.

or

B) Lead to a clean slate reboot for every character.

In case A, carry on forward. In case B, hold off on Teen Titans for a few years then introduce the rebooted post-Crisis version.

This is pretty much where I'm at, with option A being the preferred one

Rebooting parts of the DCU and not other parts, and leaving the Titans alone while heavily altering their parent franchises, didn't do them (or anybody) any favors in the long run. Better to just move forward without screwing around with history or do a clean slate, not a half assed middle ground.

Marv Wolfman admitted that he had writer's block after COIE. Without Perez to co-plot the book, it went downhill fast.

It kinda shows. Rebooting the Titans was understandably unthinkable at the time, but in light of what we got after Perez's departure, I wouldn't say we'd be missing out on much if they got rebooted too. Or if COIE didn't happen, maybe Perez would have stayed on Titans a bit longer and kept the quality up.

[DrNewGod]

Crisis on Infinte Earths should have either:

A) Never been done.

or

B) Lead to a clean slate reboot for every character.

In case A, carry on forward. In case B, hold off on Teen Titans for a few years then introduce the rebooted post-Crisis version.

First, I agree with Lee. Leave it alone, or reboot it clean. As for the reboot option, given where both NTT and LoSH (two of DC's best sellers at the time) were in terms of story, I've often suspected the writers of each would have been more than happy to restart with something radical. However, to play the OP's game, I'll conjecture based on TPTB's refusal to go all-in on a relaunch at the expense of their most popular titles.

I'd say let Dick and Donna grow up, like Wally. Not necessarily take over the batmobile or the tiara, the way Wally did the Flash's mantle, but enter maturity, and the JL. Have the TT become a superhero training academy (and occasional ops subcontractor) for the JL, with Dick and Donna as the primary supervisors, but a new cast of heroes in the team. In other words, steer them in a direction somewhere between Marvel's early-New Mutants, and the S1 YJ toon.

[Aahz]

His brief tenure (and close age to Tim, pre-Flashpoint) left him in an awkward place. He doesn't have his own group of peers - what other kid sidekicks were even around when he was Robin?

Kid Devil was afaik the only one (and maybe Danny Chase but he wasn't really a side kick).

It wasn't untill the 90s when they started to introduce new side kicks, in the other franchises.

[Aahz]

[video=youtube;pFxivmjW34o]With Wally moving on and Dick with a new identity, the options IMHO are to move more Titans to the JL or to set them up as an adult hero team and drop the "Teen" part of their name. Wally got his promotion to grown-up level. Dick and Donna needed to do the same.

What you have to keep in mind is that COIE happened in the JLA Detroit Era, which was later replaced by the JLI.
Those teams were imo not a big promotion over being a Titans member (it could even be considered a demotion), since they were not really a high profile as the Satellite Era JLA (that dissolved pre COIE) or the Morrison JLA (that roughly a decade after COIE).

[Aahz]

Split them off into their own imprint and keep all the continuity from Earth-One intact. Meanwhile have another imprint that actually reboots the whole universe from scratch.

The thing that I liked about the Wolfman and Perez Titans line-up is that they could go anywhere in the already existing Earth-One continuity. Gar crossed over with the Doom Patrol. Donna crossed over with Wonder Woman and the Amazons. Dick was a part of Batman's world. Vic was involved with STAR Labs (which Len Wein originally created for Superman). Wally crossed over with the Flash and all that. Starfire was part of this new bunch of aliens connected to Green Lantern (and indirectly the Legion) which would produce the Omega Men and Lobo. Raven was part of the supernatural world. Roy was part of Green Arrow's gritty adventures. Aqualad was from Atlantis.

If COIE removes a lot of that from the Titans world, suddenly those existing franchises don't exist or have completely new continuity. And maybe this is why the book went downhill (aside from Wolfman being burned out), because Marv had to manufacture a bunch of new continuity for the group and make the Titans fit within the rebooted universe that was evolving. Imagine if the original super-heroes had perished in the Crisis, yet their world still existed. The Titans would be the number one heroes of that world and all of that content would exist in their history.

The only real influence COIE had on Titans was that Donna got a new Origin Story. I don't think that any other member lost any of his history due to this event. And Roy and Aqualad were iirc not members of the team at that time.
NTT got only a (very) soft reboot after COIE, opposed to some other series.

[Tzigone]

The only real influence COIE had on Titans was that Donna got a new Origin Story. I don't think that any other member lost any of his history due to this event. And Roy and Aqualad were iirc not members of the team at that time.
NTT got only a (very) soft reboot after COIE, opposed to some other series.

Agree. TT went downhill around the same time as COIE, but not because of the events of COIE affecting the title. The aforementioned writer's block or Perez leaving probably did. Seems like we wound up hamster-wheeling and retreading old stories until the entire thing was blown to bits with Titans Hunt and Jericho's possession and Raven's death and Vic's loss of humanity and so forth and so on. But that was a shakeup (a bad one, IMO) done because it had been faltering for a while. Not to say there was nothing good in between. There were some nice stories. But overall quality did, to me, decline.

[SiegePerilous02]

The only real influence COIE had on Titans was that Donna got a new Origin Story. I don't think that any other member lost any of his history due to this event. And Roy and Aqualad were iirc not members of the team at that time.
NTT got only a (very) soft reboot after COIE, opposed to some other series.

What happened to Donna was quite a mess though, and probably had the biggest negative change on any character Post-COIE. We also have some of Dick's history being altered, such as his split from Bruce being much more angsty (and stupid) and Superman never having used the Nightwing identity that inspired him to take it up.

Agree. TT went downhill around the same time as COIE, but not because of the events of COIE affecting the title. The aforementioned writer's block or Perez leaving probably did. Seems like we wound up hamster-wheeling and retreading old stories until the entire thing was blown to bits with Titans Hunt and Jericho's possession and Raven's death and Vic's loss of humanity and so forth and so on. But that was a shakeup (a bad one, IMO) done because it had been faltering for a while. Not to say there was nothing good in between. There were some nice stories. But overall quality did, to me, decline.

I liked a few of those stories (I think my jump off point for when the trades get there will be the arrival of Danny Chase), but a lot of them are pretty much sequels to arcs Perez did. The Starfire/Blackfire stuff is pretty good, and Titans of Myth arc with Thia and Lilith was good with the Lopez art, but they all still pale to the first times around. The Mento stuff was even worse because it came with the Hybrid, a totally lame bunch. I think the biggest break out villain post-Perez was Jinx, and that's mostly due to the cartoon.

[Wakeneuron]

Titans Hunt is still one of my favorite storylines despite what happened to Cyborg. It's surprising that DC skipped over publishing it in trade and went straight into Total Chaos.

I have to agree that they should have de aged the Titans after Crisis. A teenage Robin/Grayson would have been a good reset and prevented the multiple Robins that happened afterwards.

[Tzigone]

What happened to Donna was quite a mess though, and probably had the biggest negative change on any character Post-COIE. We also have some of Dick's history being altered, such as his split from Bruce being much more angsty (and stupid) and Superman never having used the Nightwing identity that inspired him to take it up.

Yes, to both of those, but I don't think either (especially Donna's) impacted the storylines/characterizations in Titans itself for the next several years. It was only post-1990 or later that those had as big an impact.

A teenage Robin/Grayson would have been a good reset and prevented the multiple Robins that happened afterwards.

Only delayed them, as he aged up again. And anyway, those Robins make DC a lot of money.

[CaptCleghorn]

What you have to keep in mind is that COIE happened in the JLA Detroit Era, which was later replaced by the JLI.
Those teams were imo not a big promotion over being a Titans member (it could even be considered a demotion), since they were not really a high profile as the Satellite Era JLA (that dissolved pre COIE) or the Morrison JLA (that roughly a decade after COIE).

That's an insignificant detail. Wally had taken on the adult hero Flash moniker and book. Whether he joined JL right away (and the JLI took a few months to take effect) or he came in later, he was still there and Dick and Donna were not. Wally and Kyle were both included in "big seven" JL stories. Granted Dick did get his own book, but AFTER Tim had his multiple cover set of minis.

[Jackalope89]

So, we can at least agree that Jason and Kid Devil hang out some more post Crisis, and Jason hangs out with the Titans in general? Not to steal them from Dick, but just so he has friends in general.