I'd keep the original Fearsome Five, maybe add some new members to make it the Terrible Ten, Negative Nine or whatever.
Give Brother Blood actual henchmen who aren't faceless mooks.
I like the idea of Queen Bee being head of HIVE,but like the Church of Blood, HIVE needs actual members who aren't generic evil mad scientists.
Mayhem and the Confessor would need design overhauls, but there is potential there. Ditto Bethany Snow.
I agree that the problem is that the Church of Blood has one notable guy, but not much else. The H.I.V.E is even worse. Queen Bee is certainly a step up from the prior Mistress and Master, but I'd rather not borrow a JLA villain. Some of the Titans lesser villains (Trident, the Puppeteer, Disruptor) have prior history with the organization, so making them more regular presences while also beefing them up as threats could help the whole package. And get a new, singular H.I.V.E Mistress.
For the Brotherhood, I'd ditch the Brain and Mallah (I don't think they ever should have been used again after Morrison's Doom Patrol run) since they are so heavily tied to the DP. Keep the NTT members (Phobia, Warp, Houngan, Plasmus) and bring back Elephant Man and Goldilocks from the Johns run, plus maybe some new members and make it exclusively a group of foes for the Titans. I'd also expand the membership of the Fearsome Five with some new villains, who are not just mortal supervillain grunts (some would be aliens, some would be demons, etc). Have one of the new members basically be like "Psimon sucks, I should be in charge" and knock him down in ranks, and maybe build Psimon up as a threat when he tries to reclaim the reigns.
Bring back Thia and her demigod kids, the Children of the Sun. Let Phil Jimenez go nuts and design them. They'd be great villains for Donna.
The Titans have two demonic foes, Trigon and the Antithesis. Have there ever been any attempts to tie them together? Maybe expand the gallery of demons they face, plus possible some rogue angels, for Raven centric stories.
I'd probably add Disruptor to Fearsome Five instead of HIVE. It should be one of the original members of the Fearsome Five who usurps Psimon, probably Jinx.
Church of Blood should get some magic or psychic themed villains to serve as Brother Blood's henchmen. I'd borrow Hypnota and Zara of the Flames from Wonder Woman, since no one bothers to use them anymore.
I know that Harvest was EXTREMELY unpopular, but I'd retool him into HIVE's head scientist and Queen Bee's right hand man. There are enough underused villains who could fit in with this group.
If Kalki is still around, I'd give him to the Titans for use as a regular villain, also.
Maybe use him to create a new Hybrid (instead of Mento). Could tie him to the Hive with the Hybrid becoming Queen Bee's personal team, ala Salem's Seven.
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Exactly like the Young Justice cartoon haha.
Psimon is definitely the most interesting member of the fearsome five. He's probably the strongest evil telepath in the entire DC universe and he has a really cool and interesting design. The rest of the Five do need massive redesigns and updates to make them interesting, but all that takes is a theoretically good writer and in the event of this fix/reboot I'm assuming I have that.
Tbh, the Calculator could be a pretty good Cyborg villain.I'm looking at their lineup right now and former members Dr. Light has become a League enemy and Dr. Sivana is tied to Shazam. The Calculator's usually Oracle's enemy but she doesn't exist right now so that's the one big-name they can still use.
I'd probably introduce a new Gizmo - a man of color, because representation is important and matters.Gizmo is apparently reformed in Rebirth as Nightwing's supporting cast though he hasn't been used in a while.
My point was that it doesn't have to be. I recognize that Apokoliptan stuff is normally the League's jurisdiction first, but that doesn't need to always be the case. Allow the Titans to discover it and handle it first. They're MORE than capable.Threats from Apokolips are usually handled by Justice League, especially Post New 52 where their origin is defined by Darkseid and Cyborg's presence on that team, and if the League is called, DC won't use Titans, unless it's a big event where the League has to call backup, but it will be the League's problem first.
I can't exactly disagree with this but I don't think that Cyborg's time with the Justice League has done him any favors. Look at him in Odyssey right now; he's playing second fiddle to one of the less popular Green Lantern's and being used as Darkseid's lackey. Starfire is in the same position and the less said about that the better too.Ideally, I prefer if Cyborg is back with Titans too but I don't see DC returning Cyborg to Titans because they'll see it as a downgrade and the aforementioned ties to Justice League Origins. Unless they really commit to rebooting everything with the new timeline. So I'm holding my hope for this until I see it.
I feel like the way Deathstroke has been written recently he doesn't need any inherent reason to have a grudge against the Titans. They ended up killing his son and if Terra is present, that puts them in his cross hairs anyway. Plus - all it takes is someone hiring him to at least try to take them out and Slade is likely to just flip his switch on them. It doesn't take a whole lot.About Deathstroke
He doesn't have to be pigeonholed in Titans but I need a strong reason on why he still deals with them when his daughter Rose joined them and depending on continuity, it was him who asked Dick to train her... and he blamed them for the loss of his son(s) but this is something I want him to get over by now
Deathstroke does have an interesting story with teen heroes because it's like he's trying to replace his own family but doing it wrong
In short, where is Deathstroke's character development at the moment? Is it logical that he's still bothering Titans? I mean unless the story is about Titans preventing Deathstroke assassination attempt
I wanted to embrace the idea that DC likes to create it's locales rather than use real world ones; Star City being Seattle's DC universe equivalent for instance. That's why I opted for Jump City and National City.
I also didn't want there to feel like there was an obvious disconnect between the NTT and Fab Five, hence why I tried to split both iconic teams up between both Titans East and Titans West. Also, I feel like Wally has to be there! Haha. I do agree that West could probably use a mix of more minority characters, but I struggled to think of some that I'd really add at the time. Perhaps I'd replace Supergirl with Blue Beetle.
"We come into this world alone and we leave the same way. The time we spent in between - time spent alive, sharing, learning together... is all that makes life worth living." - Jean Grey
I want Lian back. Roy's family is what made him interesting. A former addict who had a kid with a supervillain, now trying to do right by his little girl...now that's a character, know what I mean? That's a journey you can really get invested in, and see reflected in people all around you.
Donna's baby, I honestly have no attachment to. Pretty sure Donna lost the baby years before I started reading. Which is probably why I think, in this case, leaving history intact is the better option. Donna's a divorcee and lost her first child. That's good, character informing drama and offers a different perspective. And, perhaps more importantly (or just as a better excuse if I'm just subconsciously pandering to my preferences) Donna is a right mess of a character. She needs some serious TLC first and foremost. Bringing back her long-dead child isn't going to make her any less of a mess, it'll just provide a distraction from that mess, and I don't feel like that's a good option.
I'm glad Wally's kids are back. I didn't care for them when Waid used them in his second Flash run, but I did like the potential of where things were aimed after Barry's return, with Irey the new Impulse and Jai potentially on the road to being the next Turtle. Wally having a very normal (normal for these guys anyway), Norman Rockwell kind of family life, but with the shadow of Jai potentially going evil hanging over them (I expected DC to flip the script and make Jai/Turtle heroic) felt very "right" for Wally.
I know Garth had a kid with Dolphin, but I don't recall what happened there. And I have no real opinion of Garth anyway.
Last edited by Ascended; 03-14-2020 at 09:43 PM.
"We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another, as if we were one single tribe."
~ Black Panther.
The more I read Hickman's X-Men, the more I think that maybe a relaunch of the Titans should maybe just present the stories in a similar format (i.e. one- or two-issue arcs that shift focus to different characters). So maybe one arc could focus on Nightwing and Starfire and then the next focuses on Roy and Cheshire and Lian and then the next is about Jericho and so on and so on.
Reading List (Super behind but reading them nonetheless):
DC: Currently figuring that out
Marvel: Read above
Image: Killadelphia, Nightmare Blog
Other: The Antagonist, Something is Killing the Children, Avatar: TLAB
Manga: My Hero Academia, MHA: Vigilanties, Soul Eater: the Perfect Edition, Berserk, Hunter X Hunter, Witch Hat Atelier, Kaiju No. 8
Dolphin and Cerdian both died in Infinite Crisis #3 - the same issue in which Jaime Reyes debuted. Garth himself then died in Blackest Night #2 and didn't return until Aquaman #42 in the New 52.
He predates Oracle, debuted in 1976 in Detective Comics. In New 52 he showed up in Batman Incorporated. He's a Batman villain, not specifically an Oracle one. And Babs no longer being Oracle doesn't stop him fighting her, he appeared in Batgirl and the Birds of Prey, blackmailing a fanboy Babs was training as a new Oracle (who, sadly, was dead by the end of the series).
Last edited by Digifiend; 03-15-2020 at 05:21 AM.
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