No. The enduring success of the Teen Titans/Teen Titans Go cartoon as well as the decent popularity of the Titans TV show prove otherwise.
It's the Dynamic Duo! Batman and Robin!... and Red Robin and Red Hood and Nightwing and Batwoman and Batgirl and Orphan and Spoiler and Bluebird and Lark and Gotham Girl and Talon and Batwing and Huntress and Azreal and Flamebird and Batcow?
Since when could just anybody do what we trained to do? It makes it all dumb instead of special. Like it doesn't matter anymore.
-Dick Grayson (Batman Inc.)
I don't think it helps that after Byrne left, Claremont still created or brought in characters like Rogue, Rachel, Psylocke, Gambit, Jubilee and the New Mutants.
In comparison, post-Perez Wolfman gave us...Danny Chase, Azrael, Kole (to be killed off), Pantha and Wildebeest and the Team Titans. They don't compare favorably to the chemistry of the Fab Five + NTT crew or what the X-Men were introducing.
I was looking at some Gabriel Picolo art (link below) and realized how easy it would be for a writer to modernize these characters, yet no one seems willing to do so. The other option is to let these characters graduate and have an impact on the larger DCU, but no one is willing to do that either.
https://rearfront.com/artist-revampe...-modern-touch/
After the NTT era I don’t think any of the new additions stuck, besides Rose Wilson. They had to bring in the 4 Young Justice members to invigorate the franchise, though if you look at the most popular members added around that time (Damian, Blue Beetle, Static, Me Martian), they all came from outside the TT books, a part from Megan.
Another problem is that they added way too many sidekicks to the franchise. The Fab 5 had the likes of Cyborg, Starfire, Raven, Beast Boy, Bumblebee, Terra...etc to balance things out. Who balances out the YJ4, Robin and Miss Martian? Blue Beetle and Static are popular but that’s still only two non sidekicks. They are probably the only non sidekicks in the lineup too and that’s a problem! Solstice and Bunker didn’t seem to stick.
Don’t even get me started on the current lineup with even more sidekicks
I think Crisis On Infinite Earths, as great as it was, hurt both of those books.
Donna Troy has never been the same since. Her origin constantly changes and she has no identity.
And by removing Superboy as the inspiration of the Legion, it never did fully recover. Superboy, and to a lesser extent Supergirl, were a major part of Legion history that they can't fill with anyone else IMO.
The only other non sidekick character who gained traction during Tim's time was Kid Devil and they killed him off. The era before New 52 was awful, too many characters joined the team, most of them for killed off and those who didn't die for derailed.
To be fair the current TT lineup only has three sidekicks. Everyone else is new. The problem with the current lineup has nothing to do with the amount of sidekicks though.
Is definetly true for the Legion, but i don't think that if affected NTT that much, Wolfman and Perez gaver a new origin that worked well enougth, but for some reason Byrne couldn't leave it alone and has to do something more. The problems with that title had more to do with Wolfman's decreasing quality and Perez leaving.
"Wow. You made Spider-Man sad, congratulations. I stabbed The Hulk last week"
Wolverine, Venom Annual # 1 (2018)
Nobody does it better by Jeff Loveness
"I am Thou, Thou Art I"
Persona
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I was thinking of the John Byrne and Geoff Johns versions of Cassie as 2 different ones, my old brain at work.
I agree with a lot of the posts already made. I liken it to Geoff Johns on Green Lantern, or to a lesser extent maybe Simonson’s Thor or Mark Waid’s Flash, where a long-running series gains huge traction and dominates the comic world for a brief period of time. When the chief creative force behind that acclaim leaves, the series eventually (and in some cases quickly) plods back to the mean.
That’s not so say these series haven’t had great runs before or after said rock star status, the confluence of events have just never come together like they did when those particular runs were darlings of the industry.