Titans Together! Teen Titans Appreciation

[WallyWestFlash]

Ok, I can see what you think. But things could have been handled in other ways.
First of all, when Abnett showed us a public confidence in the Titans as a team? People barely know them. That aside, if you want people to go against them, just make them really screw up with the public opinion, not the JL.
Springing Wally or putting Donna into the Watchtower or even disband the team... why just don't make those things a choice of the team? Wally wanted to take a leave of absence right before he "died", so why not go on with that? Donna too could have decided to restrain herself while finding put what to do. Dick disbanding the team for a while, waiting for them to make teir own decisions, it makes sense too. So, why this garbage?

Those are really good points. That was actually the one good thing for me from this issue. That some forward progression for Wally and Donna would come out of this mess. But you'r right. It still could have been done way better with what Abnett had already set up himself and without this garbage.

Yeah, you’re right. I am reasonably sure there is SOME plan here (although I freely admit my speculation may be hot air in search of a thought balloon), but this story was not ... encouraging.

Do you think Abnett will actually follow through? This issue actually got me excited aside from the horrible execution because of the potential progression for Wally and Donna.

I know I'm probably getting my hopes up for nothing. Wally has mentioned he has no life outside the team a few times already and nothing has been done about it. Do you think they will actually have Wally start to establish his own life and explore his new powers?

Will Donna now start hanging with Diana and connecting to her and establish a relationship with her? Will she figure out who she is and flesh out her character?

Probably not but I hope so.

[Doctor Bifrost]

PART I

I seriously, seriously disliked this Titans #19. Watching the Holier-Than-Thou Trinity (plus Flash) yell at, insult, and give orders to these quite experienced heroes (most of whom I have, over the years, appreciated as much or more than their older counterparts) was just ugly, and seeing them roll over and take it was even worse. The Titans made mistakes like any superhero in the DCU, corrected for them, and won. Donna Troy defeated her Big Bad Future Self, even though BBFS had centuries more experience. After that, the Titans should have told the Justice League to take a hike.

And, knowing what goes on in the DCU, I found the Justice League's "lessons" to be unjustified and utterly hypocritical. Did Barry know how to handle the Reverse Speed Force when he he got it? (I'm talking quite recently here.) Then give Wally a break. Superman, over in Action Comics - even more recently - ran off (literally, taking Barry's Cosmic Treadmill without asking) into the past because he just "had to know" if Jor-El survived Krypton, and didn't even pause to consider the consequences. (Which turn out to be: a screwed-up timeline with Booster Gold is now trying to unscrew.) So maybe bringing up possible time travel problems is a bit over the top?

As for Batman - when I look at what's been going on with Future Tim Drake (which, somehow, has not resulted in Bruce putting Current Tim Drake under house arrest like they did to Current Donna); what's going on with Clayface right now in Detective Comics; what's going on with Killer Frost in Justice League of America, and in fact the entire hot mess that team has been since Batman started it up (including partnering with a remorseless genocidal sociopath from Czarnia); and, of course, all the universe-threatening errors he made in Metal because he had to do everything his way, and secretly - how can anyone take this lecture from him seriously? Especially Dick, who knows every mistake Bruce has made since he decided to become a crimefighter. (The list is so long...) By the standards applied to the Titans here, every team Bruce has ever founded should be disbanded yesterday, and he's the one who should be under house arrest.

(Yes, I do know that some of these events may take place after this issue rather than before. But they're just examples; you can find mistakes and screw-ups like them, by the Justice League and others, throughout DCU history, both distant and recent.)

Every page of this was utterly unfair to the Titans. And the scene between Batman and Nightwing was just painful. Dick's a grown man, and in some ways a better man than Bruce.

As for poor Donna Troy, who saved the day: if every superhero with an evil future self and/or dimensional counterpart (because, really, we don't know much about Big Bad Troia, who even observed some differences in her own history and the current-day circumstances) were put on lock-down "just in case," we'd need a bigger Watchtower. I couldn't believe Diana saying "Everything all right, Donna? You should rest", like Donna Troy is a six-year-old*. Diana, do you think "rest" is going to save Donna from becoming Evil Troia? How about some milk and cookies instead?

(Over in Wonder Woman, Diana is currently lecturing her newly-discovered twin brother on not acting like a stereotypical douchebro fratboy. It's not a good look on her. Jason - not Future Jason, but Current Jason - actually teamed up with a woman he knew nothing about, Grail Daughter of Darkseid, and helped her attack his own siblings. He got a hug of forgiveness within one issue, and he's not under house arrest.)

There are only two glimmers of hope I get out of this issue, both having to do with Donna:

(1) Maybe she and Diana will wind up closer, as they should be. (But not as close as if Donna and Diana were her adoptive sisters, with years of loving friendship between them, as it really should be.)

(2) Donna Troy, eager to avoid the horrid future she saw a glimpse of, decides not to take on the name Troia.

We should be so lucky.

* Donna may actually only be six years old - or, created six years ago - or even less. But that's another story...

[Doctor Bifrost]

(This is a digression having to do with world-building and backstories. Please skip it if you're not interested in such things.)

PART II

There's something else I didn't like about all this, although it's more general and to some extent applies to the entire Rebirth DCU. If I understand the story correctly, the O5 Teen Titans were kid sidekicks (well, who knows with Donna?), formed the Teen Titans, became best friends, and fought crime and evil for a number of years. And then, some combination of Mr. Twister magic and Speed Force whatevs wiped the memory of much of that from the minds of the O5 Titans and everybody else in the world. (And changed every photo, every news video, every Tweet that referred to the original Teen Titans.)

They then lived their lives for a number of years having no idea that any of that stuff happened. Both Bruce and Dick had no idea that Dick every led a Titans team. Poor Garth didn't even know that he had every been Aqualad, and was close friends with - essentially the adopted son of - Aquaman. Their lives and personalities developed without any of this quite essential knowledge. (And presumably everybody had fake memories to fill in the holes of what they did instead with all that time.)

And then, one day - very recently - everybody's memories came back! And they realized they had all been living lives based on gaps and elisions and falsehoods!

Imagine the impact that would have on an person psychologically. The utter shock, the sense of loss and disorientation. I mean, imagine if one day you realized (just for example) that, even though you had spent years believing that you had been brought up in an orphanage (and you acted and developed accordingly, checking in on the friends you made there, coming to terms with growing up without parents), and then one day your memories came back, and you realized that you had been raised by two parents, with a brother and sister - but you forgot about them and they forgot about you. (And those friends you made in the orphanage? You didn't really know them. Fake memories, for you and them.) And then you remembered and they remembered, but all those years in between when you were separated and didn't even know it...!

My orphanage example is, of course, made up, just to make it all specific. But this is roughly what we've been told about the Titans. I mean, Garth now realizes - for the first time - that when he was on an elite team that hunted down and fought with Aquaman, he was actually fighting with the man who raised him and loved him like a son. You would think that, when the O5 (and everyone they knew) got their memories back, it would be one of the most shocking, impactful, emotional experiences you could imagine. It would effect them in very visible ways.

But, having set all this up, TPTB now ignore it. In this interaction between the JL and the Titans, it really doesn't even get mentioned. Wally talks about how being adrift in the time stream affected his powers; not how it affected his relationships and sense of self. (They've already stopped talking about him having been married and having kids, which he remembers and nobody else does.) Instead of treating this memory manipulation as something that affected every aspect of their lives, the direction each of them went in, the trauma they must feel realizing many of their choices were based on false beliefs (isn't this what drove Wonder Woman to a mental institution?), they are treating it - in Titans - as a convenient deus ex machina to get back "the Titans we all knew," and yet still include chunks of The New 52 when nobody knew about the Titans (or, at least, these Titans).

Personally, I think that's a pretty cheap writing trick. I prefer to read about characters who are actually affected by the shocking, life-changing experiences they have (no matter how science fictional/fantastic those experiences may be).

But that's just me.

It's possible, of course, that at the end of Doomsday Clock they'll sweep all this away, clean it up. And the characters will then have backstories (which they may even tell us someday!) that don't include extremely convoluted and poorly explicated events and experiences whose sole function is to somehow include conflicting versions from The New 52 and Rebirth. But it seems more likely to me that instead, having waved their hands over world-wide memory shifts, and Holodeck versions of Themyscira created by the gods, and all that kind of stuff - they'll just say "and we'll never mention it again."

You know, like on The Simpsons, where they revealed that Seymour Skinner was actually Armin Tamzarian, a war buddy of Skinner's who came back to Springfield and took Skinner's identity, believing Skinner was dead. At the end of the episode Tamzarian was officially granted "Skinner's 'name, and his past, present, future, and mother', and [it was] decreed that no one will mention his true identity again 'under penalty of torture.'" And no one ever did, except once for a joke.

But I watch The Simpsons for comedy. From the DCU I would prefer more attention to world-building. YMMV.

[OBrianTallent]

What I don't get is...if everything Diana has experienced with Themyscira since leaving the island was a BIG FREAKING LIE because that island wasn't real....then how the devil can Donna's story be true???? Donna that was made from clay came from those Amazons, killed with those Amazons. Yet according to the story told in Wonder Woman...those Amazons NEVER EXISTED.
So my question is how can Amazon's who never existed have created this Donna?

[Dethi]

What I don't get is...if everything Diana has experienced with Themyscira since leaving the island was a BIG FREAKING LIE because that island wasn't real....then how the devil can Donna's story be true???? Donna that was made from clay came from those Amazons, killed with those Amazons. Yet according to the story told in Wonder Woman...those Amazons NEVER EXISTED.
So my question is how can Amazon's who never existed have created this Donna?

I see it as she was created by the Amazons in clay but unless what happened during in the New 52 who got retconed she had those false memories that she was raised by the Amazons and all that but she don't know what happened for her and nobody does.

The Amazons and Themyscira exis but Diana can't go back in there and see them (she saw her mother one time so that's a proof that they exist) as it's said she can go out of there but she can't come back. And of course you have Artemis too who is an Amazons...
So yes those Amazons EXISTED but what happened the creation of Donna is totally undiscovered excepted her Teen Titans era and all after.

[Dzetoun]

(This is a digression having to do with world-building and backstories. Please skip it if you're not interested in such things.)

I edited your comment for length, not because I don't agree with it. Having said that, correct as you are about all of that, at this point I am ready just to throw my hands in the air and declare a mulligan. The original sin, so to speak, was (as with so much of DC these days) the New 52. Having erased the Titans, they decided to read them back in using a slow-burn maxi-series that got cut off by Rebirth. Now, Titans Hunt had its problems, but at least there seemed to be some plan to kind of explain the disappearance of the team (although even then the issue of pictures and such made a hash of the explanation). But Rebirth turned it all to ruins and pinned the loss of the Titans on, I guess, Abracadabra. Or was that supposed to just be Wally that was erased? If Abracadabra just tossed Wally into time or the Speed Force or whatever, then how did the Titans vanish? And who was the demon in Titan's Hunt? Future Donna? Really? Didn't look like her. Was that REALLY Future Donna behind the Key's mischief in the Titans Annual? Really? For that matter, was the lumpy demon thing in that Justice League issue that Abnett just referenced supposed to be Future Donna on a bad hair day?

At this point, it's totally hopeless. It's a palimpsest that's been partially erased, then overwritten, then repeat about three times. (Come to think of it, I guess it's utterly fitting that Donna should be one of the central lynch pins of such a continuity trainwreck). Best to just establish some kind of foundation for future stories and move along. If they want to make some brief nod in Doomsday Clock to a time reset and use that as the magic moment, fine. But I would be perfectly happy if they just swept this garbage to the side and, for all our sanity, treated it like that family matter that polite people don't mention over the holidays.

[Doctor Bifrost]

At this point, it's totally hopeless. It's a palimpsest that's been partially erased, then overwritten, then repeat about three times.

Thanks for this. I can go months at a time and never see the great word palimpsest!

[donnafan]

At this point, it's totally hopeless. It's a palimpsest that's been partially erased, then overwritten, then repeat about three times. (Come to think of it, I guess it's utterly fitting that Donna should be one of the central lynch pins of such a continuity trainwreck). Best to just establish some kind of foundation for future stories and move along. If they want to make some brief nod in Doomsday Clock to a time reset and use that as the magic moment, fine. But I would be perfectly happy if they just swept this garbage to the side and, for all our sanity, treated it like that family matter that polite people don't mention over the holidays.

First rule of Rebirth: we don't talk about Titans Rebirth...LOL. I agree with much of what you said. There were sparks of hope, like Titans Hunt and the early issues flashback scenes which showed the young Titans interacting with each other but, the continuity is such a mess that IDK what's canon. Cyborg hinted at a previous friendship to Raven but, he's a founding member of JL. Terra not dying at the end of Judas Contract according to Deathstroke. Did NTT exist or not?! Maybe this is all part of Dr Manhattan's evil plot and the reset button will set the Titans and the DCU right again. The again, just like with Rebirth, I'm feeling like Charlie Brown when Lucy grabs the ball. Augh!

On the bright side: There was a beautiful shot of Donna standing in the doorway. The small interaction between Donna and Diana was nice (although not so much after you consider Diana as her jailer). Maybe we'll get to see Diana mentoring Donna finally? Maybe Donna can tag along on a League mission? One can hope to kick the football...

[Doctor Bifrost]

Maybe this is all part of Dr Manhattan's evil plot and the reset button will set the Titans and the DCU right again.

How I would applaud that! But it seems unlikely that they are writing all these detailed, lengthy stories about the characters now if they know it's all going to be tossed out in less than a year. (Of course, in Superwoman, the first 12 issues or so revolved around Lana's relationship with The New 52 Superman, his death, the death of Lois Lane - and then Rebirth booted all that out, and the comic became a strange mesh of "sharp right turn" and "moving ahead as usual." So you never know.)

One can hope to kick the football...

"The triumph of hope over experience."

[WhipWhirlwind]

If they want to make some brief nod in Doomsday Clock to a time reset and use that as the magic moment, fine. But I would be perfectly happy if they just swept this garbage to the side and, for all our sanity, treated it like that family matter that polite people don't mention over the holidays.

This is me so much. I don't care if they reset it, I don't care if they ignore it, just don't remind me of it in the name of sloppily trying to make it "fit".

I love the titans, but every time I check this thread I just nope right out. I might hateread the latest issue after reading Bifrost's description.

Sounds like we're a long way from even Johns run, where the titans had a squabble with the league and as soon as Nightwing showed up everybody chilled out and deferred to him.

[Assam]

This is me so much. I don't care if they reset it, I don't care if they ignore it, just don't remind me of it in the name of sloppily trying to make it "fit".

I love the titans, but every time I check this thread I just nope right out. I might hateread the latest issue after reading Bifrost's description.

Sounds like we're a long way from even Johns run, where the titans had a squabble with the league and as soon as Nightwing showed up everybody chilled out and deferred to him.

Titans Rebirth is still leagues better than that.

[JasonTodd428]

If they want to make some brief nod in Doomsday Clock to a time reset and use that as the magic moment, fine. But I would be perfectly happy if they just swept this garbage to the side and, for all our sanity, treated it like that family matter that polite people don't mention over the holidays.

I'd be perfectly happy if they just made the whole of this Titans mess disappear via Doomsday Clock and just never mentioned it again. IMO Titans Hunt was a mess that lead into an even bigger mess with the Rebirth Titans book. I say scrap it all and start over from scratch. If DC is so compelled to have a Titans book then please for the love of all that's holy make it a good one instead of the mediocre nonsense such a book has always been saddled with in the past. Actually do SOMETHING interesting and mind blowing and different with it instead of repeating the same tired stories over and over again. Stop trying to use the same formula in an attempt to recreate the magic of NTT, please.

If you can't tell I'm just so frustrated with the whole thing.

[Frontier]

Sounds like we're a long way from even Johns run, where the titans had a squabble with the league and as soon as Nightwing showed up everybody chilled out and deferred to him.

That was a pretty awesome moment .

[Rakiduam]

I guess it's not possible say objectively this is the worse Titans have ever been but I don't think I have ever hated a run this much. It would be fantastic if it was erased.

I think the problem is the roster, must of them had already outgrown the Titans and then here comes Abnett that writes them as children. There isn't a sigle good story arc in the whole run.

[Assam]

There isn't a single good story arc in the whole run.

No matter what's come from this book since or what may come in the future, I'll maintain Return of Wally West was good, the first couple issues especially were excellent, the Superman issue was good as well, and the Fearsome Five arc wasn't bad.

Just from those first 10 issues, its better than everything else post-2003.