LoSH and NTT: Creatures Of Their Time?

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

NTT had one thing going for it. Perez and Wolfman carefully constructed the team with all the character dynamics in mind. Yes Robin, WOnder Girl and Kid Flash were there but Kid Flash got phased out fast and the other two evolved a lot

[Tzigone]

That's what YJ always was, kids being trained by the JLA. In the original version, they were being looked after by Red Tornado and used the original JLA headquarters at Happy Harbor. In the current one, they've been made an official Young Justice League, with the Wonder Twins serving as their liaison to the main JL the same way Miss Martian did for Nightwing's Titans recently.

This is where I'm with so many others. YJ is a junior Justice League. They were plain about it from the start. They were much more supervised/controlled than even the original Teen Titans were (as a team). That's okay, in that that is what the team was created to be, but it did mean they either had to fundamentally change in structure or the characters had to move on from it as they grew up. NTT shined because it wasn't that.

NTT was about them as adults, for the most part. Young adults, but adults. They took pains to explicitly say, very early, that they were not a junior Justice League. They were independent. They were quickly established as heroes in their own right. There was no graduating the the Justice League. They were, after going through the phase of establishing that truth, treated as peers by other adult superheros. That was a good thing. It has, unfortunately, long since been lost.

NTT had one thing going for it. Perez and Wolfman carefully constructed the team with all the character dynamics in mind. Yes Robin, WOnder Girl and Kid Flash were there but Kid Flash got phased out fast and the other two evolved a lot

I think there's a bit of misperception on how long Wally was there because of him not being there in spin-offs. He was there for over half of the best (Perez) years. I agree that designing the team with character dynamics in mind was great. Biggest issues being the new character designed around their starting character-arcs and not really having enough material for them afterwards, so they got stuck repeating the same stories over again. Also, as with most created-for-team heroes, there's difficulty with moving them into solo heroes. I don't have a problem with that myself, in that every hero doesn't need to be solo, but I know it's a problem for some. I frankly see similar problems at times with solo heroes being used on teams (they lose skills or are altered-in-personality to either play against anther hero or give the other hero something to do), but I cannot deny the massive success of such teams.

[SiegePerilous02]

Yeah, Wally was there for a little under 4 years of the title. That's a lot of content back then. And while he was kind of a wet blanket and the least interesting of the cast at that time, the decline in quality does almost coincide with messing with the cast line up. Wally left, Terra was revealed as a traitor and got killed, Jericho was brought in and Dick became Nightwing. I don't think Perez leaving so soon after these shake ups really helped soliify them as being as iconic as the run of comics he was on with the first line up. Had he stayed on for a couple more years it might be a different story.

For this reason, I don't think Jericho is on the same level as Cyborg, Gar, Raven, Starfire and even Terra, and Dick-as-Robin leading the Titans is more iconic than Dick-as-Nightwing. Even if Nightwing was around for as long if not longer in Wolfman's whole run, the stories are just not as memorable as the Robin ones.

[caj]

Yeah, Wally was there for a little under 4 years of the title. That's a lot of content back then. And while he was kind of a wet blanket and the least interesting of the cast at that time, the decline in quality does almost coincide with messing with the cast line up. Wally left, Terra was revealed as a traitor and got killed, Jericho was brought in and Dick became Nightwing. I don't think Perez leaving so soon after these shake ups really helped soliify them as being as iconic as the run of comics he was on with the first line up. Had he stayed on for a couple more years it might be a different story.

For this reason, I don't think Jericho is on the same level as Cyborg, Gar, Raven, Starfire and even Terra, and Dick-as-Robin leading the Titans is more iconic than Dick-as-Nightwing. Even if Nightwing was around for as long if not longer in Wolfman's whole run, the stories are just not as memorable as the Robin ones.

Wolfman stated in an interview that I read that he wasn't a fan of Kid Flash. I believe he didn't care to write for characters in a team book where they were powerful enough that they could handle a situation all by themselves. He saw KF as someone who could be there in two seconds and wrap everything up before the other members even got there. For that reason, I don't think he was very interested in developing the character.

I never warmed up to Jericho. I just didn't find him interesting and I blame that on Wolfman. Wolfman definitely did not seem to know how to use his abilities without Perez illustrating him.

[Incognito]

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/

Gabriel Picolo's Titans makes me wish that Teen Titans GO! was a modern and grounded reboot of the 2003 TT series.



The Titans have a lot of success in the media than the books apart from their run in the 80's and 2003-11. It made Starfire, Cyborg, Raven and Beast Boy well known to the public. Ever since the New 52, the Titans were handled horribly some of the characters are now either dead, stuck in limbo or being mishandled.

Maybe they should follow the X-Men formula by having more than one team. A Teen Titans team focusing on kids and split the Titans into two team by having one team based on the east coast and the other in the west with different mission statements.

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

A good point. What do you think made the difference?

I can't really say for sure on the Legion, but I can make a few educated guesses at least for the Titans.

I think a large part of why the Titans faced a decline was because DC stopped investing in that property as its own property. Now, that's not to say that DC editorial just woke up one day and said "the Titans are donezo as far as we're concerned." No, it wasn't that monolithic or sudden. I think it was just the culmination of a few things that took years to unfold.

For one, there was generally this attitude that, no matter what, no team was allowed to outshine or was "above" the JLA. Not the JSA, not the Legion, and not the Titans, even though the latter two outsold the JLA at the time. Second, starting at least in the 90s, there was almost an effort to take the Titans characters away from the Titans franchise.

That kind of became apparent when Wally West became the Flash after Barry's death. Now, even though Wally was still friends with all the Titans, he eventually had to join the Justice League because he was the Flash. And the Flash belonged on the JLA...right? I mean, when you think about it, Wally didn't really HAVE to join the League just by virtue of being a Flash. Jay was a Flash who was active, but he wasn't on the League. He was on the JSA and he stayed on the JSA. However, because Wally's ascension to Flash was seen as him "graduating" that meant that he had to "graduate" to Barry's spot on the League even if that meant leaving the Titans behind. It was something that fundamentally undercut the central thesis of Wolfman and Perez's New Teen Titans run: that these characters had come into their own and weren't beholden to their mentors; that they were their own franchise. And, for the record, I think Wally West is the best Flash and that his years on the League are awesome. However, it did divorce the guy from his friends and yeah, DC tried to balance it for a time by making him a member of both teams at the same time, but at that point, it was kind of like Solomon splitting the baby.

At almost the same time, in another move that followed the same pattern of undercutting the Titans, there was a concerted effort by the editorial at the time to separate Nightwing from the Titans so that he could be folded back into the Batman books. So, that's what they did, specifically around the time of the Knightfall story arc. Dick left the Titans, took over as Batman, and after Bruce's return got a solo Nightwing series operating out of Blüdhaven, Gotham's somehow-more-violent sister city. People I don't think realize that that was not just a happenstance occurrence because that's the direction the writers wanted to take Dick. It was a conscious effort by DC's editorial to fold Dick back into the Batman corner of the universe. And, like with Wally, those decisions might have been great to read for Dick as an individual, but you have to admit that taking away the Titans' literal leader undoubtedly did a lot to weaken the franchise.

[Tzigone]

I think a large part of why the Titans faced a decline was because DC stopped investing in that property as its own property. Now, that's not to say that DC editorial just woke up one day and said "the Titans are donezo as far as we're concerned." No, it wasn't that monolithic or sudden. I think it was just the culmination of a few things that took years to unfold.

Definitely some interesting thoughts. I'm a little different on cause and effect on Nightwing. I'd say he was taken away and folded into the Batman books because the Titans property has already heavily failed, rather than being a cause of it. Batman was already top dog by then, so putting him there seemed a way to at least keep him a success while the Titans floundered (I definitely have some problems there). Could be my own biases on quality. But I think Wolfman's writers' block leading to repetitive storylines on Titans was responsible for a lot of the the fall of the Teen Titans. Nightwing being moved away was a symptom of what had already happened.

I do wonder, though I don't know, if COIE contributed, too. Not by rewriting Donna's history (I really don't think that made much different within the comic at the time). But because it wasn't rebooted and new and maybe fans would rather check out the titles that were being reworked to see if they liked the new? Would have to the see the month-to-month sales to see when the numbers started falling to see if it was that or the quality decline.

I can't speak to the later Tim Titans, really. I have read so little, as it reworked the YJ characters (disliked that), refused to let Gar and Raven grown up (disliked that), and seemed to have, at least at first, had a "training" aspect to it for the younger members, which is completely contrary to what made the NTT so cool to me.

[king81992]

Definitely some interesting thoughts. I'm a little different on cause and effect on Nightwing. I'd say he was taken away and folded into the Batman books because the Titans property has already heavily failed, rather than being a cause of it. Batman was already top dog by then, so putting him there seemed a way to at least keep him a success while the Titans floundered (I definitely have some problems there). Could be my own biases on quality. But I think Wolfman's writers' block leading to repetitive storylines on Titans was responsible for a lot of the the fall of the Teen Titans. Nightwing being moved away was a symptom of what had already happened.

I do wonder, though I don't know, if COIE contributed, too. Not by rewriting Donna's history (I really don't think that made much different within the comic at the time). But because it wasn't rebooted and new and maybe fans would rather check out the titles that were being reworked to see if they liked the new? Would have to the see the month-to-month sales to see when the numbers started falling to see if it was that or the quality decline.

I can't speak to the later Tim Titans, really. I have read so little, as it reworked the YJ characters (disliked that), refused to let Gar and Raven grown up (disliked that), and seemed to have, at least at first, had a "training" aspect to it for the younger members, which is completely contrary to what made the NTT so cool to me.

The worse part is that the 'training' aspect wasn't very good, since a lot of characters on the roster for killed for shock value.


If 'training' is going to be a theme of your comic, you need to show readers proof it works.

[Konja7]

I can't really say for sure on the Legion, but I can make a few educated guesses at least for the Titans.

I think a large part of why the Titans faced a decline was because DC stopped investing in that property as its own property. Now, that's not to say that DC editorial just woke up one day and said "the Titans are donezo as far as we're concerned." No, it wasn't that monolithic or sudden. I think it was just the culmination of a few things that took years to unfold.

For one, there was generally this attitude that, no matter what, no team was allowed to outshine or was "above" the JLA. Not the JSA, not the Legion, and not the Titans, even though the latter two outsold the JLA at the time. Second, starting at least in the 90s, there was almost an effort to take the Titans characters away from the Titans franchise.

That kind of became apparent when Wally West became the Flash after Barry's death. Now, even though Wally was still friends with all the Titans, he eventually had to join the Justice League because he was the Flash. And the Flash belonged on the JLA...right? I mean, when you think about it, Wally didn't really HAVE to join the League just by virtue of being a Flash. Jay was a Flash who was active, but he wasn't on the League. He was on the JSA and he stayed on the JSA. However, because Wally's ascension to Flash was seen as him "graduating" that meant that he had to "graduate" to Barry's spot on the League even if that meant leaving the Titans behind. It was something that fundamentally undercut the central thesis of Wolfman and Perez's New Teen Titans run: that these characters had come into their own and weren't beholden to their mentors; that they were their own franchise. And, for the record, I think Wally West is the best Flash and that his years on the League are awesome. However, it did divorce the guy from his friends and yeah, DC tried to balance it for a time by making him a member of both teams at the same time, but at that point, it was kind of like Solomon splitting the baby.

At almost the same time, in another move that followed the same pattern of undercutting the Titans, there was a concerted effort by the editorial at the time to separate Nightwing from the Titans so that he could be folded back into the Batman books. So, that's what they did, specifically around the time of the Knightfall story arc. Dick left the Titans, took over as Batman, and after Bruce's return got a solo Nightwing series operating out of Blüdhaven, Gotham's somehow-more-violent sister city. People I don't think realize that that was not just a happenstance occurrence because that's the direction the writers wanted to take Dick. It was a conscious effort by DC's editorial to fold Dick back into the Batman corner of the universe. And, like with Wally, those decisions might have been great to read for Dick as an individual, taking away the Titans' literal leader undoubtedly did a lot to weaken the franchise.

I've read Nightwing was taken from Titans, because the comic has already failed at that time.

So, they return Dick to the Batfamily, because this will help Dick.

[TheCape]

I've read Nightwing was taken from Titans, because the comic has already failed at that time.

So, they return Dick to the Batfamily, because this will help Dick.

It was to make the Batman brand even more popular, they couldn't use Dick in the 80s for obvious reasons (hence why Jason and Tim were created) and bring more readers, it was benefical for him to an extent of course, he has a far better carreer than his NTT buddies (god knows that they had struggle), but at the same time it means that he is forever bound to play second fiddle to Bruce narrative, for good or for ill, personally i think that it worked for the most past, but it definetly came with his own share of disavantages.

[Tzigone]

It was to make the Batman brand even more popular, they couldn't use Dick in the 80s for obvious reasons (hence why Jason and Tim were created) and bring more readers, it was benefical for him to an extent of course, he has a far better carreer than his NTT buddies (god knows that they had struggle), but at the same time it means that he is forever bound to play second fiddle to Bruce narrative, for good or for ill, personally i think that it worked for the most past, but it definetly came with his own share of disavantages.

I really do think this one was not to to make the Bat brand more popular, but because it was already popular and Titans was dead in the water. Opposite case to when Dick was made Nightwing, which I think was done for Batman's benefit. Also, the Robin series had just proved than a Bat-spinoff series could sell. So we got Nightwing. Birds of Prey. A new Batgirl who was immediately spun off.

I definitely agree there were disadvantages. There didn't have to be, but it definitely played out that way. Dick took permanent subordinate status (which I dislike) and Barbara, even though she ran her own team, wound up playing tech support for the Bats, had Batman funding her, owning her building, even spying on her so he could decide if she was worthy (though she rather rebelled on that). For me, despite some problems*, it played okay for a while. By by No Man's Land, Batman had crossed a line and the family dynamics were so screwed up and dysfunctional, it just wasn't enjoyable. Then other Bat-characters started picking up Batman's less-pleasant attributes.

But, we all have our biases. I like young heroes grow out the shadows of the primaries. I liked Impulse and Superboy better when we didn't see them as part of Wally and Clark's immediate families, but they were more distant kin.


* I did have a problem with Dick and his trying to prove himself the equal of Batman, get Batman's respect, and whatnot. That was a decent storyline for the 19-year-old Dick Grayson in NTT. It should have been resolved the first time, though. Like other Titans, he wound up repeating the same storyline in that regard over and over (really noticeable directly Post-COIE, as the transition to Nightwing was rewritten/retconned). Went through way to much of that until DC ultimately made it very clear that inferiority was his (and everyone else's) natural state in regards to Batman. And did various other things with the character that I hated a lot as the 2000s came along.

[Konja7]

I really do think this one was not to to make the Bat brand more popular, but because it was already popular and Titans was dead in the water. Opposite case to when Dick was made Nightwing, which I think was done for Batman's benefit. Also, the Robin series had just proved than a Bat-spinoff series could sell. So we got Nightwing. Birds of Prey. A new Batgirl who was immediately spun off.

I definitely agree there were disadvantages. There didn't have to be, but it definitely played out that way. Dick took permanent subordinate status (which I dislike) and Barbara, even though she ran her own team, wound up playing tech support for the Bats, had Batman funding her, owning her building, even spying on her so he could decide if she was worthy (though she rather rebelled on that). For me, despite some problems*, it played okay for a while. By by No Man's Land, Batman had crossed a line and the family dynamics were so screwed up and dysfunctional, it just wasn't enjoyable. Then other Bat-characters started picking up Batman's less-pleasant attributes.


* I did have a problem with Dick and his trying to prove himself the equal of Batman, get Batman's respect, and whatnot. That was a decent storyline for the 19-year-old Dick Grayson in NTT. It should have been resolved the first time, though. Like other Titans, he wound up repeating the same storyline in that regard over and over (really noticeable directly Post-COIE, as the transition to Nightwing was rewritten/retconned). Went through way to much of that until DC ultimately made it very clear that inferiority was his (and everyone else's) natural state in regards to Batman. And did various other things with the character that I hated a lot as the 2000s came along.

Yeah. Dick was made Nightwing, because Batman editorial wants to use Robin mantle again. So, Dick becoming Nightwing was made primarily for Batman convenience.

This decision made Robin a transitory sidekick identity. Before that, the idea that Dick could be Robin permanently as an adult was not far-fetched.

[Tzigone]

Yeah. Dick was made Nightwing, because Batman editorial wants to use Robin mantle again. So, Dick becoming Nightwing was made primarily for Batman convenience.

This decision made Robin a transitory sidekick identity. Before that, the idea that Dick could be Robin permanently as an adult was not far-fetched.

Oh, absolutely true. I said something similar on the should-Tim-be-Robin-again thread just recently. As have many others. There was a a time when Robin had grown up with Dick, become an independent hero. But it's become a title you outgrow now, and I think it'd be difficult to walk that back. Not really fond of that having happened, when I think on it. I think legacies like that lead to infighting with fans picking their faves and writers pitting them against each other to pick a "best" and so forth, and splitting up Batman's character traits/skills among them, which the absolute worst, as it diminishes them (especially Dick, IMO, since he was the one developed before that happened). But the multi-Robin thing can't be undone now, and I do like subsequent Robins as characters, and I understand the business reasons for it being "Batman and Robin" even if I'd have preferred them have their own code names.

[Comic-Reader Lad]

Some people brought up the X-Men, but while NTT and LSH were popular in the 1980s, they don't have the fundamental gravitas at their cores that X-Men does.

The X-Men has the persecuted minority angle at its core that can withstand years of bad stories and directions.

With NTT and LSH, all of the best stories have already been told with those characters, so all the later revamps tried to do was "recapture the magic" -- in other words "rehash the past." Even worse, when they weren't rehashing the past, the new stuff they were coming up with wasn't as interesting.

Another important factor is that, while the X-Men characters are a team, there have been several of them that have broken out and become fan favorites as individuals. Wolverine is the most obvious, but also Rogue, Gambit, Kitty, Storm, Phoenix, Deadpool, Cable, and others. No, most of them can't support a solo book for very long, but fans do like seeing them together and having writers explore their pasts.

Whereas, none of the individual Teen Titans or Legionnaires have achieved that kind of fame on an individual level. No one really goes apeshit over Star Boy or Pantha -- not even Cyborg. It's true that Starfire, Raven, and Changeling did drive storylines in the early years of the series, but Wolfman and Levitz really didn't deep dive into the characters and give them fully fleshed out backgrounds the way Claremont did with the X-Men.

I think that's where NTT and LSH eventually lost steam. They were more plot driven than X-Men. Even when X-Men was uninteresting or downright bad in terms of storylines, the depth of the characters relationships with each other kept readers coming back. They became more real to their fans than the NTT or LSH did to theirs, and so when the direction was unpopular or the storylines were uninspired, fans were more willing to bail.

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

It was to make the Batman brand even more popular, they couldn't use Dick in the 80s for obvious reasons (hence why Jason and Tim were created) and bring more readers, it was benefical for him to an extent of course, he has a far better carreer than his NTT buddies (god knows that they had struggle), but at the same time it means that he is forever bound to play second fiddle to Bruce narrative, for good or for ill, personally i think that it worked for the most past, but it definetly came with his own share of disavantages.

Yeah. Dick was made Nightwing, because Batman editorial wants to use Robin mantle again. So, Dick becoming Nightwing was made primarily for Batman convenience.

This decision made Robin a transitory sidekick identity. Before that, the idea that Dick could be Robin permanently as an adult was not far-fetched.

True, but it was not only because they couldn't use Dick, but they also wanted to de-age him back to being a younger kid. So, Wolfman struck a compromise with them that he would give them back the Robin name, but not Dick Grayson and that they would create a new Robin. So, that's how Jason came into being and why Dick became Nightwing. It wasn't for Batman's convenience. I bet it wasn't really "convenient" for them to have to create a whole new character just to get a Robin back in the Batman books. Instead, it was actually for the sake of salvaging Dick's character development that had taken place in the New Teen Titans book.

So, did Robin become a legacy mantle for whoever was Batman's partner at the time? Yeah. But the Titans were from that point on not being led by a Robin. They were being led by Dick Grayson aka Nightwing who had transcended Batman and come into his own. The business motivations for creating the Nightwing identity had the in-universe consequence of symbolizing Dick's transition to adulthood.