Pitch a Direction: Titans

[Ascended]

No ofense but its silly to say they can't tell anymore stories with NTT and their established villains. Its like complaining that you can't tell anymore stories with a JL made of Superman, Batman, WW, Aquaman and so on, or with villains such as Joker, Darkseid, Luthor and whatever, because those were also done in the past.

It comes down to the premise. The League consisting of the same roster and fighting the same villains isn't a problem because that roster is still the best of the best dealing with the biggest threats. It's the military fighting Isis. Just because one battle ends doesnt mean the war is over. There's a threat of the stories just getting boring of course, but the premise itself holds just fine.

The NTT differ due to the premise of the team being one of young heroes finding their own way. It worked when they were 18-22. Now that they're older, it feels less like a Never Ending Battle and more like college grads who still show up to the frat parties. The NTT should've found their way by now, and their narrative should've changed to reflect that. Moreover, the "young heroes finding their way" niche is being filled by the YJ generation now (and has been since the 90's), so it makes the NTT generation look even more inept when they're still trying to figure out the same sorta thing that a bunch of teens barely old enough to drive are.

[Dred]

It comes down to the premise. The League consisting of the same roster and fighting the same villains isn't a problem because that roster is still the best of the best dealing with the biggest threats. It's the military fighting Isis. Just because one battle ends doesnt mean the war is over. There's a threat of the stories just getting boring of course, but the premise itself holds just fine.

The NTT differ due to the premise of the team being one of young heroes finding their own way. It worked when they were 18-22. Now that they're older, it feels less like a Never Ending Battle and more like college grads who still show up to the frat parties. The NTT should've found their way by now, and their narrative should've changed to reflect that. Moreover, the "young heroes finding their way" niche is being filled by the YJ generation now (and has been since the 90's), so it makes the NTT generation look even more inept when they're still trying to figure out the same sorta thing that a bunch of teens barely old enough to drive are.

Oh man it's almost like rebooting is anathema to characters who actually grow and change and develop over the years. And the idea that the universe has to stick to a very specific status quo to keep particular heroes in the limelight causes inherent contradiction in the product.

The Titans' problems were never the Titans. It is and will be the JL. Just look at Wally and how his world went the second Barry returned. Or look at what happened to Roy when Ollie started demanding the limelight -- from JL member to junkie with a dead daughter and a missing arm. It turns out, when you're expendable, DC expends you.

[Lightning Rider]

I did! This was back when Vic still had a solo. The idea was to take Gar out of the Titans book and make him a supporting character in Vic's. Gar would've gone into semi-retirement as Beast Boy (and start going by Changeling again when he did suit up!) and focus on his acting career. He would've made his name as a "Andy Serkis" type of actor; the guy who takes weird, crazy, silly, inhuman characters and brings them to life. And Gar would've taken that fame and influence and become a vocal activist. Y'know those Hollywood types who are always speaking up for some cause or another? Gar would've been like that, cranked up to 11. And his new influence would've helped thousands of kids in need across the nation, making him a far more effective hero as "Gar Logan: Hollywood Star" than he ever was as "Beast Boy: Least Mature Titan."

And yes, it was just one of several ideas I had for what the "next step" in the lives of the Titans could look like. I love these characters, and I love them hanging out together, but I'm sick of reunions that force them back into a twisted illusion of the NTT era. They're older, more experienced, and should have moved beyond those cycles that writers keep bringing them back to. I thought if the characters could move forward in life, it might bring a new sense of purpose and direction to the Titans IP as a whole; focus on the individual parts and the larger whole will work itself out. At least that was my theory.

I for one think it's a great direction for him and ties back into some of the other ideas thrown around in the thread in terms of the Titans being involved with the public and community in ways the League just doesn't. And I generally agree with the idea that reunions, friendship, and nostalgia isn't enough. They need something to do and it has to be at least a little bit different while being true to the characters. Ideas like this do that.

[Dred]

It is very, very hard to balance a team book and trying to make them both solve and fix superheroic level problems and then be super friendly and interactive with "the community" (which community? They're world gallivanting heroes) while also giving team members their due seems like a tall order. The JL don't lack interaction with "the community" because they're the JL -- Superman, Barry Allen, Wonder Woman, etc etc are known for their connection to particular communities. This is something that's shown on a personal, individual level rather than as a team. That's why it's a feature in their solo books.

Turns out, outside of Nightwing, none of these losers have solo books to show off this kind of behavior. There's only so much you can fit into 22 pages. What are you going to sacrifice to have the Titans talk with...some community members...? The action scenes? The interpersonal relationships? Individual character beats and storylines? There's an inherent balancing act to comics and I feel like "they interact with the community!" is too vague and too nebulous to be a successful direction. You'd have to establish a community in the first place, which would have to change on an issue by issue basis unless the Titans are working out of just one place. It's real easy to lose support and readers if it takes too long to set up and payoff (or the payoff never comes). QED, Rebirth Titans. And I'm not even sure the payoff is worth it if you're just doing your best Superman impersonation...when the JL already has Superman.

[Ascended]

Oh man it's almost like rebooting is anathema to characters who actually grow and change and develop over the years. And the idea that the universe has to stick to a very specific status quo to keep particular heroes in the limelight causes inherent contradiction in the product.

Ha! I know right? At this point the Titans are nothing but a contradiction and it pisses me off. Wally, Dick, Vic, Roy, these are some of my all-time favorite characters and I hate how they keep getting sh*t on because DC cant imagine what to do with them beyond recycling stuff Wolfman already did, and did better.

The Titans' problems were never the Titans. It is and will be the JL. Just look at Wally and how his world went the second Barry returned. Or look at what happened to Roy when Ollie started demanding the limelight -- from JL member to junkie with a dead daughter and a missing arm. It turns out, when you're expendable, DC expends you.

I'll do you one better: the problem isnt the League. It's DC's perception of the League and the dynamic that *has* to exist with their legacies.

I for one think it's a great direction for him and ties back into some of the other ideas thrown around in the thread in terms of the Titans being involved with the public and community in ways the League just doesn't. And I generally agree with the idea that reunions, friendship, and nostalgia isn't enough. They need something to do and it has to be at least a little bit different while being true to the characters. Ideas like this do that.

Thanks. See, Dred mentioned reboots and as some of ya'll may know, I'm strictly anti-reboot in any but the most extreme cases. Reboots dont work. They cause problems, they erase and alter popular, character-defining stories, and generally they just fail 95% of the time to achieve what they're supposed to.

I think a viable alternative to taking a step backwards, is to just take a step forward. It doesnt have to be a big step. Hell, most of the time it shouldn't be. But it doesn't change the history or development while offering new narrative options, and it (shouldnt) detour from the overall trajectory.

[darud]

They de-aged their members so they could put them back on the team.

That was one of the mistakes. All members of the team should have stayed around the same age. The NTT should have stayied together over the time in the same way the JL have.

Previous attempts at recreating the NTT were no more successful than this last attempt at putting the Fab Five together, which is the first time that's happened since NTT on any significant basis. Go back and look at the success of even Johns' Teen Titans (which had a reunion of most the NTT cast + YJ cast which a lot of people like) or the 2008 literal "let's just put the NTT together again" team and they did not stand out saleswise, and inevitably were cancelled -- admittedly in the 08 Titans and 03 TT's case it happened with Flashpoint. Same with the 99 Titans series which was lead by NTT members and had some new folks put in ie: The NTT formula. Basically you can look up any Teen Titans/Titans comic over the past 20 years and you'll find a bunch of NTT injected into it.

Chasing the NTT dragon is something that they've done every five or so years. They literally just tried it by sticking Raven and Beast Boy onto the team with Donna and Dick. Sound familiar? Yet the series is cancelled, the entire impetus for this thread, after trying to make it more like NTT and its sales continued to tank.

From little I know the sales of this last Titans series weren't too bad. Not extraordinary but neither too low. They do suffer(ed) however from the exactly same problems I mentioned. The team was held back and pushed down by the DC editorial (maybe by the writers too sometime). They were again put under the JL shadow and considered their subordinates. Most important members were deaged and some send to other teams or simply shot in the head. This is not the original NTT. They do have some of the NTT members in but that doesn't automatically make them the NTT of the past. And that because the original NTT had a different status, were at a different level, they were allowed to shine and be independent and powerful. After that, with couple exceptions here and there, they were never allowed to be at that level, and thats the main problem.

Also I doubt the cancellation will be for too long, it might be probably a restart or reboot of the series, bringing Dick back (he was just in, how many, three-four issues after the reunion with Raven and BB?), maybe Starfire too, anyway something to resemble more the TV series maybe

NTT hit a zeitgeist where the JL was crumbling due to many of the members struggling outside the comic (Barry, Hal, even Wonder Woman was having issues in the 80s) and JL wasn't the bar anyone was afraid to measure up against at the time. NTT moved in on that turf. But since then, the JL has regained their status and any book with "titans" in the name has always been the B or C or D team. NTT was successful because Perez was great and they had a space to be the lead team book at DC. That's the long and short of it. If JL is the lead team book then Titans will always suffer regardless. It'll be a medium selling book like it has been since the mid 90s.

The NTT weren't even rivaling the JL back then, they were fighting head to head with the X-Men in sales if I get it right, they had basically saved DC comics at that time. The problem was that DC didn't hold to them but pushed them aside as soon as they recovered, so they can push forward the JL, Batman, Superman and so on. Instead to go in parallel with them and promote both, Marvel for example don't seem to have a problem promoting multiple different teams and related characters.
They were proved wrong with that approach when the TT cartoon series will come around and that was (even still is) such a big hit. Its just (very) bad management (and promotion) from DC, not some inherent flaws of the Titans.

The reason why this latest Titans run hasn't succeeded is obvious. The original team was literally not allowed to do anything. Booth and Abnett have both come out and said that they weren't allowed to do any of the stories they wanted to. There was plenty of excitement going into the book because it had an amazing hook led into it by DCU Rebirth, and they intentionally (and I would say maliciously) refused to capitalize on it. They brought in the JL to **** on the team twice -- editorials' favored heroes popping in just to remind everyone that the Titans suck and you should read JL. This is and always will be the problem, not whether or not the team has Starfire and Raven on it or not.

Thats right, this is what I am saying as well, some higher up at DC, and sometime maybe even the writers, don't let the Titans to reach the same level they were back in the glory days of NTT, meaning a rival (in good way) of JL, just as capable as them (and even more capable vs specific threats).

But they can't be on that level with just the Fab 5 or other lesser members, because by default those are the sidekicks, the former juniors, it's hard to impossible for them to surpass or even get to and stay for longer at the level of their former seniors, the established characters. Both because the DC won't agree with that and both because, in universe speaking now, is hard for many of them to "realistically" surpass their more experienced (sometime more powerful) mentors.
That's why you need the other original NTT, who on the one hand don't hold such baggage, don't have mentors or seniors and don't look up to JL, at least not in the same way. On the other hand they (some of them at least) are just as powerful and capable as the JL members and come with new and interesting abilities and connections. I already said what Raven or Starfire did to the JL right from the begining.

They can also bring lots of possible development and new story arcs for the Titans. As someone pointed out around here, Raven for example, as basically Satan's daughter, can secretly take over her father underworld realms. Lets say Trigon get too cocky and take on the Presence and is defeated and banished in the void or something, and Raven is forced to take his throne to avoid having her brothers doing it. However she keep that in secret so the others don't freak out but she sometime slip a little to the dark side and do dark stuffs behind their back. She is anyway the one that can connect the team and the story with the horror side, magic, interdimensional travels and adventures thourhg the multiverse and have psionic powers rarely rivaled in DC.
Starfire can always connect with sci-fi side, aliens, space ships, far away civilizations on other planets and so on, and she should normaly be just as good as WW. From start and just with these two you have a lot of potential for various stories and lot of power level for Titans, even surpassing the JL. You just need a good creative team for them and freedom from the DC editorial to tell grand stories with them.
But if they and the other Titans are always hold down by the editorial you can make a Titans team made of Spectre, Trigon, the Anti-Monitor, the Monitor and whatever slightly popular characters outside of JL and they too will still somehow and eventually fall behind the JL if they will need to deal with something big for DC.

[darud]

It comes down to the premise. The League consisting of the same roster and fighting the same villains isn't a problem because that roster is still the best of the best dealing with the biggest threats. It's the military fighting Isis. Just because one battle ends doesnt mean the war is over. There's a threat of the stories just getting boring of course, but the premise itself holds just fine.

The NTT differ due to the premise of the team being one of young heroes finding their own way. It worked when they were 18-22. Now that they're older, it feels less like a Never Ending Battle and more like college grads who still show up to the frat parties. The NTT should've found their way by now, and their narrative should've changed to reflect that. Moreover, the "young heroes finding their way" niche is being filled by the YJ generation now (and has been since the 90's), so it makes the NTT generation look even more inept when they're still trying to figure out the same sorta thing that a bunch of teens barely old enough to drive are.

This is what I am saying, the NTT should just stay as they were back then, young adults, not teens, and to be independent more or less from the JL and just as capable to deal with same level of threats as them. I mean they were formed by Raven back in the day precisely to fight a threat that even JL couldn't deal with, in fact they don't even understand it at first.
They need to be allowed to do such things, at that level, and they need to be moved away from JL shadow. As long as they can't do that they will never be as successful as in their height days regardless of who's part of the team. And thats a loss for both their fans and even for DC in general, who chose to stay just on the shoulders of JL.

To follow some of your comparison with the military, there is SEAL but there is also the Green Berets, they can both fight similar kind of enemies or very different enemies in different mediums but they are both held around similar status in their respective military

I agree that is wrong to make them again some unexperienced teens and make them sit with a herd of newer teen characters (both TT and YJ) aspiring to be superheroes just like the JL, and looking at the JL for counseling and support. They should be a counterpaart team of JL, just as good and dealing maybe with more specific threats or even similar types (extraterrestrial threats, interdimensional threats, demons, subversive organizations and so on). Because realistically not even JL can be always everywhere or shouldn't be always better than the Titans, that just make everything boring from some point on.

[DrNewGod]

...But I think, perhaps, the crux of the problem isn't the "reunion" as much as it is the "time stop." Wolfman and Perez made the Titans one of the biggest IP's in the industry in large part because the characters were allowed to evolve and grow. That's rare in mainstream comics and the NTT did it very well. But their success became a trap, and the roster has largely been stuck in amber ever since...

A piece of that tends to get overlooked; NTT and LoSH (and X-Men over at Marvel) were just about the only Big Two comics doing progression at the time, and the only ones that had tried it for nearly a decade. Moreover, NTT and LoSH were the only titles at DC at the time catering to an older-than-midpubescent reader, which had become the majority of audience. Just like Fantastic Four blew the doors off almost everything that DC had been producing before, the refreshing approach was unique on the stands, as everything else was - to use Ascended's compellingly astute term - "stuck in amber" of their own success.

More interesting (to me at least) is that the main reason Wolfman and Perez were allowed to run amok as they were was that TT was a failed property when NTT 1.1 hit the stands. As long as they didn't whack Robin, or do something else with him that would have rendered his IP radioactive in the Bat-comics, W&P were allowed to try damn near whatever they pleased. When it proved to work so well, nobody was going to try reigning them in.

[SiegePerilous02]

I'll do you one better: the problem isnt the League. It's DC's perception of the League and the dynamic that *has* to exist with their legacies.

Thats right, this is what I am saying as well, some higher up at DC, and sometime maybe even the writers, don't let the Titans to reach the same level they were back in the glory days of NTT, meaning a rival (in good way) of JL, just as capable as them (and even more capable vs specific threats).

This is the core truth. The JL isn't the problem, it's editorial's fixation that they everyone beneath them cannot be their peers. Nobody can replace those characters, and DC would be stupid to try, but God forbid they expend some creative energy and respect for the next generation down and think outside the box to make them peers.

If the meres presence of the JL or the resurgence for its members in the 80s were all it took to topple the Titans franchise, it is not as strong as we think it is. And I don't think any of us should think that. DC, if they cared to try, would be capable of having two healthy franchises (along with their sub-franchises) instead of having things heavily skewed towards one. They need to be able to please as wide a fanbase as possible. That means catering to one over the other (either by making the Titans still sit at the kids table and limiting their potential and stories, or by phasing out the JL for the next gen when they are still viable) is foolish.

[Dred]

Thats right, this is what I am saying as well, some higher up at DC, and sometime maybe even the writers, don't let the Titans to reach the same level they were back in the glory days of NTT, meaning a rival (in good way) of JL, just as capable as them (and even more capable vs specific threats).

But they can't be on that level with just the Fab 5 or other lesser members, because by default those are the sidekicks, the former juniors, it's hard to impossible for them to surpass or even get to and stay for longer at the level of their former seniors, the established characters. Both because the DC won't agree with that and both because, in universe speaking now, is hard for many of them to "realistically" surpass their more experienced (sometime more powerful) mentors.
That's why you need the other original NTT, who on the one hand don't hold such baggage, don't have mentors or seniors and don't look up to JL, at least not in the same way. On the other hand they (some of them at least) are just as powerful and capable as the JL members and come with new and interesting abilities and connections. I already said what Raven or Starfire did to the JL right from the begining.

They can also bring lots of possible development and new story arcs for the Titans. As someone pointed out around here, Raven for example, as basically Satan's daughter, can secretly take over her father underworld realms. Lets say Trigon get too cocky and take on the Presence and is defeated and banished in the void or something, and Raven is forced to take his throne to avoid having her brothers doing it. However she keep that in secret so the others don't freak out but she sometime slip a little to the dark side and do dark stuffs behind their back. She is anyway the one that can connect the team and the story with the horror side, magic, interdimensional travels and adventures thourhg the multiverse and have psionic powers rarely rivaled in DC.
Starfire can always connect with sci-fi side, aliens, space ships, far away civilizations on other planets and so on, and she should normaly be just as good as WW. From start and just with these two you have a lot of potential for various stories and lot of power level for Titans, even surpassing the JL. You just need a good creative team for them and freedom from the DC editorial to tell grand stories with them.
But if they and the other Titans are always hold down by the editorial you can make a Titans team made of Spectre, Trigon, the Anti-Monitor, the Monitor and whatever slightly popular characters outside of JL and they too will still somehow and eventually fall behind the JL if they will need to deal with something big for DC.

I don't get what you're talking about. The NTT had Dick, Donna, and Wally on it still. Do you think Garth and Roy somehow magically upsets the world and makes the Titans lesser? Do you think injecting Starfire, Raven, and Beast Boy fixes all woes?

I don't. Because they've done exactly that -- well not exactly, but the 90s Titans series had Dick, Wally, Starfire, and Cyborg on it and still saw the same issues. The magic isn't in having no sidekicks, because the two most important characters in Wolfman and Perez's run were Dick and Donna by far (I know you're putting the Trigon arc on a pedastal but NTT had a lot more issues than that). Lilith, the unofficial sixth of the fab five, was also a semi frequent member. Starfire, Raven, Beast Boy and Cyborg have all been on teams together in various incarnations and that has not fixed anything. And Cyborg is also off limits on the JL now, and that will not be changing for some years given the state of the movies.

The point isn't that being former sidekicks ruins everything. Otherwise NTT would not have worked because it heavily relied on those characters. It's more likely NTT was a flash in the pan due to timing, standout talent, and editorial support.

I get that you love the non-sidekick NTT cast but they have never fixed the woes of the franchise no matter how many times they've tried. There's alteast 5 or 6 Trigon rehash arcs in various Titan/Teen Titan incarnations since NTT ended and they don't fix anything, and that's your go to example. Why do you think that this will fix it when it has been tried and failed so often? Like seriously, you're talking about Raven taking over the throne when I'm pretty freaking sure that is straight out of a 2008 Titans arc (the one with all her dumb brothers). And it certainly isn't about powerlevel because Wally and Donna are as heavy hitting powerlevel wise as you can get, and Garth knows magic which is literally as powerful as you want it to be.

[Ascended]

More interesting (to me at least) is that the main reason Wolfman and Perez were allowed to run amok as they were was that TT was a failed property when NTT 1.1 hit the stands. As long as they didn't whack Robin, or do something else with him that would have rendered his IP radioactive in the Bat-comics, W&P were allowed to try damn near whatever they pleased. When it proved to work so well, nobody was going to try reigning them in.

And ever since Wolfman left, the progression that made the Titans viable and popular has been stopped, and they're the ones trapped in amber now. We've seen how well it works.

I get that you love the non-sidekick NTT cast but they have never fixed the woes of the franchise no matter how many times they've tried. There's alteast 5 or 6 Trigon rehash arcs in various Titan/Teen Titan incarnations since NTT ended and they don't fix anything, and that's your go to example. Why do you think that this will fix it when it has been tried and failed so often? Like seriously, you're talking about Raven taking over the throne when I'm pretty freaking sure that is straight out of a 2008 Titans arc (the one with all her dumb brothers). And it certainly isn't about powerlevel because Wally and Donna are as heavy hitting powerlevel wise as you can get, and Garth knows magic which is literally as powerful as you want it to be.

I think what he's getting at (not to put words in his/her mouth) is that you take the Titans, keep them dealing with big giant threats and doing their thing with or without League approval as it was in Wolfman's day (funny how that got twisted with time and now the Titans crumble without it), and then remove the limitation that they're still "young heroes figuring themselves out." I think he's saying that you do a "proper" NTT reunion where the team tackles huge problems on its own terms, with no apologies. The reunions we always get show the Titans as being subservient to League influence, but the original NTT run wasn't like that.

I myself dont think that's enough to save the IP. A reunion is still a reunion, and reunions fail. But I think that's what darud is getting at. I do think its a great idea to let the characters take the next step in life (I suggested Raven ruling Trigon's realm myself, had no idea it had been done already) but I dont know if that'd be enough to save the Titans. It'd make the individual characters more interesting though.

[SiegePerilous02]

I think what he's getting at (not to put words in his/her mouth) is that you take the Titans, keep them dealing with big giant threats and doing their thing with or without League approval as it was in Wolfman's day (funny how that got twisted with time and now the Titans crumble without it), and then remove the limitation that they're still "young heroes figuring themselves out." I think he's saying that you do a "proper" NTT reunion where the team tackles huge problems on its own terms, with no apologies. The reunions we always get show the Titans as being subservient to League influence, but the original NTT run wasn't like that.

And fighting some of the same villains. That certainly doesn't help. What was great about the initial Trigon, Deathstroke, Brother Blood, Fearsome Five, Blackfire, etc. stories is that they were all NEW. We need a healthy mix of old and new, like all the other major properties. Johns is definitely doing it now with Shazam, and did it with Aquaman and GL. Morrison did it with Batman. Injecting some new life into the Titans by looking at their ENTIRE history and adding onto it is seemingly very difficult to do with them, which is disappointing. We get some new X-Men every few years, some of them manage to stick. Claremont banged out some classics like Rogue, Psylocke, Gambit and Jubilee even after his split with Byrne. Surely it's possible to come up with brand new team members, not tied to any other franchise, who are in the same age group? Hell, maybe a bit older to finally get rid of the "only teens/former teen heroes need apply" stigma?

I think the lack of civilian supporting characters has also hurt the franchise. Both old and new. I checked out of both recent NTT reunions fairly quickly, but did Sarah Sims, Vic's grandparents, Questor, Arella (alive/dead/what?), etc. ever make any appearances? Even (God help us) Terry Long made the book better with his presence, because at least he was a supporting character that was memorable (if for not quite the reasons the author intended). We really need an injection of new side players as well.

[Harpsikord]

I agree on many terms BUT!!

1.) Why Starfire? There are many others who are more powerful etc.
and only because she is a long-time member doesnt make her more logical for the team...

... Because Starfire is simultaneously one of my favorite Titans characters and also one of the most popular, core members of the Titans. Name a version of the Titans in outside media where Starfire hasn't been a part of the team outside of the shorts from the 1960s/70s. The fact is: you can't. Same goes for Beast Boy and Dick Grayson. Apart from Grayson she's also the only member of the Titans that has really enjoyed a semi-successful solo run. (Sorry Cyborg, your push doesn't count.)

2.) Every combination has also different chemistry etc.

Yes they do. And that's why there's a core, in part - because the chemistry between the team does change whenever the foundation changes.

3.) Whats about CONNER,CASSIE,TIM,BART??
They also earned their place in the Titans...

and CONNER for example is one of the main-protagonists in the YOUNG JUSTICE TV Series..

They're on Young Justice, where I'd like them to stay. Bart is one of my favorite characters at DC, I think he's better off there right now.

[Digifiend]

... Because Starfire is simultaneously one of my favorite Titans characters and also one of the most popular, core members of the Titans. Name a version of the Titans in outside media where Starfire hasn't been a part of the team outside of the shorts from the 1960s/70s. The fact is: you can't. Same goes for Beast Boy and Dick Grayson.

Yeah, even the Robin in Teen Titans Go is supposed to be Dick.

[Dred]

... Because Starfire is simultaneously one of my favorite Titans characters and also one of the most popular, core members of the Titans. Name a version of the Titans in outside media where Starfire hasn't been a part of the team outside of the shorts from the 1960s/70s. The fact is: you can't. Same goes for Beast Boy and Dick Grayson. Apart from Grayson she's also the only member of the Titans that has really enjoyed a semi-successful solo run. (Sorry Cyborg, your push doesn't count.)

Young Justice, which you just mentioned, is an outside media incarnation of the Teen Titans. It's clearly based on the franchise and its members despite making its own changes. Like ignoring a lot of the NTT cast, amusingly!

Also outside of Grayson? Wally West is by far the most successful despite years of editorial not wanting him to succeed, as opposed to Starfire who they really want to succeed.