The Teen Titans in their original form are still one of my favorite teams ever. These days, the Titans are one of the biggest victims of DC's multiple continuity and timeline reboots. Multiple versions of the same character, team members seemingly aging at different rates and confusion over who was actually a member and when have turned what was once a simple concept (superhero side-kicks form a team) into a muddled mess. I was hoping the DC reboot would streamline things, but it has only exacerbated the problem. Maybe for the next reboot they should just de-age all the original Titans and start from scratch!
I'd hoped the New 52 would be a complete reboot, but they can't seem to commit to such a thing. Now, there's as much a mess as there ever has been.
ReplyDelete— Mou
Dave sez,
ReplyDeleteI LOVE John Byrne's Batman/Captain America team-up!
If it were up to me, I would have kinda gone retro with Teen Titans - look at the Young Justice cartoon - the entire DCU is on display there. I would have reformed the team with Robin and Supergirl at the core. Wally and Donna would not be MIA. I would have brought in Captain Marvel, Jr. and Mary Marvel. But, I would have also brought in Sand and some other Golden Age sidekicks, but tweaked for a '60's or '70's vibe.
But, that's just me...
So Cyborg was NEVER a Teen Titan according the 52 Reboot? I came upon The New Teen Titans just as the Terra saga was getting underway. That title has never again reached the highmark that it was in the mid '80s with Marv Wolfman.
ReplyDeleteIt took years of staggered changes to make the unified Earth Post-Crisis work, but that mostly meant we still had Bronze Age Earth-Prime and areas of confusion. The New 52 is almost nothing but discontinuity with tiny pockets of order rising up from the sludge of terrible costumes and the paste of pureed past relationships. I don't know what's going on with characters that were once favorites like the Titans, and more importantly, I simply do not care anymore. I left Marvel in the '90s without much inclination to look back, and I've done the same thing here. These are my Titans. They're in the longbox where I left them. The nU is irrelevant, and can stay at the comic shop I don't visit anymore, either.
ReplyDeleteThe original Teen Titans rocked (I'm old enough to have read most of the original stories when they first appeared and was a faithful viewer of the Filmation episodes as a nipper), and I was a HUGE fan of the New Teen Titans up until the "Crisis on Infinite Earths" storyline. Everything after that has been pretty much a travesty - as has so much of the overall DC output since then, particularly this abysmal "New 52" crapola, which I've determined will only be beneficial should we have a toilet paper shortage in the near future.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what Frank said so hard, it'll make his head split.
ReplyDeleteOver @ my blog, Mr Morbid's House of Fun, I've ridiculed Dan Didio and his cronies for awhile now, about the whole NU 52 mess. A common complaint that no one can seem to answer, is exactly why the the powers that be felt they needed a reboot in order to go digital, or whatever the "main purpose" was? They could have still put out the titles they wanted, and have, just w/o the horrible, and in some cases, grossly unnecessary ret-cons. And I don't think the whole Superman legal battle holds much weight either, so no go there.
It seems if you want decent stories again, then go back to the your long boxes and dollar/quarter bins @ your local comic store, because that's where there at now:(
Cool, cool cover by the way man!
Oh and YJ succeeds simply because it includes nods to old continuity, but doesn't confuse the fans on the details. They just focus on tell good stories, with a really good cast of characters. Now how come Marvel and DC can't do that?
John Small pretty much said everything for me this time around. Ross, I like how you nailed the simple concept of the TT (which was pretty much the same for YA), which was a lot of fun in the simple original stories and developed nicely in the later NTT. After that, well...
ReplyDeleteEveryone is right when it comes to this whole new universe thing. I think they should just reboot once again and go back to the Solver/Bronze age versions of the characters but with modern day storytelling. That ought to work if you ask me. Well done cover I might add.
ReplyDeleteSorry... I meant Silver age.
ReplyDeleteThe crux of the problem with the New 52 is that DC wanted a reboot, but the didn't want to mess with the success of the Batman and Green Lantern franchises. When you don't get everyone to play along, you get problems.
ReplyDeleteThere are pockets of goodness: Flash, Aquaman, Earth-2, and Worlds' Finest; but, for the most part, meh.
— Mou
Fascinating team-up, even if on different chronological pages. Robin and Bucky--the two greatest sidekicks in comic book history--are a welcome crossover anytime! Hope to see more...
ReplyDelete...perhaps late 60's Robin (Gil Kane's run in Detective Comics) opposite Rick Jones during his brief run as the second Bucky...
Awesome job with this. How do you make these cool comic book covers?
ReplyDeleteI use Photoshop these days, but when I created this cover I was still using MS Paint.
ReplyDelete9 years later and the sacrificial lambs of the original Titans continues. Ever reboot just seems to be worse. Even Grayson who gets to stay in the spotlight is given a pretty awful go of it.
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