Farewell to the(se) Teen Titans pt. 1

With the DC Universe we’ve known and loved for the past 25/5/2 years (depending on when you consider the current start point; I left out Zero Hour as an option, though I probably shouldn’t have) coming to an end before beginning anew this week, I wanted to do some sort of big post celebrating, highlighting or analyzing said world of comics. A daunting task to be sure, but despite the fact I work “across the street,” we’re talking about stories, characters, creators, etc. that played a major part in my comic book life and that have meant a lot to me.

I’m probably repeating myself here, but while I was a Marvel kid and am employed by Marvel now, DC was a major part of what got me back into comics in college following a multi-year lapse and ultimately led me down the path that made me a—snicker—industry professional. While discovering Sarge’s Comics and wanting to check up on what I’d missed with the X-Men was the lure that caught my attention, a sprawling universe containing so many tales and so much continuity I’d never explored in much depth was the bait that reeled me in.

Crisis on Infinite Earths was my starting point, rather than an end goal, so I could work my way back and figure out who all these people saving the multiverse were and where they’d gotten to since 1986. Marv Wolfman and George Perez’s New Teen Titans was a natural next step as they were the Crisis creators and the complete run was there in the back issue bins for me to find. At the same time, I caught up on what I’d missed in the late 90’s with stuff like Kingdom Come and Grant Morrison’s JLA while also familiarizing myself with then-current DC fare, most prominently the work of Geoff Johns on Flash and JSA.

Wow, this could easily just turn into yet another “Ben’s comics autobiography” post if I let it. But I won’t. Well, I’ll try.

Anyway, while Marvel has provided the bookends of my fandom to date, DC played a major role filling the gaps. I was known as “the DC guy” for most of my tenure at Wizard including a year or so run as their official contact and am a dude who still picks up quite a few of their books with my own hard-earned money and reads most of the others from the comps around the Marvel offices to this day.

But what to write about in this epic farewell to the current DCU? Something about the Justice League since their newest incarnation debuts this week? A treatise on Crisis On Infinite Earths, since it’s kinda my DC bible? An underrated stories list? A lazy top five?

All considered, all rejected.

I was reading Teen Titans #100 over the weekend and realized I vividly recall the first issue of the series and most of the 98 in between. I can’t really think of any other current book I can say that about, at least not one that’s lasted that long. So I figured remembering this last volume of Teen Titans, which in many ways was my DC touchstone from college to Wizard and even to Marvel, was the way to go.

First things first: When a new Teen Titans ongoing series was announced back in 2003, I was not happy about it. Seriously. I even wrote an article about why I didn’t like the idea for my old web site, 411mania.

Seems strange, doesn’t it? I’ve already covered that I was a fan of the Wolfman/Perez Teen Titans as well as Geoff Johns, who would be writing the new series. I was also big into the Exiles art of Mike McKone, who would be drawing the book, and one of my favorite characters, Superboy, would be a charter member. So why the glass half empty outlook? It had to do mostly with Young Justice.

Since my “return” to comics, Young Justice by Peter David and Todd Nauck had become one of the consistent favorites to top my reading list. It was funny, it was a clever, and it was different; a monthly super hero comic with plenty of action, jokes and shiny art, but also a knack for incorporating heavier themes involving real teenage problems and building relationships that felt genuine. I loved Young Justice and miss it to this day. Unfortunately, while it had a passionate following, we weren’t enormous, and unfortunately it was just a matter of time before the book got cancelled. I should have been overjoyed that even if one of my most beloved comics was going away, at least most of its cast was sticking together in a new title by my favorite writer, but for whatever reason I took a more “You killed Young Justice!” approach to Teen Titans’ initial publicity.

Fortunately, my stance didn’t hold for long. Yeah, initially I was a bit of a fanboy, grumbling to myself about Impulse now wanting to be called Kid Flash or Superboy acting less like the eternally immature Peter Pan I grew up with, but Geoff did strong work and they did it from the start, so it was hard to not get caught up. As time passed, I bought more and more into the notion that these characters were actually growing up, just as I had; Young Justice was the carefree middle school years of those characters—and me—that still existed in memories and always would, but Teen Titans was the terrifying and exhilarating step that came next.

It also helped that Mike McKone’s art was really good. In a lot of ways he was the modern day George Perez to a new generation of Titans as far as enthusiasm for detail and skill in conveying youth, but he also set himself apart with a smooth style incorporating an eye for the future that set him apart from his decades-earlier predecessor’s classic and studied approach.

Johns also brought his talent for reinvigorating classic villains as well as creating new takes on familiar bad guys honed on Flash over to Titans. Deathstroke shook off his murky anti-hero period and got back to being a thinking man’s bad ass with a warped—but potent—code of honor. The Wilson children, Jericho and Ravager, both got fleshed out and twisted (in my exit interview with Geoff for Wizard when he left the book, I noted how his run was in many ways as much the story of the Wilson family as of the Titans, a fact he registered with a “Huh”). The new Brother Blood was even creepier than the old one (and still gives my wife the willies if I mention him). The fallout of Doctor Light going from joke to psycho with an earned chip on his shoulder was also well-played.

There was also a clear rising action to those early arcs of Teen Titans especially. “A Kid’s Game” was a strong opening that forged the team immediately against an A-level threat in Deathstroke and gave a nod to the title’s past, but it was still our heroes versus a relatively conventional bad guy, which gave room to grow. After two fun one-offs with a JLA versus story and ode to the classic “Day in the Life” issue of NTT, “Raven Rising” upped the stakes with a more serious threat in the new Brother Blood and reached deeper into the past by incorporating Trigon while also building further for the future with Ravager’s ongoing involvement. “Beast Boys and Girls” was another diversion arc with a focus on Beast Boy—which made sense given that Johns had written a solo series for him way back when—another new villain in The Zookeeper and a neat throwback with former Titans—and Superboy—artist as well as a personal favorite, Tom Grummett, on hand to illustrate.

By this time, I had become friends with Geoff and met him at my first San Diego Comic-Con as he was helping me try to break in. My buddy Tim and I went out for a midday drink with him and he showed us on his laptop what was coming up in Titans, so I got my first taste both of being an “insider” and not being able to share awesome secrets.

“Titans Tomorrow” was awesome. In reality, it was “only” a three-part story contained to a single title, but it felt so much bigger in scale. I’ve always loved peeking at future versions of elements I know as much as the next guy, but here Johns devoted as much time to genuine character building in the way of values and destiny as he did to fan service stuff like revisiting the Bart Allen-Rose Wilson romance or incorporating Cyborg’s animated series look—although I suppose that latter credit should be given more to McKone, who outdid himself in redesigning the future Titans and their world.

It would be the next arc, “Lights Out,” where Mike would really get the chance to shine—which was fitting as it would be his swan song before heading back to Marvel to draw Fantastic Four. The story spun out of Identity Crisis, bringing Doctor Light out of that event and back into the Titans orbit, and also brought the new Speedy into the team as well as introducing a new Hawk and Dove. The true draw, however, was McKone getting to draw pretty much every Titan ever when they get called in as backup, an old Perez staple that he had earned and that he attacked with an explosive excitement, truly his finest hour on a tour of duty filled with many high marks.

Teen Titans would be a good and even great book other times past issue #23, but there was certainly a magic and energy in those initial Johns/McKone issues that, as with any truly special creative team, would be impossible to duplicate.

And that seems a good place to stop for today, as 100 issues certainly warrants more than one post (particularly when I—predictably—rambled about myself for the first five paragraphs).

Underrated/Overlooked: Sins of Youth

Young Justice isn’t just one of my favorite comics of all-time, it’s also in my mind a tremendous accomplishment.

That may have made a few of you scratch your heads; no, Young Justice wasn’t a game-changer like Watchmen or record-breaker like Civil War, but hear me out on the impressive merits it did possess.

I’ve extolled the virtues of Peter David on this blog before, and this is another one of his triumphs. As usual, he did a long haul job, penning 55 uninterrupted (there may have been one fill-in) issues plus numerous Annuals, specials, etc. over the course of five years. Young Justice is as funny and as poignant in spots as his work on Incredible Hulk or Supergirl, but it’s also far more metatextual and self-aware than even PAD’s usual stuff. There’s a scene in one of the later issues that’s one of my favorites that took place just a few months after Superboy and Impulse’s solo books getting cancelled and has The Ray relating to them about “their favorite comics” ending and all of them giving Robin the evil eye when it enters the room—fun but clever bits like that just peppered the book.

But maybe more impressive than the impressive effort put in by PAD was the breakout performance of my good pal Todd Nauck, who absolutely owned this series. It’s not unheard of for a writer, particularly one with the rep of Peter David, to spend half a decade perfecting his craft on a title, but in this day and age, generally guys not named Mark Bagley don’t stick around as long; not only did Todd match PAD for longevity on Young Justice, he utilized his growing familiarity with the characters as a way to constantly up his game and make improvements of what he already knew as well as bringing something new to the table nearly every month (Snapper Carr’s collection of super hero-themed t-shirts—ranging from Plastic Man to Metron—immediately comes to mind). Todd is that rarest breed of modern artist who can draw as fast as he does well (again, shades of Mark Bagley); he drew nearly every issue of Young Justice plus one-shots plus sometimes other series, but it never looked rushed or half-finished. If you look at Young Justice as a showcase for Todd Nauck—and it’s many other things but it’s certainly that in large part—you’ll see a guy who indeed draws fun, colorful cartoons, which is what he’s best-known for, but also an incredible range from an artist who spent five years with these characters and truly shepherded them into young adulthood.

So yeah, not even getting into all the other stuff Young Justice did well—reclaim obscure characters, new takes on tired settings, defying expectations with issues addressing real world hot button stuff, and of course all the great humor along the way—it was just a great series. I hail it as an accomplishment because without many stunts or aggressive promotion, it really was a book that achieved a lot on the backs of two guys who just worked really really hard.

And about a year and a half into their run, DC rewarded the creators of Young Justice by making the book the center of a company-encompassing fifth week event.

The set-up for Sins of Youth took place both in the pages of Young Justice and in Superboy’s ongoing series as the Agenda—a sort of renegade version of Cadmus, also focusing on cloning—led by Lex Luthor’s ex-wife Contessa expands their grudge against Kon-El to his team as well. Attempting to turn public sentiment against the young heroes of the DC Universe, the Agenda manipulates aged Golden Age teen sidekicks (including Dan the Dyna-Mite, which has always weirded me out since he had Hitler’s brain put in his head in The Golden Age, but was played mostly for laughs here) into forming Old Justice and publicly campaigning against their youthful counterparts. In order to address their detractors, Young Justice—under Wonder Girl’s temporary leadership because Batman won’t let Robin appear in public—sets up a summit in Washington DC with member of the JLA, JSA, Titans, et al coming out en masse to either support the kids or keep them out of trouble.

At the rally, chaos ensues like wow as the real Superboy shows up and reveals his evil clone Match has been posing as him, the Agenda’s clone army the Point Men attack, and for the coup de grace Klarion the Witch Boy—also hired by the Agenda and in a more lighthearted pre-Grant Morrison incarnation—mixes his magic with an alien space ray whipped out by Old Justice’s Doiby Dickles to make all the older heroes young and vice versa (except for Superboy, who initially can’t age because he’s a clone though this gets rectified in the second chapter after he kvetches about it, and the original Teen Titans who learn they were previously exposed to the same magic/science mix in a short Secret Files & Origin story written by my boy Jay Faerber).

From there, it’s a series of adventures all over the DCU as the various aged and de-aged heroes run around trying to figure out ways to reverse the situation, to defeat the Agenda, or to just have fun with their new status quo. The action unfolds in a series of one-shots—all with killer Mike Wieringo covers—by various creators wedged between the bookends by PAD and Nauck.

Yes, the ol’ age swap routine is absolutely a gimmick, but as the great Sean T. Collins has said, the best, most successful events no matter how nuanced or deep always center around something your inner 8-year-old can latch onto and enjoy (Civil War is heroes vs heroes, Blackest Night is a zombie movie, etc.)—this is certainly the case with Sins of Youth.

Even if the bookends are more an excuse to set up/resolve the plot along than anything else, PAD and especially Nauck take full advantage of the spotlight being given them and really show off what they and their characters can do. Wonder Girl is at her most heroic, Impulse is at his goofiest, Secret is at her quirkiest, and if you were wondering how Robin would fit in a team book, you get an idea of what a neat dynamic it is. Todd really goes to town drawing the entire roster of DC heroes, cramming as many as he can into a page George Perez-style and making the fight sequences sing with crackling energy and about a billion punches and energy blasts being thrown.

The one-shots are, as you’d expect, of varying degrees of quality, but most of the writers really sink their teeth into the concept, providing insight into what drives the older heroes as well as establishing the credibility of their sidekicks to a greater degree, while also following the general Young Justice mandate of “Have a good time.”

Chuck Dixon and Cary Nord handle the Batboy and Robin one-shot, which—appropriately given the characters—is probably the most serious an introspective of the series, though of course not without lighter moments. Taking a break from the larger crossover to check in on Gotham City, Tim Drake as Batman and Bruce Wayne as Robin rescue Zatanna from a group of villainous Russians. There’s some genuine insight as to how each guy views the other’s role over the course of the adventure as both struggle—Tim can’t do the “Batman” voice to fool Commissioner Gordon or get used to calling him “Jim,” Bruce regrets never having a real childhood—and Tim admits for the first time he doesn’t ever really want to be Batman. It also sets up a funny scene in Sins of Youth #2 where Tim tries to have a beer with his father and ends up spitting it all over him.

JLA, Jr. is more of the romp you’d expect, with Dan Curtis Johnson providing the script and Carlo Barberi rocking it on art as Captain Marvel takes the little Leaguers to see his wizard. Seriously, Barberi doesn’t draw Kyle Rayner in the same costume in any two panels, having him use his ring to whip up new ones every single time he is shown—it’s awesome. I also enjoy Aquaboy using the JLA roster files as Internet porn.

As a Flash fan, I am of course a sucker for Kid Flash/Impulse by Dwayne McDuffie and Angel Unzueta, wherein the speedsters embark on a PR tour to try and salvage the good guys’ image. I love Unzueta’s design for the grown-up Impulse costume and McDuffie’s characterization of young Wally West as perpetually impatient and annoyed. The best scene is definitely Wally briefly getting back to his honeymoon—which was interrupted by all this—and getting totally shot down by Linda when he tries to score.

Starwoman and the JSA is written by some dude named Geoff Johns with art by Drew Johnson. It’s another fun one as the Golden Agers head to outer space with the adult Stargirl as their babysitter; Geoff’s love for the characters shines through and he gets to do some nice work showcasing his creation, Stargirl/Starwoman, and her potential.

The compliment to Batboy and Robin, Superman, Jr./Superboy, Sr. by Karl Kesel and Rob Haynes, progresses Kal-El and Kon-El’s relationship in some pretty significant ways. Most importantly, Superman finally confesses his secret identity as Clark Kent to Superboy—only for Superboy to let him know he had already figured it out some time ago. It’s a nice moment in a book full of them plus a big ol’ fight scene made more awesome by Haynes’ unique style.

It all culminates in the second bookend, in which Klarion—and Peter David—up the ante by introducing a dozen or so de-aged villains into the mix, forcing the heroes—and Todd Nauck—to rise to the occasion double time. I won’t spoil who wins between the good guys and bad guys, but Todd absolutely comes out a champ.

Sins of Youth is a timeless, enjoyable story I probably pull off my shelf more than any other trade I own because it always cheers me up and makes me chuckle—and reminds me how much I miss Young Justice.

Ben's Cancelled Comic Cavalcade part two

Continued from last time...

HOURMAN (1999-2001)
Unique case here as the entirety of the Hourman series actually took place during a time when I was not reading comics. I came back into the fold only months after the book's cancellation and one of my gateway books was JSA, so I quickly heard a lot of good buzz about Hourman and got to see firsthand the artistic talent of Rags Morales. It took me a few years, but I gradually tracked down the back issues and did get to read nearly the full run. Like pretty much everybody else, I could not believe they had cancelled this book. It's some of the smartest writing you'll find from Tom Peyer with equal parts wit and philosophy as he charts the hero's journey of the formerly omnipotent android, Tyler and masterfully sets up dominos only to knock them down way later. Great supporting cast with Rick Jones and his ex, Bethany, who are really more co-stars, and absolutely stunning art from Morales, who was clearly having fun. Ironically given the nature of the content and protagonist, it may just have been a book ahead of its time.

NEW WARRIORS (1990-1996)
A book near and dear to my heart as it was the title that more or less introduced me to comics beyond grabbing the occasional Archie digest. The thing was, by the end of 1994, Fabian Nicieza, the co-creator of the title and really its guiding force, had departed following 53 issues because he had run out of stories to tell. During the four years he was on the book, along with Mark Bagley and Darick Robertson, Fabian had compiled an impressive set of stories that, taken as a whole, comprised an epic super story that most fans could be satisfied with. His successor, Evan Skolnick, stumbled out the gate a bit and the book suffered greatly by being shoehorned into the Spider-Man editorial family, complete with Scarlet Spider randomly joining the team for a bit. However, Skolnick eventually found his footing, artist Patrick Zircher was coming along nicely, and most of the Spider-Man ties were dropped. When the book got cancelled with #75, I was upset mostly out of nostalgia and lingering fondness for the characters (upset enough to write a fan letter to Marvel Vision even), but also because the last story arc was probably the best since even before Fabe had left. It would have been nice to have seen New Warriors hit triple digits and become more o a Marvel mainstay, but alas.

NEW X-MEN (2004-2008)
This one is a bit of a cheat, since writers Craig Kyle and Chris Yost moved immediately over to X-Force, one of my current favorite titles, and carried many of their characters and themes with them, but I'm selfish and wish they were writing both books. New X-Men was just a really fun take on oft-attempted "next generation of heroes" trope and I dug what C&C did with it (as well as the base set up by Christina Weir and Nunzio DeFilippis).

SUICIDE SQUAD (1987-1992)
The aforementioned situation with Hourman to the extreme here, as I didn't read Suicide Squad until 12 years after it was cancelled on the recommendation of Geoff Johns, but quickly snatched up all 66 issues like candy and devoured them. It's unquestionably one of my favorite books ever and will certainly be the subject of an upcoming Essentials column. It's the only example I can readily think of where a long-running series starring villains worked without the protagonists having to lose the edge that made them appealing in the first place, and credit for that can be laid at the feet of the great John Ostrander and his wife and collaborator, the late Kim Yale. The plug and play premise of Suicide Squad was a great draw, but Ostrander and Yale's knack for getting the most out of their cast by pushing them to their limits as well as their ability to adapt and maintain that "anything can happen" feel for five years was even more impressive. This was the book that brought us Oracle, made Deadshot a badass, made Amanda Waller an even bigger badass and rehabilitated characters from Captain Boomernag to Vixen to Nemesis. The thing is, Suicide Squad was as good quality-wise at issue #66 as it was at issue #1 (with understandable peaks and valleys in between), but the market changed over five years and unfortunately it simply got edged out.

YOUNG JUSTICE (1998-2003)
For 55 issues, plus various specials, writer Peter David and artist Todd Nauck pulled off the impressive feat of an incredibly entertaining five-year run on an ongoing title with a grand total of like two fill-ins needed the entire ride. PAD and TAN worked some great coming of age drama, romance and action into YJ, but the big hook was always the fun and the clever ways they'd find to utilize the most ridiculous bits of DC trivia or break the fourth wall. The three-way discussion between Superboy, Impulse and the Ray about cancelled comics that Robin interupts to be glared at remains one of the funniest moments in comics to me. And don't get me started on Todd's array of DC-themed t-shirts for Snapper Carr! Ultimately, Young Justice gave way to the Teen Titans re-launch by Geoff Johns and Mike McKone, which proved a critical and commercial hit, so it's understandable why the move was made, but YJ was certainly a special kind of book.