In terms of personal meaning, the Teen Titans franchise falls closer to Batman than Superman in the spectrum. I wasn't around for the beginning of the Wolfman-Perez revival but came to love it years later during the "A Lonely Place of Dying" storyline that introduced the recently dismissed Robin, Tim Drake. I stuck with it through the short lived Dan Jurgens Teen Titan series which wasn't as great as the Wolfman-Perez run, but he managed to make me care about an entirely new cast, and there's something to be said for that.
The current run of Teen Titans began as a smashing success. Geoff Johns did an amazing job of transforming the former Young Justice stars into the new generation of Teen Titans, as they likely should have been from the beginning. I understand many didn't care for the updates to Wonder Girl and Impulse transitioning to the Kid Flash identity, but they made a lot of sense to me. I remember standing in line for a sketch from Mike McKone in 2003, just days after the new #1 hit the stands. George Perez himself walked up to the table to tell McKone what a wonderful job he though Johns and McKone were doing - high praise indeed from the artist of the most beloved Titans runs ever. Unfortunately DC undid much of what made this title great by killing off Superboy and aging Bart Allen into an adult with Infinite Crisis. Thankfully Johns was able to undo this mess with Legion of Three Worlds. However, the writers that followed Johns on Teen Titans have been unable to find a way to keep me caring about the team. While Superboy and Kid Flash are back in the DCU, they are still not the central characters they were, and Tim Drake continues wasting time as Red Robin without appearing in Teen Titans at all. So many new characters were added at once that it felt like a brand new team, and I've never found much reason to care for many of the people hanging around Titans Tower these days. There were two I didn't mind - Ravager for her long running connection to the Titans, and Kid Devil, a revamp of Blue Devil's former wannabe sidekick. Unfortunately Ravager was turned into a junky (adrenaline inhalers which act to boost her precognition ability) and removed from the team, relegated to a gerbil wheel of a back-up story. Kid Devil was de-powered and killed. I'm left with Static (never cared for him), Aquagirl (a bit of a cipher), the new Blue Beetle (I tried, really I tried), and Bombshell (an entirely one dimensional female version of Captain Atom - you would think he'd have something to say on this subject). Another new writer is coming on soon... maybe he can turn things around? Or maybe not... he also wrote Rise of Arsenal, but he's probably not entirely to blame for that.
The current run of Teen Titans began as a smashing success. Geoff Johns did an amazing job of transforming the former Young Justice stars into the new generation of Teen Titans, as they likely should have been from the beginning. I understand many didn't care for the updates to Wonder Girl and Impulse transitioning to the Kid Flash identity, but they made a lot of sense to me. I remember standing in line for a sketch from Mike McKone in 2003, just days after the new #1 hit the stands. George Perez himself walked up to the table to tell McKone what a wonderful job he though Johns and McKone were doing - high praise indeed from the artist of the most beloved Titans runs ever. Unfortunately DC undid much of what made this title great by killing off Superboy and aging Bart Allen into an adult with Infinite Crisis. Thankfully Johns was able to undo this mess with Legion of Three Worlds. However, the writers that followed Johns on Teen Titans have been unable to find a way to keep me caring about the team. While Superboy and Kid Flash are back in the DCU, they are still not the central characters they were, and Tim Drake continues wasting time as Red Robin without appearing in Teen Titans at all. So many new characters were added at once that it felt like a brand new team, and I've never found much reason to care for many of the people hanging around Titans Tower these days. There were two I didn't mind - Ravager for her long running connection to the Titans, and Kid Devil, a revamp of Blue Devil's former wannabe sidekick. Unfortunately Ravager was turned into a junky (adrenaline inhalers which act to boost her precognition ability) and removed from the team, relegated to a gerbil wheel of a back-up story. Kid Devil was de-powered and killed. I'm left with Static (never cared for him), Aquagirl (a bit of a cipher), the new Blue Beetle (I tried, really I tried), and Bombshell (an entirely one dimensional female version of Captain Atom - you would think he'd have something to say on this subject). Another new writer is coming on soon... maybe he can turn things around? Or maybe not... he also wrote Rise of Arsenal, but he's probably not entirely to blame for that.
I'll keep hope alive here for a while I think. I never want to give up on the Titans, but man it feels like I've been hanging on by a thread here for so long. It seems as though it's destined to get the axe, but at least the right characters are starting to come back into place. I think I'll at least give J.T. Krul a chance, and revisit the subject at the end of the year.
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