It's been like half a year since our last 80-pager, so yay! Glad to find another one--aw, the Teen Titans! Shoot. Still, a ton of great creators on this one: from 1989,
Secret Origins Annual #3, "Pieces of the Puzzle" Written by George Pérez; pencils by Tom Grummett, Grant Miehm, Irv Novick, Michael Bair, Trevor Von Eeden, Dave Cockrum. Kevin Maguire, M. D. Bright, Colleen Doran, and Dick Giordano;
inks by George Pérez, Anthony Van Bruggen, Ty Templeton, Michael Bair, Trevor Von Eeden, Larry Mahlstedt, Karl Kesel, Ian Akin, Brian Garvey, Romeo Tanghal, and Dick Giordano.
Dick Grayson is repeatedly tormented in a dreamlike state by a hooded figure in purple--the Time Trapper? No...I was pretty sure it was going to be that punkass
Danny Chase, since I would've swore his costumed identity wore purple, but not him either. There are clues, you might be able to guess if you flip through it! Whoever it is, purple-hood makes Dick relive and recap the history of the Teen Titans, which involves the team breaking up and reforming over and over and over. And over. Along with disparaging Dick at every opportunity; purple-hood also seems to show a lot of interest in Donna Troy--seemingly seeing her as the only thing really holding the team together--and the newly retconned pre-
Crisis Bat-Girl, now Flamebird. It doesn't get as creepy-weird as I thought it was going to; that's a plus. There also seems like a lot of page time devoted to Titans West, like "hey, remember when these jerks had their own team? Yeah, they broke up five minutes later."
(I have a theory about that! Donna holds the Titans together, because the guys all love her to various degrees, but with the possible exception of Speedy don't seem to seriously hit on her; because if like Dick and Donna got together and then something happened, the Titans would be
over, as a concept. All of the guys in Titans West probably went after Flamebird and were probably all shot down, hard; and the team never gelled like Jello that...didn't gel, I guess.)
I don't think Pérez got enough credit as a writer: he did a run of
Silver Surfer that I don't recall as great but should maybe revisit. Here he does a great job stitching together 25 years of assorted Titans comics into one story, along with a few updates, and wrapping it up with the then-current status quo for the team. Maybe if I'd read the book in the Wolfman/Pérez heyday, I'd be more fond of it; but so much infighting and breakups, it's like Fleetwood Mac, the comic. Did Fleetwood Mac even break up that much? I feel like they pushed through it.
So you're saying the male members of the TT's all stuck together largely because they wanted to bang Donna? I mean maybe? But wouldn't there be more "friendly" competition between the various male members then? I know Roy & Dick did, and Wally was also interested in dating Donna until Raven showed up.
ReplyDeleteIdk, it should seem weird to stay in a group with only one chick in it while competing with other guys to date her, but shit, that's basically what us guys do, more or less.
Was Mal said purple cloak dude?
Nope, not Mal!
ReplyDeleteI don't know that Garth was into Donna like that: she was just nice to him, probably moreso than the guys? And did Wally seriously go after her? He was written as going after everything for a while...
I could have sworn you already posted this one within the last week or so ...
ReplyDeleteMaybe I'm having visions of the future in my not-old, not-young, not-even-middle age. Whatever, it's a ... New Teen Titans issue. I personally liked Titans West, but then again I like a lot of Bob Rozakis stuff (especially when it intersects with late 70's DC stuff).
No, I think you're right: it posted whenever I was done with it, not when I wanted it, so I had to move it around.
ReplyDeleteIf Titans West had been a few years later, they probably would've gotten at least a limited. Of course, the plot would be the team has to learn how to work together/not be a complete joke, and they'd succeed...until their next appearance, where they're sniping at each other and/or completely useless again.
For me the weirdest Inclusion of Titans West were Hawk & Dove. Just seemed like a weird fit to me.
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