FSC: NEW TEEN TITANS ANNUAL #1

In 1982, there was no comic book that I thought more highly of than NEW TEEN TITANS. It was a perfect synthesis of all of the elements that I liked in both the Marvel and DC titles of the day, a time when the two had very different flavors. But NEW TEEN TITANS bridged that gap, and pointed the way to a revived future for DC. And I was far from the only person who felt this way. NEW TEEN TITANS was a monster hit practically from the jump. It quickly became DC’s best-selling title and did especially well in the Direct Sales marketplace where it sold to more dedicated comic book fans. This first Annual came out at the end of the book’s second year and worked as a finale to a big multi-part storyline. In other words, it was the kind of event that Annuals had been designed to be at the outset, though over the years they had often become merely another issue of a given series.

NEW TEEN TITANS was the brainchild of three people in particular: writer Marv Wolfman and his longtime friend editor Len Wein, and artist and co-plotter George Perez. All three men had come back over to DC from an extended stay at Marvel, and they brought a bunch of the Marvel sensibility with them. Before the launch of NTT, the previous TEEN TITANS series had been seen as a something of an embarrassment by the DC brass. DC Publisher Jenette Kahn reportedly gave it the axe despite it not selling that badly because she thought its content was lackluster, and she apparently had to be talked into launching a new iteration of the series by Marv and Len. They did so by assuring her that what they had in mind was a complete reinvention of the concept, including the creation of a bunch of entirely new characters.

Of the established Teen Titans, Marv and George picked up only three: Robin, who was cast as the confident but conflicted leader struggling to get out from under the shadow of his mentor Batman, Kid Flash, who was a reluctant hero at this point who’d been dragged back into the fold by his friends but who was looking for a more normal college existence, and Wonder Girl, who was a bit of a pivot point among the rest of the cast, and who was as capable as her mentor Wonder Woman though a lot more down-to-Earth as well. Marv and George also brought in Beast Boy , the animal shape-shifter from Doom Patrol, whom they rechristened Changeling and gave a fun-loving and slightly obnoxious personality. To this mix they added three additional brand new characters; Cyborg, an athlete whose scientist father had rebuilt his damaged body into a machine after a near-fatal accident, Starfire, the exiled warrior princess of another world who was hot-blooded in both love and war, and Raven, a manipulative and mysterious empath who brought the group together to battle her satanic father.

The new characters in particular were running mysteries, and as with the All-New X-Men over at Marvel, the readership learned more and more about who they were and what their backstories involved as the series went on. This meant that for these first two years, there was seemingly always more to discover about these new, exciting characters. At the time of this Annual, the spotlight had shifted over to Starfire, whose domineering and deadly sister Blackfire had appeared on Earth to reclaim Starfire in her bid to take control of a galactic consortium. The New Titans were aided by the Extraterrestrial Omega Men in pursuing Blackfire into space, and by the point of this story, were enmeshed in an all-out war for control of the Citadel, the ruling body.

Special mention needs to be made concerning the artwork of George Perez. I’d first encountered it in the very first Marvel comic that I had bought, FANTASTIC FOUR #177, and George quickly became my favorite super hero artist in the field.

BHOC: FANTASTIC FOUR #177

This was due to a number of factors, including his facility with huge groups of characters, his detail-oriented style, the manner in which he broke down a page (often employing more panels than the average artists of the time) and a design-oriented sensibility that made his work utterly appealing. He’d grown more and more skilled over time, but especially on NEW TEEN TITANS, a title that he felt a greater-than-usual personal ownership of, having co-created many of the characters, his skills improved dramatically. As did his output. Not only did he produce all of the monthly issue of NEW TEEN TITANS in 1982, but he also penciled this Annual as well as the TALES OF THE NEW TEEN TITANS limited series that shed further light on the backgrounds of the newcomers. While he did much of this work drawing only breakdowns (as he did in this Annual, allowing inker Romeo Tanghal to provide the final finish) his style was already so solidified that it connected even in this stripped-down version.

By this climactic chapter, the Titans have reunited with Starfire and are enmeshed in the battle for the Citadel. But the true showdown here is between Starfire and her sister Blackfire. The Psion representative of the Citadel gives the two sisters the opportunity to battle to the death, with the winner securing either mastery of the Citadel for themselves or else the survival of their homeworld of Tamaran. So the pair fight it out while all around the other Titans are themselves battling on assorted fronts as well. But this is Starfire’s moment. And ultimately, after a sprawling and brutal battle, Blackfire winds up causing her own downfall as she sets off her starbolts in a volcanic area, causing an enormous backlash that clobbers both sisters–and from which only one is salvaged when the dust clears.

In the aftermath, Raven is able to use her empathic powers to heal Starfire, and Koriandr is reunited with the parents and brother that she thought had been killed. It’s a big emotional moment, which was one of the things that helped separate NEW TEEN TITANS from much of the rest of the field, its willingness to go all-in on emotionalism. However, the agreement that had caused Koriandr to be sent into exile in the first place is still in force, meaning that she’s going to have to leave her brethren behind and go back home to Earth with the rest of the Titans. Which feels maybe just a bit perfunctory as endings go, but after several months of this storyline, it seemed like it was time to move on to something new.

The Annual closes out in a trio of pin-up images of the three original Titans members, these inked as well as penciled by George Perez. For all that he had any number of good inking partners over the course of his career, George always remained his own best inker, and so these showcase his attention to detail and his sharp design chops.