Written by Marv Wolfman
Penciled by George PérezIn 1980, writer Marv Wolfman and artist George Pérez introduced a timeless team including Robin, Kid Flash, Wonder Girl, Cyborg, Changeling, Raven and Starfire — young heroes with great powers and strong personalities who learned their way in the world through the strength of their friendship and the adventures they shared.
This first omnibus edition collects the team’s debut in DC COMICS PRESENTS #26, plus the firstsixteentwenty issues of their smash-hit monthly series (plus Tales of the New Teen Titans #1-4 -ed.), including the first appearances of foes including Deathstroke and Trigon, as well as a confrontation with The Justice League of America.
Want to know where the new Justice League book gets its ideas? Follow me after the jump and let’s talk about one of the most important series DC ever published.
I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to declare that this book is the Rosetta Stone of the current climate of DC Comics — in just about every imaginable sense, no less. Sure, DC has put out a lot of important, influential superhero comics (Dark Knight Returns, Crisis on Infinite Earths, Kingdom Come, Action Comics #1, the list goes on), but a lot of them seem inextricably linked to the times that produced them and the eras that they jumpstarted. Most of them are so thoroughly depleted that they’re recognizable as hallmarks, their legacies reduced to stylistic tics and fodder for less innovative series’ bids for relevance. (Need to make something seem important without actually doing anything worth the attention? Invoke Kingdom Come.) But here, in Marv Wolfman and George Pérez’s The New Teen Titans Omnibus Volume One, we see the DNA of the current DC Universe writ so obviously that it’s almost stunning on first notice.
It’s all there. The New Teen Titans constantly flirted with apocalyptic melodrama and melodramatic apocalypses. Its characters were defined as much by their flaws as their strengths, although they retained some fundamental fragment of optimism that kept them from collapsing into despair. Its villains were flashy and menacing, and quick to inflate their own statures — every threat was the worst thing ever, ever. Its plotlines snaked through multiple issues, albeit not always in cut-and-dry “arcs.” It had a powerful obsession with revivifying semi-forgotten past characters (Doctor Light, the Brotherhood of Evil, and, hell, the Teen Titans themselves). Finally, it strove to create a series whose ongoing narrative appeal came from, above all other things, the characters. Wolfman’s writing and Pérez’s art were in the service of keeping us glued to the interactions between the Titans, their friends, and their enemies — we were meant to be the silent partner in the family, not just a passive observer of episodic fights. Even if it’s not always successful, and even if the continuity reference points often lie elsewhere, the Geoff Johns era of DC strives to follow the blueprint provided by The New Teen Titans.
Which begs the question: but is it any good? Well, yes. It’s even great sometimes. The peculiar thing about The New Teen Titans having set the tone that DC still struggles to emulate is that New Teen Titans is, in and of itself, an emulation — of classic Marvel. DC had tried before, and never quite made it work, but Wolfman — former Marvel EIC — stuck the landing on this one, creating a book that contained DC’s kid-friendly reverence for Silver Age superheroics and Marvel’s teen-friendly unsubtle pathos. This combination had never quite worked before, but Wolfman and Pérez fused the two together masterfully, bringing (then-)uncomplicated straight-arrow sidekicks like Robin, Wonder Girl, and Kid Flash in line with the petulant Cyborg, passionate Starfire, and sinister Raven. Bridging the gap was Changeling, who combined the exuberance of the first group with the mouthy dysfunction of the second, bringing it all together without ever making the division obvious.
Continued belowThen, of course, there’s the art — the aspect this oversized tome best serves. Before George Pérez got shuffled into the role of “the man you want when you need to fit fifty characters on every page,” he was still an extremely busy artist. Here, though, with the focus reduced to a scant maybe 5-10 people per page, his layouts shine. Narrow panels stack and lace together, bringing a high-tension tautness to the framing of every single emotional meltdown, but spacious enough to never feel claustrophobic or airless. Pérez captures the power and grace of his characters with unerring accuracy, and the only real misstep I’ll concede is Deathstroke’s costume design. (Yes, yes, complain all you like, I still think he looks like a goofball.)
The other DC omnibus released this week — a Steve Ditko collection — is primarily a historical curiosity. This gigantic book (twenty-five issues, including the origin story of the team and the individual origins of all the then-new members — or $3 an issue, proving DC’s commitment to Holding the Line) has that aspect about it, especially if one’s looking for the anthropological roots of the modern-day DC creator (and fan) mentality. It’s also a tremendous pleasure, though: a series that, for all of its dated fashion choices and pop-culture references, its consistent vision and voice makes the reader feel like they’re not just tagging along for fights with the Fatal Five, but taking part in the building of a family.
Final Verdict: 9.5 / You want this
