Fucking Comics: The Teen Titans VS The X-Men Part 1: To (Bravely and) Boldly Go Where No Respectable Writer Will Go. Enter: Brave & The Bold #54
But I'm getting ahead of myself... As with all of the "Fucking Comics" articles I have written, this one also has it's origins beginning in the 1960's. Vietnam was going on, and we were all to busy protesting, getting high on LSD and enjoying the free love (and in some cases, the free VD that came with the free love) to notice what our children were reading. Well, when I say our children, I actually mean YOUR children, because I'm only in my 20's and as far as I know, I don't have any children. DC comics at the time was having a field day with their popular titles: Batman, Superman, Aquaman, Wonder Woman and the Flash, pick your poison, it's what was "hot" back then. Now, I'm not going to sit here and talk about how retarded DC Comics were back then (Because they were, you need only read my Jimmy Olson review, or finish reading this one to cement that fact in your feeble little brain), but they were all pretty dumb. One extra little factoid that made these comics even more stupid is the fact that 90% of the hero population in DC Comics needed to have a young ward, or sidekick to chum around with while they faugh crime. Everyone had sidekicks, which suggests to me that the writers at DC Comics had a thing about throwing young children into the heart of danger or something. Like what the fuck is wrong with these guys? Young children have no place at the scene of a bank robbery, fighting Nazi's or in outer space fighting aliens. But time and time again, the writers at DC Comics thought that this would be the best way to entertain their readers. At least over at Marvel, the heroes knew where their sidekicks places were: On the side lines cheering them on. The last kid who put on a mask and jumped into the battle field with their hero ended up getting blown up on a remote controlled plane and gave Captain America a complex for the next 60 years. More over, with the success of the Justice League of America (Which put all of DC's most popular characters in one super team to handle exceedingly goofy villains together), the people at DC decided that maybe they should make a team consisting completely of sidekicks. Hence, the Teen Titans were born. In it's humble beginnings, the Teen Titans consisted of Robin, Aqualad, Kid Flash and later Wonder Girl, with the occasional guest starring member (usually Speedy, the Green Arrows side kick) And since these stories were written in the 1960's, they were written with the 1960's teenager in mind. Now when I say that, I mean they tried to write something that would appeal to teens in the 60's. Which, is the equivalent to when your dad dressed up in his Malcom X cap and over-alls and put on Run DMC to try and impress you and your loser friends. Chalked full of dated 60's slang, clean cut teenagers who want to get "involved", and goofy villains who are usually trying to bring down hippies, the early adventures of Teen Titans is probably the comic book equivalent to the brown acid that was going around at Woodstock. Now we're going to take a look at the first appearance of Teen Titans, I'll make some jokes that involve the use of such exploitive's as "fuck", "shit" and "David Bowie" and make some astute observations, because you are here to read some mildly funny commentaries on the very things that prevent you from feeling the caress of a woman. So back in the day when the comic book industry was still young, they had to do a lot of risk management. A lot of the time they would have a general title where they would have regularly changing storylines involving new ideas that they were testing out on an unsuspecting public. Because who knows if an idea for a comic book would sink or swim? Especially when you had assholes from the Comic Book Authority Code breathing down your fucking neck about having "wholesome" comics that wouldn't make kids want to savagely murder people (Because back then there were no video games to blame violent crime on.) This wasn't the case later when comic books became common place and publishers would print off any old thing. That's why there was ever a on-going Guardians of the Galaxy series in the 90's, but that also explains why Marvel went bankrupt in the 90's as well. This all of course, is a round about way to explain why the first appearance of the Teen Titans appeared in an issue of The Brave and the Bold (Issue #54 to be exact if you haven't picked that up yet.) Which was one of DC's many titles they'd use to test out new ideas before giving it it's own series... I only wish they scrutinized a little more before they gave Haunted Tank, Metamorpho and Dr. Magnus and the Metal Men on going series. But again, I'm a Marvel fan and even I thought that Sleepwalker was a fucking gay comic. Anyway, wow, getting really off topic right here, so I'm going to get on subject and let's talk about the Teen Titans in their first appearance! Woo okay! So first thing's first, let's get to know who the original Teen Titan's line up consisted of! Robin: Robin is the boy wonder, and side kick of Batman. Also known as Dick Grason. He was a sidekick introduced in a time when the idea of a young boy in upsetting green shorts hanging out with a 40 year old guy dressed up like a bat would be considered innocent and harmless. Since we in the 21st century aren't totally ignorant to pedophiles, I'm quite sure that whenever Robin farted it sounded like an steam whistle going off. Anyway, Robin is the team leader of the Teen Titans, which was an unspoken decision I'm guessing since nobody really elected him. Which is interesting, because Robin has no super powers.. I mean he's really good at acrobatics, and he's got a belt with a bunch of bat themed things like nylon ropes (and you're trying to tell me Batman isn't gay?) boomerangs, etc. I don't know about you people at home, but I'm sure that other than great leadership skills a leader of a team of super heroes should have some really awesome super powers. I'm sorry, but if you aren't physically able to deal with the cosmic threat that wants to use the moon as a suppository you might as well go home. Otherwise you better have atomic vision, or like fire breath or something, because if all your doing is doing summer-sault and barking orders, I'm going to think your the team asshole, not the team leader. Aqualad: Aqualad if you haven't already guessed is the teen sidekick of Aquaman. Now one thing I'd like to state about the universal law of DC Comics side kicks is that all sidekicks have to have the same abilities as the hero they constantly have to be rescued by. So what can Aqualad do? He can breath under water, and talk to fish. That's it. Oh, and he can only stay out of water for about an hour before he'll die. The interesting thing to point out about the Teen Titans, is that 98% of all their missions happened on dry land. So, Aqualad is mostly useless, and to add insult to injury, it usually seems like the Titans try to find water related things for Aqualad to do, perhaps to make as if he's a valued member of the team or something. Because let's face it, the only thing worse than being Aquaman is being his fucking loser sidekick. Also doesn't help that, like Robin, Aqualad enjoys wearing upsetting shorts as well. Kid Flash: If you haven't guessed, Kid Flash is the teenage side kick of the Flash. As far as his name is concerned, it could be worse, they could have called him Flashlad. Kid Flash has all the powers that the adult Flash has. So he can run really fast, and make his body vibrate. His body vibrations usually do some kooky shit that defies all the laws of physics, even though he tries to sound scientific when explaining how his vibrations are helping him. I think the only thing working for Kid Flash is the fact that he's one of the few teenaged sidekicks of a super hero who doesn't wear upsetting shorts. However, you can totally ream on him because his costume is piss yellow, but people still call him a scarlet speedster even though only his pants are red. Also, I should also point out the fact that the chicks usually dig Aqualad over Kid Flash. If I were Kid Flash, I'd probably blow my fucking brains out knowing that women find Aqualad more interesting than me. Especially since Aqualad probably smells like cod most of the time. Wonder Girl: Wasn't a founding member of the Titans, she only appeared in their second appearance. So we won't get into anything about her, or the fact that I find her prepubescent self in upsetting shorts very uncomfortable. Now that we have ourselves acquainted with the Teen Titans let's take a look at the story that these bright young people are featured in.... |
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The Teen Titans. Wow this is going to be a tough review to write. Where does one even begin with a review like this? Oh you kids think you know all about the Teen Titans don't you? Right? You sit at home and watch the cartoon on Cartoon Network (or whatever) thinking you've got the Teen Titans all figure out don't you? DON'T YOU? You think your such hot shit because you have a poster of Cyborg hanging in your living room. You think you know it all just because you know who Marv Wolfman is, and that still isn't enough to even breach the surface of what I'm going to unleash upon you unsuspecting masses.