Customer Reviews

Showcase Presents: Teen Titans, Vol. 2

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If the Mod, Go-Go, Dig it scene of the Titans stories in volume one left you wincing in pain, fear no more. Volume two reflects a tremendous amount of maturation on behalf of both the characters and their creative talents, even while the series fails to ever achieve a firm identity.

The change begins four issues in, where Wonder Girl finally reveals her origin, confesses to living (homeless) in the Titans clubhouse, and closes the issue by fashioning a new, more mature look and costume for herself. As WG changes before our very eyes, the rest of the team seems to mature along with her. Over the course of the next few issues, they genuinely begin to look and feel like teenagers.

Nick Cardy's art makes the Titans look older, but a story by Bob Kanigher shortly into this volume is what really pushes the transition into early adulthood. In this story, the Titans fail to prevent the murder of an innocent victim. In a moment of clumsy heroics, they make an irreversible mistake, and that mistake continues to haunt them for several issues to come. The Titans begin to develop as thinking, feeling people in these stories, full of confusion and self-doubt as the best of us are. No longer the hip, moralizing voice of a mass-marketed generation, they are left direction-less and unsure of who they are. They even abandon their costumes and powers for a few issues, but this transformation doesn't stick. Before long, they're back to fighting crime, now aided by stronger, more expressive writing and artwork, as well as several compelling new allies.

Finally, the last three issues of this volume are the beginning of my favorite stretch in the classic Titans run. In response to the sudden success of horror titles in the early 1970s, DC took the direction-less Teen Titans title into the realm of the undead. These stories of monsters, ghosts, spirits, witches, and the like are full of compelling, shadowy artwork and fun, far-out stories. The next volume will have many more of these wonderful stories, but the last three stories of Volume 2 will at least provide a nice teaser of what's to come.

Overall, this content still doesn't measure up to the character-driven epics penned by Wolfman and Perez in the 1980s, but it is a strong new beginning for the Titans. Any fan interested and/or loyal enough to have pushed through the mediocrity of volume one will inevitably appreciate the strong shifts occurring in volume two.

Doesn't it drive you bonkers when no one, not even the manufacturer gives you basic info on the contents of these complilation?

Here ya go:
Written by BOB HANEY, STEVE SKEATES and others ae Art by NICK CARDY, NEAL ADAMS and others

In this exciting volume featuring stories from TEEN TITANS #19-36, BRAVE AND THE BOLD #83 and 94 and WORLD'S FINEST COMICS #205, the Titans meet The Hawk and The Dove as they encounter mystery and intrigue on college campuses and in city streets. Guest-starring Batman, Superman and the Justice League of America.

Showcase Presents: Teen Titans, Vol. 2 is a great way to see how much comic books have changed over the last 40 years. In the early 1970s, DC Comics must have decided that the Teen Titans, because they were teenagers, should become more ''relevant'' to the issues of the day. There's more of an attempt at characterization, showing what the writers thought was how teenagers were reacting to such things as minority and women's rights, and law & order, and growing up. But the writers were still trapped in the comic-book traditions of the day, which makes some of the stories silly beyond belief. The World's Finest story presented here has the heroes, along with Superman, dealing with racism and sexism by having an alien computer take over a local town and force everybody to become bigots and sexists. Superman destroys the computer and all is forgiven. I do think that as far as characterization goes, this series did grow stronger. And the stories in this volume do a great job with guest stars, including Hawk & Dove (who join for a few issues). I would recommend this for any true comic-book fan. For more in-depth book reviews I've done, search for goldenrulecomics on Squidoo.

This mostly wacky collection is an oddball product of it's times. Trying way to hard to be hip and relevant to the early 70's social upheaval, and never quiet succeeding completely, it reads like the cultural artifact it is, by paying lip service to the Peace Movement, Women's Liberation and Black Power. The weirdness includes Wonder Girl pondering a dreamy ski instructor and thinking he should wax her slats; Speedy's psychedelic arrows; Mr. Jupiter (the Titans over 30 scientist leader, Generation Gap apparently suspended) telling the boys that women often are over come and faint on theirs first trips to Italy, and desire to be involved in tragic love affairs; Titans mind controlled by a computer in a cave into being temporary White Supremacists; and all punctuated by slang language that didn't even ring true at the time.