Customer Reviews

The New Teen Titans Archives, Vol. 1 (DC Archive Editions)

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The first ten issues of the New Teen Titans took the comic book world by storm in 1980 and 1981. It was DC Comics major push against Marvel's X-Men line. While there are some similarities between the two groups, the New Teen Titans quickly stood out on it's own. It catapulted the career of George Perez, and served to make Marv Wolfman one of the best writers in the field. I highly reccomend this if you like classic super hero stories, with good character development. I would go higher than 5 stars if I could.

"The New Teen Titans" by Marv Wolfman and George Perez means a lot to many people. To some, like me, they represent some of the best comics entertainment during our growing-up years. Rereading it, I realized that it is still the most apt comic for the adolescent in all of us.

This DC Archive Edition reprints the first eight issues of the series along with the New Teen Titans' debut in "DC Comics Presents" (a backup feature in an impossibly hard-to-find issue). Perez's detailed art and Romeo Tanghal's tight inking are beautifully reproduced throughout - although certain panels appear a little darker than the original (the ink bleeds much better in the original newsprint).

The stories here are beautiful characterizations of teenagers who behave like teenagers - albeit endowed with powers and costumes. Read especially the story in issue 8, spotlighting the quieter, personal moments of each Titan. Other important points include the debut of Deathstroke the Terminator and Trigon - two classic Titans villains that continue to plague the team even in today's Geoff Johns penned series.

This book reprints the first eight issues of The New Teen Titans. This series really revitalized DC Comics. At the time, most comics readers considered DC comics to be inferior to Marvel comics. Well, this series showed that DC could produce superhero comics every bit as good, if not better, than what Marvel was putting out. Marv Wolfman wrote great scripts that gave the old characters depths that hadn't been hinted at before, and also added intriguing new characters. Of course, the gorgeous artwork by George Perez helped, too. You should buy this book if you want to find out how good a superhero team comic can be.

This is an excellent collection of D.C.'s relaunch of the Teen Titans in the early 80's. Marv Wolfman and George Perez brought comics to a totally different level with this series. The books focused not only on the action necessary for comics (fun battles, great villians - - - especially the introduction of the Terminator in issue #2), but also explored the characters in detail - - - why were they doing this, what problems they faced, who was attracted to who, etc. The artwork is fantastic - - - George Perez is a master and draws every issue but one in this collection. The writing is also very good and for the time was exceptional. A little wordy compared to today's comic but still nothing to complain about. If you are looking to get into the D.C. archives series, this is a great place to start.

In the comic book wars between Marvel and DC - DC was losing ground to the Marvel machine by continually producing superheroes with nearly limitless powers and little thought into producing heroes with real lives and problems (with Detective comics being one of the rare exceptions).

DC needed to react; and they hit the gold mine with an excellent writer, Marv Wolfman, and one of the best comic book artists of all time, George Perez.

Taking the rather anemic and poorly thought out Teen Titans sidekick group. The creative tag team behind the New Teen Titans made it something special, rivaling or exceeding what the greatness of the Byrne and Claremont duo did with the X-men.

The reprinting is better than the original work because Perez's incredible detail comes to full light with the quality of paper here rather than the original newspaperlike mush they had to print on at the time.

So kick back, relax, and enjoy one of the best of the best series to grace the pages of comicdom. Anyone saying the NTT was second fiddle to the revitalized X-men is just fooling themselves. Both share the comic book crown. Perez, Byrne, Claremont, Wolfman... you just can't lose. :)

As a fan who started reading the book shortly after the departure of George Perez this edition is special indeed!! to see the wonderful artistry on the best quality paper and to be
able to read some of the stories that i missed out on is a dream! If you are a fan of George (or of good comic book art in general) and love a well thought out story with real character development.....this book is for you!!!!

I have to admit up front that I'm somewhat biased because this is my favorite comic book series of all time. Naturally I was thrilled to have it collected in hardcover. If you are a fan of the Titans, definately buy it. If you like the dynamics of team books, I would reccomend it as well. Wolfman really does a great job at both characterization and drama. The stories pull you in and really make you care about the characters. Plus Perez's art is just gorgeous.

The New Teen Titans is perhaps one of DC's more obscure hit series. Everyone knows about Batman and Superman and Wonder Woman. But who can you find off of the street that knows about Starfire? Or Cyborg? Or Raven? Despite this, the comic has spawned a hit television series simply titled "Teen Titans", leading many fans, myself included, to check out the original comics the show is based upon.

First things first: if you've watched the cartoon series, don't expect these comics to be remotely similar to the style used in the show. In fact, don't expect anything to be very similar. The characters are different, their personalities different, and the storylines are different.

New Teen Titans is the story of a group of older teenage superheroes brought together to combat an impending threat on Earth. You have Robin, the charismatic and intelligent leader; Kid Flash, the speedster that really doesn't want to be a superhero; Raven, a mysterious mystic with a shady past but pure motivations; Starfire, the warlike alien powerhouse; Wonder Girl, the level-headed and powerful Amazon warrior; Cyborg, a half-machine athlete; and Changeling, the wise-cracking and unsure young shapeshifter. They come together with a common goal in mind, but each one carries his or her own baggage into the fight. While they are at first awkward and unfriendly toward each other, by the end of the book, they are finally much like a family.

The characterization is both the strongest and the weakest point of this book. As Marv Wolfman admits in the introduction, he didn't really grasp the different characters until the eighth issue at the end of this book. Some of the characters work to begin with, others don't. Wonder Girl and Robin seem to be the easiest to relate to from the get-go, perhaps because they get the least exposure throughout the storylines. They have the common teenager growing into an adult feel that some of the other character lack. Raven is a character that begins rather lackluster, but becomes a rather likeable character toward the end of the book, which is sort of sad considering she is the Titan that is dwelled on the most in these early issues. She is a sympathetic character, but a lot of her likeability is marred by just how little you know about her and what she is before the fifth and sixth issues. She seems distant, even to the reader. At the bottom of the heap is Changeling, a character that is so corny that it is almost intolerable. The problem is that at times the characters feel like they have been locked into being archetypical personalities without any real development. Luckily, this trend is broken with the eighth issue.

Which leads into one issue with this comic: it didn't really age as well as some of the other comics from this era. The dialogue is typical 80s stuff, and I found myself cringing at times because of just how unnatural and corny it sounds now. The pop culture references used frequently by Changeling and Cyborg suffer the most, and I can't help but shake my head every time Changeling compares Cyborg to C-3PO and Cyborg calls a bunch of kids "Imperial Stormtroopers." Even characters like the sinister Deathstroke suffer from the curse of 80s lingo.

The storylines are solid, but nothing really special. Notable storylines include the first encounter with Deathstroke the Terminator, perhaps the Titans' greatest and most enduring enemy, and the immensely powerful Trigon the Terrible. However, both storylines featuring these two villains are mere precursors to their real parts in the tale, The Judas Contract (widely regarded as the high point of the series) and The Terror of Trigon. The storyline involving Deathstroke is particularly weak, but the story with Trigon is quite enjoyable at times.

One thing that really bothers me about this series as a whole is how the concept that the New Teen Titans aren't just a "junior Justice League" seems to be shoved down your throat at times. This concept is reinforced when the Titans actually fight the Justice League of America in one of the comic's more ridiculous moments. It just seems silly and doesn't make sense in the context of the universe the Titans are a part of.

Ultimately, though, The New Teen Titans is an enjoyable comic, but not without its fair share of flaws. Of course, these are merely the early issues of the series and should be taken with a grain of salt. While other comic writers and artists such as Frank Miller and Alan Moore tried to revolutionize comics during the 80s, Marv Wolfman and George Perez strived to create simply a good superhero comic. And to an extent, they succeeded.

The Teen Titans of the current animated series are based on the NEW TEEN TITANS comic series of 20 years ago - loosely. Fans of the TV series won't recognize the voluptuous, hedonistic Starfire of THE NEW TEEN TITANS ARCHIVES, VOLUME ONE; nor are they likely to recognize the Raven of the comics, who always seemed to be frantically dragging her teammates from one danger to another with precious little explanation. And how about Gizmo and Mammoth as ADULT villains?
The rather chaotic beginnings of the group are in this volume, though the series' chief epics- the Terra series, and the final showdown with Trigon- are not in this volume. (The team's first encounter with Trigon is here, though.) As with the animated series, it took the comics a lot of storytelling to build the personalities and dynamics of the group; the first few issues of the comics, reprinted here, just scratched the surface.

I have to wonder how closely Mr. Rubert read the stories represented in this collection, because the Wolfman/Perez Titans were anything but a "Junior Justice League". The character dynamics were nothing like the JLA of the time. And there certainly wasn't anything like "A Day In The Lives" in, well, any other DC series of the time. These are still great stories after almost 25 years.