Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities Oh Yeah, That Forum: The Titans The Titan du jour!

To every Titan...his or her day.

What did you like or not like about them? Or their storylines? Costumes/codenames/hairdos? What do you find to be particularly memorable about the character? Whatever you wish to discuss. Then in about 24 hours, we'll move to another team member.

Let's start with a founder...



<font size="5">WALLY WEST, KID FLASH/THE FLASH</font s>

As you may guess by my choice of the Perez pic of Wally in the Kid Flash costume, I tend to remember him to the NTT days. By the time I started reading, though, he was a part-timer. Perhaps Kid Flash fans didn't like that, but I like the various characters to have different priorities. I don't remember at the moment how much of his decision was to live his life with school etc. and how much was his trouble with his powers, though.

Specific images I remember: Wally resigning and suggesting Terra for membership. The images (!) Trigon put in his head in the beginning of the Baxter series. KF speeding around the water to the Tower with Frances magnetically levitating/propelling herself beside him. The Kid Flash ring being found in the Tower rubble.

I've always loved Kid Flash. Wally's cockiness/insecurity made him one of the most realistic of all DC's characters to me. Already world famous and an experienced crime fighter Wally knew all about the bad guys but consistantly blundered with his interpersonal relationships. It really touched me that here was one of the most powerful guys in the world and he didn't know how to talk to girls without acting like a macho jerk. He worshiped his Uncle Barry and set himself a nearly impossible standard to live up to after Barry passed away...then berated himself for failing to live up to those standards. A very normal human thing to do, it almost makes him a real human being, not just paper and ink but a real live striving and suffering person.
I thought it was very cool.

I remember Kid Flash from the NTT days pretty much as well.

He always seemed to be the most angsty member/part-time member/nonmember to me. Maybe it was because of his absolutely and completely doomed romance with Raven (has there EVER been a more doomed relationship in comics?) and of course his worries over his super-speed causing him health problems. While I found him to be a bit whiny at times, I also found him to be maybe the most real of the kids at the time. (While Donna was very real to me too, she lived much more of a charmed life than Wally.)

My biggest memory of Kid Flash is the Trigon-Dark Raven-induced vision. His was the best and creepiest of all of them, IMHO.

It's great! He's fulfilled the promise of the 'teen sidekick' by stepping into his mentors shoes (boots in this case) and making the job his own. Wally's story has a feel of natural progression to it, we've watched him grow from his very young teen years into the role of one of the big guns of the JLA.
He's the Flash and nobody doubts it.
That's cool. The way it's been done he doesn't take anything away from his predecessors either, rather his work as the scarlet speedster enhances the reputation of the legendary clan.

-maybe that's Waid's fault for the way he tied all those loose ends together to make DC's super speedsters all part of some kind of collective but that's ok, it works for me-

*bump*

As a kid, who wouldn't want to be Wally West -- super-speed, that dynamic, yellow-and-red costume, a full head of hair (sigh)!

Wally as a personality didn't really register with me until early in the Wolfman/Perez run. He was the self-described conservative kid from the Midwest who didn't trust Redstar (or whatever his name was) because he was Russian. Being a kid from the Midwest, I resented the implication that I should (in Wolfman's eyes?) be both conservative and prejudiced. But I later realized that Wolfman was doing something unique with Wally (as well as the other Titans): He was giving him a fully rounded personality, including some traits that I wouldn't necessarily agree with. It was part of Wally's growth from teenager who thought he had a handle on everything to an adult who would take on the mantle of The Flash.

Even so, Wally was one of the essential Titans -- one of the three, along with Robin and Wonder Girl, who formed the core of the group. But, as with any real teenaged group of friends, they had to grow up, and this was represented, in part, by Wally leaving the team. Of course, he didn't stay away forever. But when he returned to TITANS as The Flash, he didn't quite fit in. He had outgrown the Titans, it seems, when he joined the JLA. Wally realized this and left the Titans again, opening the door for Jesse Quick to grow as the Titans' speedster: a generous and fitting gesture that further showed his growth from the Commie-hating Midwestern kid.

Who's next LYL?

<font size="5">KORIAND'R OF TAMARAN, STARFIRE</font s>

I liked Kory pretty much, and was in fact a fan of the OMEGA MEN series, set in her galaxy.

Lots of fans cried foul when Starfire blasted Deathstroke's wife to dust during Devin Grayson's run (her throat had been slit and her immortal blood was almost all drained yet still she lived and was quite likely in agony), but Starfire's words in her own defense moved me: "I know what it's like to be a slave!" To Starfire it was a mercy killing.

Johns hasn't really focused on her yet, but her few scenes have been enjoyable.

It was hysterical when she showed up with tinfoil on her head during Farber's massively-bad run. Jeebus, those were some BAD comics.

I like the idea of her having a garden from Tamaran at the Tower. Was that a Johns addition or did someone else use it in a previous series?

Kory is okay but not my favorite Titan of old. I never did really care for her and Dick being involved. It always seemed forced to me. Like they had to have a couple in the group.

A genuinely nice person (despite one of the worst childhoods ever) AND a ruthless warrior.

Did Donna ever win one of their sparring matches?

Okay, her original outfit is consistent with sun-worshipping, skin-baring Tamaran. Lucky for the Earth boys, there. I didn't dislike it or think it was the worst thing, but it did look uncomfortable.

I have to admit, I rather enjoy the animated Starfire over the "real" one.

I think Donna was shown to have won one of their sparring matches at least once.

Starfire, I thought, was created to be one of those hot babes to stir adolescent boys' (and girls') fantasies. Even though I was an adolescent when she first appeared, I was initially annoyed at the overt sexism in such a character: She was a cutie with long, curly hair and an almost nothing costume. Perez might as well have tatooed "Playmate of the Year" on her forearm.

But, as with Wally, Wolfman developed Kory's personality along some very different and interesting lines. A born warrior and former slave, Kory was willing to kill, something that didn't sit well with her Titans friends, and particularly not with her boyfriend, Dick. As a princess, she had a much broader perspective on things than her teammates did. The best Kory stories, in my opinion, were the ones that brought that conflict into the open -- not that Kory was right and they were wrong or vice versa, but because each was right in their own way.

I do wish she and Dick could have remained a couple. They were both very strong-willed personalities who needed each other. But because Dick Grayson is a DC icon, he can't be tied permanently to anyone. Too bad.

I like her freshness, not to mention her powers, they are so cool.

<font size="5">GRANT EMERSON, DAMAGE</font s>

No takers yet, hmm.

I don't know much about him, didn't read much of that series. I did see the issue/s of THE TITANS where, on a camping trip, Grant tells Roy that he had been abused as a child. Roy's daughter Lian was there too. Lian's about four, too young to understand what the grownups were saying, but tried to comfort Grant anyway.

The child abuse story is all I remember about Damage, too, LYL. I hadn't even encountered the character before the Devin Grayson run.

Well, he's dead sexy. I thought his powers were unique, but his personality needed some work.

<font size="5">RAVEN</font s>

Yeah.

Trigon's daughter. A demon princess from another dimension with power over a mysterious darkforce and a dark deadly nature tightly controlled by meditation and force of will. Something else else of a departure from ordinary DC superhero characters, you'd expect her to be more comfortable in Dr. Strange's Sanctorum than at Titan's Tower.

I don't usually like magical characters but there's enough science fiction and mysticism in Raven's backstory to satisfy me. I like the character Raven well enough to not like her as a person. That's a nice bit of writing by 'ol Marv.

I quit reading the book a long time ago so somebody else is going to have to tell me what happened and why she wears (or wore) the white outfit.

I quit reading TT around the time of Crisis, so my memories are all based on the older stories. I've been rereading a lot of those issues lately, and I'm surprised how quickly I have tired of Raven. She wasn't my favorite at the time, but still it seems like her story just drug out forever. For about a years worth of stories it seems all she ever did was sit around and bemoan the evil within her etc. Her relationship with Wally was a key part of the group dynamic back then, but it was just plain misery heaped on misery. I will say this though, I enjoy her scenes with Terra simply because they so plainly loathed each other. I also really like the sequence in the first Baxter issue when the group reviews how drastically her appearance had changed since they came together, gradually becoming more gaunt and frightening.

From things I've read on the net, it seems like Raven has floundered over the years along with the rest of the old gang. Did they ever resolve her father issues or is it still her main character hook?

One other note, the animated Raven is easily my favorite member of the team. She gets all the good lines.

We'll Trigon is dead, and right now she doesn't seem to be under his evil influence, but there is always somethng dark about her.

I love Raven (I only wish she had a real code name).

She's not ugly anymore and I find it funny that when her body changes, she looks exactly the same. Her powers were awesome and I like her story, even though it did drag on, because she seemed real dynamic.

DAMAGE:

Read his mag's entire run, it was pretty enjoyable... his powers are the result of having the DNA of the entire Golden Age Justice Society merged with his, which should make the JSA very protective of him, one would think. That abuse storyline in TITANS was touching. It's not made clear wether the abuse is physical or sexual and it doesn't matter... this was from a man Damage believed to be his father. That's got to be difficult. (I think Lian is the true star of Devin Grayson's TITANS run, btw)

RAVEN:

I'm sorry, but I don't think the character has aged well at ALL. Sure, I loved her at the time, but I look back on her and I'm all like, "WTF? She kind-of sucked!"

I MUCH prefer the cool Raven of TEEN TITANS GO! It's likely that Johns' current Raven in TEEN TITANS will strongly resemble the TTG! Raven in look & personality when it's all said and done... I approve.