Where The New 52 Went Wrong With 'Teen Titans'

When There's trouble you know who to call? Not Scott Lobdell...

Greetings Ladies and Gents! It is I, The Shaman of Animation back again with another installment of the now abruptly created series: "Where The New 52 Went Wrong With". Last time I talked about The New 52 and its foul ups with heroes, it was about the awesome and extremely unloved as of late Static. Today we'll be talking about arguably the most iconic young superhero team of all time: The Teen Titans! 

Before we begin, I'll give you all my brief history with the Titans. My first exposure to the team, as I'm sure was also the majority of people reading this, was through the animated series that ran from 2003-2006. Looking back on the show today, I can say that its combination of superheroes with more anime like qualities helped bring a charm to it that other superhero/anime hybrids failed to duplicate (But the less I talk about the Wolverine Anime, the better). While being pretty silly a lot of the time, when the show got serious, it was some pretty good T.V. A few years ago, through the magic of Google, I discovered The New Teen Titans: the comic book run of the Titans (And the most popular one) by George Perez and Marv Wolfman that the show drew most of its inspiration from.

You guys could only imagine my reaction to the original Starfire...

And from there, I continued doing brief look throughs here and there of The Titans' comic history; and it was really cool reading about all of these different incarnations of the titans that the show never touched on (of course I didn't actually read said stories because I didn't and still don't have a penny to my name). In 2011, with the New 52, a new version of the team was created written by Scott Lobdell. I did a brief skim through of that run...four years later, and that's how we're here today. So without further ado, let's do this!

As Broad as a statement this is, the very first issue with this run of The Titans is: Scott Lobdell's writing

This entire post could be summarized with just that first sentence alone, but I really need to elaborate on this particular writer himself. Mister Lobdell got his claim to Comic Book Fame in the 90s with his work on The X-Men with his creation of 'Generation X', 'Uncanny X-Men', and he was even main creative force of "Age of Apocalypse", one of the biggest X-Men stories of all time. So you could say that the man was a big name in the 90's; and that's the problem: He's still stuck in the 90's. The constant narration boxes splattered all across the comics, continuous inner monologues from the characters in the first couple of issues (at least); and the dialogue, my god the dialogue. I did a quick search on Google and wouldn't you know it, Scotty doesn't have any kids...and someone had the bright idea of giving him the task of writing a book about Teenage Superheroes. I'm not saying that people that don't have kids wouldn't know how to write kid characters, especially teenagers; after all, one only has to go outside and see how teenagers behave to get a good idea for them. Unfortunately, The New 52 Teen Titans are an example of an out of touch old man trying to write modern day teens which is why you have scenes of Cassie talking about her breasts being real and references to Fifty Shades of Grey because "Boobs and Horrible porn! Teenage boys like those things right?"

Point Numero Dos: F**K Legacy!

This point here is going to be a tad long winded and will cover other little points. I'm sure everyone has their own idea of what the Teen Titans are. This is my idea of what they stand for, and people reading don't have to agree with this. Going back to the very first incarnation: To me, the Teen Titans were this group of young heroes who were sidekicks to the big guns in the Justice League, and they wanted to break away from their mentors' shadows and make their own mark on the world and leave a legacy behind, a team that they could call their own. And even when the team went through different iterations, that theme of creating your own legacy was still there. 

In The Wolfman/Perez Titans Team, you had Dick Grayson who wanted to be free from under Batman's shadow and become his own man, resulting in his transition from Robin to Nightwing. Beast Boy who before joining the Titans was a member of the Doom Patrol. Starfire, who was a former alien slave, Cyborg, a half man/half robot. Raven, who is quite literally a spawn of Satan. Donna Troy, Wonder Woman's Sidekick, and Kid Flash, The Flash's Sidekick. This incarnation of the team, while not all having their own mentors, had to deal with their pasts/presents while being apart of this team and by doing that, they became a force to be reckoned with and made a very powerful impact on the DC Universe. This trend would continue with different versions of the Titans (Such as the team of Tim Drake Robin, Superboy, Bart Allen Kid Flash, and Cassie Sandsmark Wonder girl). While it was never stated by anyone, I always got the feeling that these new versions of the team strove to be different from the previous and leave its own impression.

And that's where the new version of The New 52 Titans come in and screws that long running theme up. Because of the relaunch, a lot of characters' histories were changed (most for the worse) Sure, Tim Drake is still a former sidekick. But now Cassie Sandsmark no longer has any connection to Wonder Woman and her family nor is she the daughter of Zeus (That origin was given to Wonder Woman), her origin in the New 52 was that she discovered these magic bracelets from a temple and Bart Allen's new origin is that he's not a very distant relative of Barry Allen's in the future, he's a rebel leader who...I can't even fully explain his New 52 backstory because the first page it was revealed I pretty much said.

His real name's not even Bart Allen. It's some stupid name I refuse to say...

What I'm trying to get across here is that because Cassie and Bart are no longer connected to their respective heroes, the idea that they want to strive to break away and be better than said heroes is moot and not just that, but the fact that this new team wanted to band together to be their own heroes and leave their own stamp on the world is nonexistent. Granted, they all became a team because of circumstances and because there was an organization that wanted their heads, but even after that situation was resolved, in the thirty plus issues of Scott Lobdell's Teen Titans run, I was never once convinced that these guys were all friends and were a team. And that's not even talking about the rest of the team: Superboy and the new characters to the team Bunker, Solstice. and Skitter. Superboy in the book is just a piss poor attempt of writing The Superboy from the Young Justice cartoon, Skitter and Solstice are both characters that Lobdell failed to give me reasons to care about and Bunker...Bunker's cool. As I read the scenes with the character, I thought to myself: "I would hang out with this guy. If he were real and we were to have some sandwiches, he would probably have some fun stories to tell."

But wait! There's even MORE to this section! As it turns out, this New 52 Teen Titans team has been the ONLY incarnation of the team to exist. To bring this whole section home, the idea of legacy is dead: The possibility that the Titans were this prestigious team that carried rich history to it is dead. The fact that this is a group of teenagers that want to get together and to leave a stamp on the world is dead; and the legacies of Bart Allen and Cassie Sandsamrk's characters before the New 52 are gone and are replaced with "Generic Rebel Leader" and "Fanservice TnA girl" (Seriously, just look at how Cassie's drawn in The New 52).

And because I mentioned him earlier, Point #3: Tim Drake. Just...Tim Drake.

Tim...Tim...Tim. Boy, does it suck to be Tim Drake. To most of the people I talk to, and the majority of people that know about The Robins, Tim is NOBODY'S favorite Robin. All of the canon Robins have something special to them: Dick Grayson was the first and became Nightwing. Jason Todd died then came back and became Red Hood. Damian Wayne is Bruce Wayne's actual biological son...who ALSO died then came back. To the "Common Fan", so to speak, Tim Drake doesn't really have anything special to him.

But I believe there is something that sets him apart from the other Robins besides his brains, and again, feel free to disagree with my interpretation of this character. To sum up what I think of the character of Tim Drake, I'm going to borrow a couple of quotes from Nightwing Vol. 1: Bludhaven.

The first quote being to Nightwing: "You wanted to be a hero. I'm happy being Robin".

The Second quote is, again to Nightwing: "I don't plan on taking over for him someday. I won't be on the rooftops Ten years from now. I do my shift as Robin and then go back to a "Normal" Life."

This tells me something important about Tim Drake as a hero: One, whether he's helping Batman or with the Titans, he's very complacent where he is. He doesn't have this drive that the rest of the male members of the Bat Family have. Whereas the man and the mask are one and the same for them, Tim has no problem distinguishing himself as a person and Robin; and when he does, it's usually because Tim has hit his lowest point. As much as I'm sure I've beaten this phrase to death, Tim at his core is the every man Robin: He goes through life like any other Average Joe except he's super intelligent and on the side he's a hero.

But because Tim Drake just faded in the background compared to the previous Robins, the New 52 tried to give him small revamps to try and make him just as cool as all the other Former Robins and much like with Cassie and Bart, The New 52, more specifically Scott Lobdell, tried to fix what wasn't broken and ended up breaking it.  Instead of figuring out who Batman and Robin were through sheer detective skill and eventually convincing Bats to be his new Robin, Tim Drake is now the super athlete in school and he's at the top of his class, but he can't find out who Batman is. But when Batman tells him he can't be his sidekick, he puts himself and his family in danger just so Bat Senpai will notice him.

Yes I know the book calls him out on it, but it still doesn't justify that he's an idiot!!

And in there lies the problem: Tim Drake lost what made him a special character and the New 52 just opted to make him just another Robin or a mini Batman, you pick your poison, I'm a big fan of the latter. All his mannerisms show it and it just makes him bland rather than more interesting.

And my final point in this whole thing is: This comic lacks any sense of self containment

To Fully Understand this point, click the link here!!

Did me linking that not making any sense and/or confused you? Well, that's how I felt reading the book! Imagine if I were to start a review, then say: "To get the full story, follow my Tumblr Account, then go to my Reddit account! Then my Facebook page and give it a Like!!" Every couple of issues, you'll see this stupid little asterisk in one of the speech bubbles and the editor has a text box down in the bottom right of the page that says something along the lines of: "To fully understand what's going on with Superboy in this scene, read the Superboy comic!!" and once in a while is fine, but this book CONSTANTLY does it! God help you if it's an event like "The Culling" where you'll have to read this Teen Titans comic, then go read The Ravager, Then The Teen Titans Annual, the the actual Culling event Comic!! Or in the case of Forever Evil where you have to read that to get the events of one issue in the comic and why the Titans are traveling throughout time or different dimensions, or whatever the hell was going on! But here's something happening in this scene so good read that Superboy comic! It's SO Migrane inducing...

It's time to wrap this bad boy up. As I said before, the New 52 Teen Titans is what happens when you have a jaded old man try to write what HE THINKS is modern day teenage behavior. I instantly regret the decision of talking about this. Because this comic was so horrible....I don't know how it lasted thirty plus issues. And from what I'm hearing the post Lobdell stuff is not faring much better. All I can say, is that I hope to honest God The Live Action Titans T.V. Show doesn't suck as bad as this.

Til Next Time Folks, I'm The Shaman of Animation...and I'm off to watch some Young Justice. A show that KNOWS how to write a team of Teenage Superheroes.

Take Care...And for the love of Everything Sacred and Holy don't read Scott Lobdell's Teen Titans run. I endured it so you don't have to!!