Comic Info
Comic Name: New Teen Titans (Volume 1)/Tales of the New Teen Titans
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Marv Wolfman
Artist: George Perez/Romeo Tanghal/Brett Breeding/Pablo Marcos/Gene Day/Ernie Colon
# of Issues: 8
Release Date: 2015
New Teen Titans (1) #20
Reprints The New Teen Titans (1) #17-20 and Tales of the New Teen Titans #1-4 (March 1982-September 1982). The Titans try to help a friend of Kid Flash and encounter a former ally who might have turned enemy. As Starfire deals with loss, Cyborg questions how Sarah Simms could see him as anything but a robot. A camping trip for the Teen Titans exposes secrets that they never told their teammates.
Written by Marv Wolfman, The New Teen Titans—Volume 3 is a DC Comics superhero comic book collection. Following The New Teen Titans—Volume 2, the series features art by George Perez, Romeo Tanghal, Brett Breeding, Pablo Marcos, Gene Day, and Ernie Colon. Issues in this collection were also part of The New Teen Titans Archives—Volume 3 and The New Teen Titans Omnibus—Volume 1.
I was Marvel growing up. New Mutants, Avengers, Spider-Man, X-Men, and even Alpha Flight were favorites. DC seemed too juvenile since I still saw DC as the Super Friends (which I liked), but innocent and pure. The only book that made me consider reading DC was The New Teen Titans. Like New Mutants, the characters were young, identifiable, and more rounded than some of the bigger players in the DC universe. I started reading New Teen Titans later, and while I still enjoy it a lot, I do think it has an innocence to it that Marvel didn’t have at the time…even when it tried to be edgy.
Tales of the New Teen Titans #4
This collection is rather short in the sense that four of the eight issues are essentially origin issues. Tales of the New Teen Titans was the title of the limited series which later became the title of the original New Teen Titans series as DC launched a secondary Teen Titans series. If you had been reading the Teen Titans, the origin issue wasn’t anything special, but pre-internet, origin issues were almost a necessity to really know “the origin” of a character if you missed it (and the characters of Cyborg, Raven, and Starfire were new characters).
The four issues comprising the rest of the book are pretty much one-offs. There are continuing plots, but most of the stories in New Teen Titans started out as adventures with a soap-opera background (like a lot of comic books). The New Teen Titans was always almost more melodramatic than the Marvel books which makes it almost seem more wholesome. Even books dealing with witchcraft, detached parents, and rogue agents in the Soviet Union trying to launch a super-virus against still feel very pulpy. It isn’t a bad thing, but it is a different flavor than most Marvel books from the same period.
As a result, reading The New Teen Titans unfortunately will not impress a lot of people. In comparison with modern comics, the nature of the comic might feel kind of juvenile even when dealing with big subjects. At the time, the comics really were often focused on kids and teens, but with the understanding that adults and collectors might also read them. Now I feel that it is pretty much reversed, and something like the New Teen Titans feels like a comfortable throwback to older types of comics…give the Titans a chance even if you were a “Marvelite”. The series really begins to ramp up in the next volume now that pieces are all established. The New Teen Titans—Volume 3 is followed by The New Teen Titans—Volume 4.
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