"No, Kid Flash! NOOOOOOO!!"
Thanks to inter-library loan, I'm reading the first volume of the DC Archives series that didn't reprint comic books from the Golden or Silver Ages: The New Teen Titans Archives, Vol. 1 (1999; ISBN: 1-56389-485-8).
I was (and, if I'm honest, still am -- just not of the current product) a Marvel Zombie when The New Teen Titans was published; I bought the DC/Marvel cross-over special that combined the Titans with the X-Men to battle Darkseid and Dark Phoenix (written by X-Men scribe Chris Claremont and pencilled by Walt Simonson, if memory serves), and I bought the NTT issue that had Wonder Girl, Donna Troy, marrying some non-powered Leisure-Suit Larry type -- the rare superhero wedding that wasn't gate-crashed by a who's who list of supervillains. But, since I didn't follow the Titans and wasn't really aware of the history of the characters, it didn't do anything for me.
So far, I'm pleasantly surprised by Marv Wolfman's writing on these issues (DC Comics Presents #26 [Oct. 1980] and New Teen Titans Vol. 1, #1-8 [Nov. 1980 - June 1981]); it's not as gawdawful as it often was in his work for Marvel Comics (even his much-lauded work on Tomb of Dracula had a tendency to slip into cheesy-land), and perhaps that has something to do with his feeling fully invested in a book: after all, as he notes in his introduction to this volume, he and pencil artist George Perez co-created half of the characters on The New Teen Titans (Cyborg, Raven, and Starfire), and no one, even Wolfman and Perez themselves, expected the book to last more than six issues, tops.
That said, I was surprised to discover that, even in the 1980s, and even after the evidence offered by Justice League International/Justice League Europe, at how DC was still liable to its curse of, um, inappropriate artwork.
First, the only slightly (....) inappropriate splash page, from 10 of The New Teen Titans (Mar. 1981); the pencil art is by Curt Swan (who filled in for George Perez); the ink art is by Romeo Tanghal:
That's Raven, kneeling before her daddy (who raped her mother, Arella), the inter-dimensional nasty called Trigon. Aside from the classic BDSM positioning of the characters, Trigon's, uh, "costume" is more in keeping with what readers would've seen in Warren's black & white comics of the day (Warren published Vampirella, Creepy and Eerie). That's a nice veil-cum-loincloth that Trigon is almost wearing; plus, uh, hello, this is what passes for a "daddy/daughter" dance in a mainstream superhero comic book in the early '80s??
Next, from the same issue, the third panel from p. 16:
That's Wonder Girl thumping Trigon, while Kid Flash -- uh -- just what in the hell did Wolfman, Swan and Tanghal think that Kid Flash was doing? It looks like Kid Flash is jogging in place while trying to, er, blow Trigon over. *Ahem*
How this slipped past DC's editors (this issue was edited by another former Marvel staffer -- and co-creator of the new X-Men -- Len Wein), I'll never understand. Geez-Louise....
I was (and, if I'm honest, still am -- just not of the current product) a Marvel Zombie when The New Teen Titans was published; I bought the DC/Marvel cross-over special that combined the Titans with the X-Men to battle Darkseid and Dark Phoenix (written by X-Men scribe Chris Claremont and pencilled by Walt Simonson, if memory serves), and I bought the NTT issue that had Wonder Girl, Donna Troy, marrying some non-powered Leisure-Suit Larry type -- the rare superhero wedding that wasn't gate-crashed by a who's who list of supervillains. But, since I didn't follow the Titans and wasn't really aware of the history of the characters, it didn't do anything for me.
So far, I'm pleasantly surprised by Marv Wolfman's writing on these issues (DC Comics Presents #26 [Oct. 1980] and New Teen Titans Vol. 1, #1-8 [Nov. 1980 - June 1981]); it's not as gawdawful as it often was in his work for Marvel Comics (even his much-lauded work on Tomb of Dracula had a tendency to slip into cheesy-land), and perhaps that has something to do with his feeling fully invested in a book: after all, as he notes in his introduction to this volume, he and pencil artist George Perez co-created half of the characters on The New Teen Titans (Cyborg, Raven, and Starfire), and no one, even Wolfman and Perez themselves, expected the book to last more than six issues, tops.
That said, I was surprised to discover that, even in the 1980s, and even after the evidence offered by Justice League International/Justice League Europe, at how DC was still liable to its curse of, um, inappropriate artwork.
First, the only slightly (....) inappropriate splash page, from 10 of The New Teen Titans (Mar. 1981); the pencil art is by Curt Swan (who filled in for George Perez); the ink art is by Romeo Tanghal:
That's Raven, kneeling before her daddy (who raped her mother, Arella), the inter-dimensional nasty called Trigon. Aside from the classic BDSM positioning of the characters, Trigon's, uh, "costume" is more in keeping with what readers would've seen in Warren's black & white comics of the day (Warren published Vampirella, Creepy and Eerie). That's a nice veil-cum-loincloth that Trigon is almost wearing; plus, uh, hello, this is what passes for a "daddy/daughter" dance in a mainstream superhero comic book in the early '80s??
Next, from the same issue, the third panel from p. 16:
That's Wonder Girl thumping Trigon, while Kid Flash -- uh -- just what in the hell did Wolfman, Swan and Tanghal think that Kid Flash was doing? It looks like Kid Flash is jogging in place while trying to, er, blow Trigon over. *Ahem*
How this slipped past DC's editors (this issue was edited by another former Marvel staffer -- and co-creator of the new X-Men -- Len Wein), I'll never understand. Geez-Louise....