8 Worst Things About The Teen Titans

8 Worst Things About The Teen Titans

Contents

The Teen Titans may be DC’s most popular young team, but they’ve struggled in recent years, and there are plenty of reasons why.

You Are Reading :[thien_display_title]

8 Worst Things About The Teen Titans

The Teen Titans are the biggest teen superhero team in the history of the comic industry. They aren’t the first, but they definitely refined the model, combining the most well-known sidekicks with new teen superheroes to create something special. They’ve found success in multiple entertainment mediums over the years, but it all stems from the comics, where they are a very important part of the DC Universe.

Recent years have seen the Teen Titans struggle to stay relevant and popular. There are many reasons behind this, but a lot of it has to do with weaknesses inherent to the concept, problems with the comics, and the expectations of fans themselves. The Teen Titans’ current predicament is a perfect storm of the worst things about the team.

8 The Concept Isn’t Novel Anymore

8 Worst Things About The Teen Titans

When the Teen Titans got their first solo book, comics starring teenage heroes were rare. At the time, it was pretty much just Spider-Man, X-Men, and the Legion of Superheroes. The X-Men weren’t near as popular as they are now, Spider-Man was a solo book, and the Legion was still getting stories in Adventure Comics until the early ’70s when they got a self-titled book. Teen heroes on their own just weren’t that big of a thing for a long time in the comic industry.

This would slowly change until the present day, partly due to the popularity of the Teen Titans, where there are a plethora of teen hero books to compete against, both solo and team comics. The Teen Titans aren’t nearly as special as they once were, and readers don’t really have a reason to read their comics like they used to.

7 They Haven’t Been Important In Years

8 Worst Things About The Teen Titans

The Teen Titans are one of the most influential teams in comic history. They presented a different kind of hero team to readers, proved that teen teams could be successful on the wide stage, and for a time was one of the biggest selling books in the comic industry. It’s impossible to deny all the great things the Teen Titans have accomplished. The problem is that all of those things are in the far past. The Teen Titans have a special place in DC history, but they haven’t been important in a very long time.

There are a variety of factors to this, from DC not utilizing the concept correctly to the fans moving on. Regardless of the reasons, the Titans just aren’t the force in the comic industry they used to be, and it’s getting harder to remember when they were the biggest thing in the industry.

See also  Marion Barber Earned $16 Million From the Cowboys but Has Run Into Retirement Troubles

6 Catering To The Fans Too Much Has Created A Stale Product

8 Worst Things About The Teen Titans

Being a Teen Titans fan has been pretty harsh for a long time, but that doesn’t mean that fan service is the key to fixing all the team’s problems. Fan service has been a problem in geek media for a very long time; many companies believe that by doing something that fans like, they’ll get those fans to support them like they used to. With the Teen Titans, this often means going back to familiar wells that have been long dry.

Past runs of the Teen Titans created an expectation among fans of what the Teen Titans “should” be. DC is aware of this, so they try to keep giving readers exactly that over and over again. Like the post-Zero Hour incarnation of the team that was entirely new members, new takes on the team are thrown away for the umpteenth New Teen Titans rehash team because they think that’s what fans want.

5 Even The Old Stuff Has Its Problems

8 Worst Things About The Teen Titans

Speaking of the New Teen Titans, fans have very rosy memories of that time in the team’s history and other of their favorite runs. There’s a good reason for that, as Marv Wolfman and George Perez created amazing stories and redefined the team for decades to come, creating fan-favorite heroes and villains. Later, in the ’00s, Geoff Johns’ reboot of the concept brought loads of fans back, combining the New Teen Titans with Young Justice.

The problem with rosy memories of the past is that they don’t stand up completely to modern scrutiny. There’s a lot of stuff in old Teen Titans comics that haven’t aged well at all. This is pretty normal in the comic industry, but it’s especially disappointing with something as beloved and respected as old Teen Titans comics.

4 The Roster Formula Has Gotten Really Old

8 Worst Things About The Teen Titans

Formula is both a boon and a curse to all kinds of media. In the Teen Titans’ case, it’s more a curse than anything. Comic teams often depend on something of a formula with their rosters — there’s always a planner/leader, a strong person, a long-range attacker, a flier, et cetera — but the Teen Titans have taken it to a whole new level. Instead of trying to create new stars, it uses established legacy characters teamed with newbies repeatedly.

Robin is an important part of Titans’ history, so every roster has to have one. For a long time, Starfire, Cyborg, Raven, and Beast Boy had to be members, even though they were almost certainly not teens anymore. It’s at the point where the team’s roster formula is predictable in the worst possible way.

See also  Former Cowboys RB, Minnesota star Marion Barber III dies at 38

3 Their Best Villain Has Co-Opted

8 Worst Things About The Teen Titans

The Teen Titans have faced many dangerous villains over the years. The most iconic is easily Deathstroke. Others are more powerful, and some even have as good of a reason to hate the team as he does, but there’s just something about his battles against the Teen Titans that have made him the best villain they fight. He’s also the most popular Teen Titans villain from their most popular time, which has put him in the top echelon of DC’s antagonists.

Deathstroke’s popularity is now much greater than that of the Titans, so he’s been moved away from the team to heroes and teams of his stature. DC has been trying to make him into a Batman villain for years now, with varying levels of success, and he’s even clashed with the Justice League and its members more often than he has the Teen Titans. Losing the team’s best villain hasn’t done them any favors.

2 The Rebirth Era Teen Titans Failed

8 Worst Things About The Teen Titans

DC Rebirth brought a lot of lapsed readers back to DC, ones who had been driven away by the New 52. The popular publishing initiative revitalized the company, but re-reading it reveals that it may not be as great as fans once thought. There are a lot of weak spots, and Teen Titans was one of them. Starring Damian Wayne on what was basically the New Teen Titans team without Cyborg or Donna Troy and with Wallace West’s Kid Flash, it didn’t wow fans at all.

So many DC franchises got a boost from Rebirth, but the Teen Titans didn’t. This extended to the book after the initiative ended, where DC pivoted to a team with more new teen heroes instead of being a New Teen Titans rehash. Unfortunately, the fans had already withdrawn from the book, sounding the death knell for the Teen Titans as a team with its own comic until Titans Academy, which was as much about adult alums of the team as new teen heroes.

1 The New 52 Teen Titans Basically Killed The Franchise

The Rebirth Teen Titans relaunch might have had a better chance if it wasn’t for just how bad the New 52 Teen Titans reboot was. The New 52 did a lot of damage to DC as a whole, and the Teen Titans got some of the worst of it. The Teen Titans had been on a downward trend since Geoff Johns left, and the New 52 didn’t help at all, the typical problems of the relaunch being compounded by the quality of the book itself.

Teen Titans’ history in the New 52 was a mess, fans didn’t like the redesigned costumes, and the characters themselves just didn’t interest the majority of Titans readers. Readers had already begun checking out before the New 52, but the reboot exacerbated the exodus, dooming the franchise for years to come.

Link Source : https://www.cbr.com/dc-teen-titans-worst-things/

Holiday -