The End of Teen Heroes In The DCU

The young always have the same problem – how to rebel and conform at the same time.  They have now solved this by defying their parents and copying one another.  ~Quentin Crisp

As long as there have been heroes there have been sidekicks and teen heroes. They have become almost as famous as the heroes they work with. If you say Batman someone will add Robin. Say Superman and people will follow with Superboy, Captain America with Bucky, etc. The approaching DC reboot seems to have a huge lack in teen heroes in the fabric of the DCU, and not just sidekicks, teen heroes seem to have nearly vanished from the universe.

DC has gone on record as saying that Robin has basically become an internship, a teen joins up and serves before moving on to something else, preferably their own identity. But what about the other teens in the DCU? Where have the Wonder Girls gone? The Zatarras, the Kid Devils, the Speedys, Miss Martians and more? Teen heroes are the next generation of the DCU and DC is seemingly hurting itself in the long run. No team was a better symbol of the future in the DCU than the Teen Titans, they were a combination of sidekicks and solo teens that worked together to fight the evils of the world.

Without Aqualad/Aquagirl/Tempest/Dolphin we are left with a gap in the Aquaman mythos, the same goes for the lack of a Speedy, be it Roy Harper or Mia Dearden. These characters are keys to the past of the big guns in the DCU. Is it that improbable that a group of kids crazy enough to put on spandex and fight evil, would get along and form a club? Is DC so oblivious to ignore this possibility? Heroes bond and teen heroes are no different. If there were young heroes in the universe, they would want to meet up, hangout with their peers, and debate whose partner is cooler. Flash or Batman? Green Arrow or Aquaman?

There is the whole other can of worms about the non-sidekick heroes that have joined the titans over their history. Raven, Beast Boy, Lilith, Phantasm, Kole, Kid Vulcan and more. If they don’t have a history with the Teen Titans, what history do they have? Generations of fans have grown to love these characters, there are die hard fans of even the most minor Titans out there, and this move to delete the Teen Titans from history feels like a deeply personal blow to them, and rightfully so. Fans can argue about the importance of stories you love being removed from continuity, but the fact is it always hurts and you cannot help but feel betrayed. Some of the stories related to the Teen Titans are such classic tales and have ties to so many other teams that it hurts even more when these are removed.

We are losing the Judas Contract. That is a sentence no one ever wants to type when talking about continuity.This was THE story that set off years of distrust and worry whenever a new teammate joined, would they be a Terra or a Starfire? The entire Teen Titans cartoon had a season revolving around this storyline! Titans Hunt, Nightwing’s wedding and more are all connected to the history of the Titans and without them there is another gaping hole in the continuity of the DCU.

What about Deathstroke, Trigon, H.I.V.E, Brother Blood and many more? They have been removed from the very history that made them matter! These are some major villains of the DCU’s past and now they are abandoned. Sure Deathstroke has his own book, but what from his past will remain intact? What about Rose and Jericho? We know from a recent Superboy solicit that Rose will be Superboy’s handler for N.O.W.H.E.R.E., but what kind of role is that for one of the best female teens in the DCU?

We are losing the Judas Contract. That is a sentence no one ever wants to type when talking about continuity.

Scott Lobdell has been hesitant on giving much info regarding the past of the Titans, in one interview he has said that there may have been teen teams in the past, but no group called the Teen Titans. Does this confuse anyone else? I can understand changing some of the history and swapping teams around, but to remove something as long standing as the Teen Titans and the runs of Wolfman and Pérez, Johns and Mckone and even the recent Krul and Scott run seems like a slap in the face to readers.

There is no doubt that some history will remain intact, some sort of teen heroes will have worked together in the past. Some heroes will step up to the big leagues like Cyborg in Justice League and Starfire in Red Hood and the Outlaws, Superboy will have his own book, Tim Drake will be Red Robin and Static Shock has his own book, but these are some of the more marketable and popular characters. Those characters are not what team books are about. Team books should be the big guns as well as the lesser characters that cannot hold a title of their own, gaining popularity in the team and then given a chance at the big time, such as Cyborg. The smaller characters that made the Teen Titans wonderful are seemingly lost in the shuffle, tossed aside to limbo.

Teenagers always tend to get a bad wrap, they are full of angst, noisy, rude, whatever you want to call them, but there are those that transcend these stereotypes and become something more. Many of these teen heroes have been given a gift, powers that they can barely control or comprehend and they use them to fight evil, to save the world. They find companions and mentors and grow up to become the heroes of tomorrow. Yet here we are on the edge of a new dawn in the DCU and it seems like there are fewer young heroes than ever, perhaps when they are needed most. The Teen Titans have always been a rebellious group, they resist the jaded authority that commands them to stand down in a battle and they work to become something better than their parents or mentors. They are their own team, they are Titans of the DCU and sadly they are disappearing.