Teen Titans: The Bronze Age Omnibus

Teen Titans (1966) #25-53

by Bob Haney, Don Heck (Illustrations), Steve Skeates

The sidekicks to DC's greatest heroes--including Robin, Aqualad, Kid Flash, Speedy and Wonder Girl--set out to make a positive difference in the world, during a time when social change was at the forefront of society. This series also includes the introduction of Bumblebee and Bat-Girl (Betty Kane)! The true-life events of the 1970s are reflected in this era of TEEN TITANS. As the Vietnam War is all over home TV sets, a peace activist in the comic book is accidentally killed and the Teen Titans must face their roles in the world.
Collects TEEN TITANS #25-52; THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD #94, #102, #149; BATMAN FAMILY #6 and WORLD'S FINEST COMICS #205.

Genres: Comics, Dc Comics, Graphic Novels, Comic Book

724 pages, Hardcover

Published June 20, 2017

About the author

Robert G. Haney was an American comic book writer, best known for his work for DC Comics. He co-created the Teen Titans as well as characters such as Metamorpho, Eclipso, Cain, and the Super-Sons.

Reviews

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

This Bronze age omnibus picks up in 1970, which seems to be the prevailing date for the start of the BA at DC. Thematically, though, it's perfect, as the first story in this volume deals with the after effects of a failure by the TTs and sometimes accomplices Hawk and Dove to prevent the murder of a prominent peace activist. First chided by their mentors in the Justice League of America, the Titans are soon brought under the guidance of a Mr Jupiter, a wealthy and secretive man who takes the Titans out of their uniforms and has them encounter the real world outside of their costumed identities.

Soon, the Titans are moving into the ghetto, where they meet Mal Duncan, a non-powered black teen who soon joins the Titans in their adventures. Along the way, they meet Lilith Clay, a red-haired girl with ESP, and the Cro-Magnon Gnarrk, brought into the 20th century and taught to be civilized. Aqualad, who had not been hanging out with the team for a while, returns and challenges the team on their decision to no longer use their powers and identities (Robin had laid out, as well). This sets up some serious conflict between the teens. Eventually, the Titans slowly return to their uniforms and using their powers/abilities, and by the end of the first run of the book, Mr Jupiter is barely a foot note. Not forgotten, but not as prominent a character, either.

This first run ran to issue 43, in 1973. The book had been bi-monthly during its entire seven-year run, and in the Silver Age omni, we see the team evolve from silly pre-teen characters in some rather silly Silver Age stories to fairly modern (for the time) settings brought to life by the realistic art of Nick Cardy. Into the Bronze Age, scribe Bob Haney shares writing duties with Steve Skeates, who had worked on the brief Hawk and Dove series with Steve Ditko, and artist George Tuska, for some ungodly reason, pencils many of the stories, Cardy being relegated to inker.

One interesting part of this run was the influence of the market of the early 70s in the Titans stories. Super-heroes were a bit on the decline at DC, but the mystery/horror/suspense books were very popular. There was an explosion of such books at DC, such as Ghosts and Sinister House of Secret Love (a gothic romance mystery book), and the theme of these books were also finding their way into the average super-hero book. (Adventure Comics even briefly became Weird Adventure Comics, starring rather macabre stories of the Spectre by Fleisher and Aparo, and "weird" western and war books appeared, as well. Teen Titans had its share of haunted mansions, demons, monsters, etc. during this time period, too. In fact, it seemed the last 12 issues of the title were nothing but tales of this genre. Additionally, there were a number of backup stories featuring Aqualad and Aquagirl, Hawk and Dove, and an intermittent series dedicated to the secret origin of Lilith.

Overall, these were really some good stories. Bob Haney gets a lot of flack for his out-of continuity Brave and Bold comics of the era, but here, once he allowed himself to get liberated from the silly 60s teen slang, he wrote some interesting examinations of youth culture, the peace movement, and race relations. Sometimes, Mal and one of the other Titans would engage in some racial trash talk which is now a bit uncomfortable to read, but it was never offensive, just odd, and something I think I and my black friends may have indulged in when I was a kid. Leaving out Robin for a lot of the issues allowed a rather cohesive continuity to take place, also, and comparing Teen Titans with other DC comics from the time, it was very tightly woven.

After almost three and a half years, the title was revived, picking up the numbering where it left off (can't imagine that happening today - no multiple issue #1s!). New writer Bob Rozakis, who seems to have had his handprint all over the DCU of the day, had been writing the Robin stories in the title Batman Family, which was an oversized comic starring Robin, Batgirl, and the occasional Man-Bat and pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths Huntress, daughter of the Earth-2 Batman and Catwoman. Rozakis had written a series of stories where Robin was continually coming up against a female foe who would style herself as either the daughter of the Joker, Riddler, Penguin, Scarecrow, or Catwoman. These stories are reprinted here, also, as a bridge between the first run of the series, and the second.

Rozakis's first issues of Teen Titans dealt with getting the team back together. Robin, Wonder Girl, Kid Flash, Speedy, Aqualad, and Mal discover they've lost some of their mojo while fighting Dr Light. Eventually, they get their act together and the new team coalesces around a discotheque which serves as their HQ. Mal gets a chance to be a real superhero with enhanced abilities, and Rozakis brings into the team Mal's girlfriend, the Bumblebee, DC's first black female hero, and the aforementioned Joker's Daughter. There's an unsatisfying subplot revolving around Aqualad, and then in issue #50, Rozakis unites the Titans with former member Lilith (along with Gnarrk), and hangers-on Hawk and Dove. Along with Beast Boy (the future Changeling), the original Bat-Girl, and Golden Eagle, the idea was to set up a West Coast team. So, years before the West Coast Avengers, there was the West Coast Teen Titans. Alas, the title ended with issue #53, which recounted the origin story of the team, never before told, and the idea of West and East coast teams never went any further.

The artists for the second run was a mixture of Jose Delbo and Don Heck, with covers by Rich Buckler. Not the most inspired artists, but fairly typical of the art at DC in those days. This second run was my first introduction to the team, and although in the days of newsstand distribution it was difficult to find every issue, Teen Titans was one of those I looked forward to the most. I eventually subscribed, although the first issue I received was the last, along with a note from DC saying they were moving my subscription over to Freedom Fighters, another Rozakis-scripted book that was canceled two issues into my subscription. (After that it went to the last issue of Black Lightning, and then I honestly can't remember.) I have very fond memories of this run, and I'm happy to say they are still a lot of fun to read. Rozakis's stories were always entertaining to me then, and are now as well. (OK, DC, let's see his Freedom Fighters collected!)

Although the original Teen Titans were eventually overshadowed by their successors, the New Teen Titans by Wolfman and Perez, the original team, from Silver Age to Bronze, were a great addition to DC's line. Never full of angst and whining like the X-Men, they were a typical DC team, with the occasional problems that were always solved within the course of 20 pages. This is a great addition to DC's new omnibus line dedicated to Silver and Bronze Age DC Comics, and seeing stories I never thought would be collected finally in hardcover was a great joy.

[Jack Holt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This volume contains the original -- and my favorite -- version of the Teen Titans. Following up on the Silver Age Omnibus, the first half of the book includes the final issues of the original series' run -- in stories from the late 1960's and early 1970's by Bob Haney and Nick Cardy. Nick Cardy's work in the first part of the book is outstanding.

In many stories Mr. Cardy provided both the pencils and the inks. These are the best ones, artisitcally. But even when Mr. Cardy was not the main penciler, the art still looks gorgeous. Mr. Cardy served as the inker on most of the stories even when he did not draw it personally. He adds feathery inks and details to work by other pencilers like Art Saaf and George Tuska, completely transforming their work. You can compare George Tuska's work here to Mr. Tuska's work in the Iron Man Marvel Masterworks series and see the very real difference Mr. Cardy makes.

Mr. Cardy never got the same credit that Gil Kane or George Perez did, but I think even modern comics readers can appreciate his panel design and line work.

Bob Haney's stories are self-contained and hold up better than I imagined they would. Some of them are a little preachy. Many comics from the early 1970's were called "relevance comics" because they tried to address real-world problems.

This approach worked wonderfully for characters like Batman and Green Arrow, but strains credulity when they involved Kid Flash and Wonder Girl. So many of the stories have the Titans solving mysteries somewhat like the Scooby Doo team. Less super-heroics and more mystery. Strangely it worked. They even got Aqualad into the mix!

The second half of the book features a well-intentioned, but unsuccessful, attempt to revive the Teen Titans as a regular title in 1976. It was workman-like but was published when DC was regularly experimenting but failing to gain purchase with its titles. (Teen Titans was cancelled in early 1978 just a few months before the DC Implosion). The Teen Titans faded into obscurity for a brief while after that - until Marv Wolfman and George Perez created the "New Teen Titans" in 1980. The New Teen Titans have dominated comics since the 1980's.

Starting in 1976, though, the stories by Bob Rozakis contain many elements later incorporated in Marv Wolfman's version -- so longtime fans may enjoy seeing these concepts in embryonic form.

[Gus Casals · Rating 3 out of 5]

Familiar with the New Teen Titans onwards, but having read quite a bit of Bronze Age at the time, I always wondered why I knew so little about the early incarnations of the team. The answer was easy and right in front of me: Haney-verse!
The alternate continuity within Bob Haney's head that populated The Brave and the Bold was not limited to that title, but also to the Titans he wrote. These stories.... basically don't match with anything. Plot heavy, usually derivative from classics and other fiction and completely lacking characterization, these stories are fun and are gorgeously illustrated by Nick Cardy, who got better and better as time went by, even when inking someone like George Tuska, who I am not a fan of either.
Still, the Titans work out of costume, have odd benefactors, break new ground with african-american characters early on (both male and female, Bumblebee being a first), and hardly cross over with anything but Batman (Haney-Verse) and Robin's solo adventures.
For full issues they don't even call themselves by their real names even when in civilian attire. Because they are cyphers with super-powers, which never remain consistent or are not used at all.
Still, a fun read, an interesting look at changing comic trends over the decade (the 70s) and a lot of fodder for future adventures and retroactive continuity.

[Nate Deprey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bob Haney and Nick Cardy are great together. Haney's love of goofy, oddball story telling is well offset by Cardy's serious as a heart attack style. They balance each other out and don't let these stories get too flighty or gritty. This ballance makes the silver age Teen Titans as much fun as it was and carries into the 1970s. Unfortunately, Haney and Cardy left the series after issue 43 of this collection that continues on for ten more depressing issues until Haney saves the day with a Brave and the Bold story featuring the Titans a year after the Teen Titans series had been cancelled. Bob Rozakis flat out isn't a good writer and his ambition to tell bigger and bigger stories does him no favors and makes Speedy into a bigger and bigger jerk as the series rolls along. There are also continuity issues with Speedy as at this point he is a struggling heroin addict in Green Lantern/Green Arrow and is mostly just obnoxious The art after Cardy isn't any better. The Character of the Joker's Daughter is drawn like a martini mom even though she is supposed to be Robin's age among other problems. I'm probably over grading this collection on the whole but the Hany/Cardy stuff was really worth it.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I couldn't resist this volume of 1970s Teen Titans comics, as I'd heard lots about them over the years and it's a perfect interlude in my current re-reading of the 80s version that I loved at the time. 70s DC comics are much stranger than I thought they would be! The majority of this book is the second half of the original run, which contains the stronger artwork and writing. The latter section of the book shows the comics published after the Titans went on hiatus for a few years, but these are not as good as the older comics: the art is not as good, the writing less entertaining, but there are lot of ideas tried out. It's defnitely worth buying if you're interested in seeing what this era was like.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mostly good although I'm still not a fan of Bob Haney's dialogue. Even on the 70s he thought all teenagers were beatniks from the 50s.

[Jenna Alcock · Rating 5 out of 5]

So much fun to read as so many new characters appeared. It isn't to much dated with its speech which makes it easy to read.