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Teen Titans I (Single issues) #1-18
Showcase Presents: Teen Titans, Vol. 1
A value-priced collection of more than 500 black-and-white pages of classic comic stories featuring everyone's favorite team of sidekicks the Teen Titans!Robin, Wonder Girl, Kid Flash and Aqualad unite without their adult mentors for adventures only a teen team could handle.Featuring appearances by Speedy, Beast Boy and the Russian teen hero Starfire, this jam-packed volume also includes classic battles against the Mad Mod, Mister Twister and the Ant, as well as the creation of the first Titans Lair.
528 pages, Paperback
First published April 12, 2006
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163 people want to read
About the author
Bob Haney
450 books13 followersRobert 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.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
October 30, 2008
Ridiculously stupid fun. Wolfman & Perez may have turned the Teen Titans into a real classic in the '80s, but these late '60s stories from Bob Haney are so terrible they're great. Many of the stories have a "teens vs. adults" flair to them, and Haney's conception of what teenagers sounded like is kind of stunning. (From the first story: "Fellows, that note's a PHONY! No teen-ager would use the word 'MUSIC' in a hip language message... They'd use 'JIVE!'")
Also impressive is the one where the Titans go undercover ... as HIPPIES ... in order to find a runaway kid. (From the coda: "Uh... Me and Karin have been thinking, Robin... I think I'll DROP BACK IN! I found out the hard way that I wasn't meant to be a hippie--!")
Taken seriously, this is terrible stuff.
Taken as kitsch, it's terribly AWESOME!
Recommended. Really.
Also impressive is the one where the Titans go undercover ... as HIPPIES ... in order to find a runaway kid. (From the coda: "Uh... Me and Karin have been thinking, Robin... I think I'll DROP BACK IN! I found out the hard way that I wasn't meant to be a hippie--!")
Taken seriously, this is terrible stuff.
Taken as kitsch, it's terribly AWESOME!
Recommended. Really.
February 4, 2010
This was fun and often hilarious, but for the most part because, well, these comics are very obviously children of their time.
Cool cats, check! Robin-O and his groovy friends - Wonder Chick, Twinkletoes and Gillhead - the most terrif Teen Titans - are on one faberoo adventure after the other! Like go-go-go!
Seriously, though, it is fun, but the "cool teenage slang" is very dated and I doubt anyone EVER talked like that. The adventures are very generic - some weird bad guy poses a threat to teenagers in one way or the other, and the Teen Titans go and solve the problem - TOGETHER - because they're a TEAM. And they learn how to work with teens who are different (like from Russia! Remember, it was the Cold War!) But in the end it IS Robin and Kid Flash and Wonder Girl and Aqua Lad on their very first adventures, and they are awesome, even when being utterly ridiculous.
There is one memorable story - it did feel a bit unfinished and there could have been done more with it, but "Requiem for a Titan" definitely beats stories like the ones with the Mad Mod in them.
Not required reading, but fun. Crazy, crazy fun.
Cool cats, check! Robin-O and his groovy friends - Wonder Chick, Twinkletoes and Gillhead - the most terrif Teen Titans - are on one faberoo adventure after the other! Like go-go-go!
Seriously, though, it is fun, but the "cool teenage slang" is very dated and I doubt anyone EVER talked like that. The adventures are very generic - some weird bad guy poses a threat to teenagers in one way or the other, and the Teen Titans go and solve the problem - TOGETHER - because they're a TEAM. And they learn how to work with teens who are different (like from Russia! Remember, it was the Cold War!) But in the end it IS Robin and Kid Flash and Wonder Girl and Aqua Lad on their very first adventures, and they are awesome, even when being utterly ridiculous.
There is one memorable story - it did feel a bit unfinished and there could have been done more with it, but "Requiem for a Titan" definitely beats stories like the ones with the Mad Mod in them.
Not required reading, but fun. Crazy, crazy fun.
June 20, 2007
Bob Haney's dialogue has to be read, in context, to be believed. These stories mostly play out like Scooby Doo episodes, with all the charm implied and none of the cheapness. Also, Nick Cardy's beautiful art. The Silver Age at its best.
September 30, 2018
I'm tempted to say that these were the most diabolically bad comics I've ever read, but I've a feeling that in a different mood, or maybe just in smaller quantities, I might have thought that they were the best!
In context they make sense: this is a teenage version of the Batman tv show, with all the corny dialogue and goofy villains that that would make you expect.
Out of context it's appalling stuff: the dialogue is excruciating, the villains idiotic, and the whole thing intensely embarrassing.
There's a change of writers with issue 18, the last in the book. It's a rather mundane issue, but it's a relief after the previous 500 pages of hipness and grooviness.
Unless you're in the mood for a comic written by Austin Powers, I'd give this a miss.
In context they make sense: this is a teenage version of the Batman tv show, with all the corny dialogue and goofy villains that that would make you expect.
Out of context it's appalling stuff: the dialogue is excruciating, the villains idiotic, and the whole thing intensely embarrassing.
There's a change of writers with issue 18, the last in the book. It's a rather mundane issue, but it's a relief after the previous 500 pages of hipness and grooviness.
Unless you're in the mood for a comic written by Austin Powers, I'd give this a miss.
June 1, 2016
Definitely a product of its time, Teen Titans has glimmers of hope amid some oddball villains. The stories get better when we see the characters actually have issues with each other and less of the sexist chat so prevalent in the first stories in regards to Winder Girl. However the nods to the Batman tv series are always enjoyable :)
May 12, 2019
I will read anything in comic book form. But if you had to make me choose between Marvel and DC, I'd have to side with the Distinguished Competition. That being said, DC has never been perfect. It's had just as many hits as it has had misses. One thing that Marvel destroyed DC on was how it published the generation gap of the late 1960s. The very book that I am reviewing today is an excellent case in point in how the elder statesmen writers of DC had trouble relating to the teens of the Vietnam era.
This book collects the first 18 issues of the original Teen Titans series along with the team's very first appearances in The Brave and the Bold and Showcase. From the first story, the main theme was that when it comes to teens, adults just don't understand. When the teens of a small coastal town go on strike, the sidekicks of Batman, Aquaman and the Flash agree to intervene.
The Teen Titans were created to help troubled teenagers have a voice when the old folks won't listen. Even the Caped Crusader shows his age in the earliest adventures calling Robin a wild and rebellious teen. Yet the Titans are anything but. Along with late addition Wonder Girl, these heroes would go undercover as regular teens. Yet, they're so clean cut that anyone else with street smarts would finger these kids as narcs.
Bob Haney does manage to create some pretty awesome villains for the Titans to combat. There's the British fop, the Mad Mod, who rivals the Joker in level of criminal genius. Then there's the grotesquely costumed Gargoyle. He's got a vendetta against one of the Teen Titans. But unfortunately, we never find out why in this volume. Plus who can forget Ebenezer Scrounge in the classic Christmas caper?!
Yes, Teen Titans did villains well. But in terms of the teens themselves, I think someone did their research on kids from the 1940s. All of the teens in this book are squares- except for the guest stars! Speedy, Beast Boy and a Russian lad named Starfire are all welcome visitors to this massive collection. But as for Robin and his cohorts, they might as well be speaking Japanese with their ridiculous attempts at young adult slang!
Things do seem to be changing for the better in the last 3-4 stories. We get different writers contributing including an early stint by New Teen Titans legend, Marv Wolfman.
I found myself disappointed that this volume came to a close when it did. Things started getting good!
At least there's a volume 2. However it's getting increasingly difficult to find Showcase collected volumes for a good price, much less at all.
A mixed bag of teen angst from a time when DC's best and brightest just couldn't relate.
This book collects the first 18 issues of the original Teen Titans series along with the team's very first appearances in The Brave and the Bold and Showcase. From the first story, the main theme was that when it comes to teens, adults just don't understand. When the teens of a small coastal town go on strike, the sidekicks of Batman, Aquaman and the Flash agree to intervene.
The Teen Titans were created to help troubled teenagers have a voice when the old folks won't listen. Even the Caped Crusader shows his age in the earliest adventures calling Robin a wild and rebellious teen. Yet the Titans are anything but. Along with late addition Wonder Girl, these heroes would go undercover as regular teens. Yet, they're so clean cut that anyone else with street smarts would finger these kids as narcs.
Bob Haney does manage to create some pretty awesome villains for the Titans to combat. There's the British fop, the Mad Mod, who rivals the Joker in level of criminal genius. Then there's the grotesquely costumed Gargoyle. He's got a vendetta against one of the Teen Titans. But unfortunately, we never find out why in this volume. Plus who can forget Ebenezer Scrounge in the classic Christmas caper?!
Yes, Teen Titans did villains well. But in terms of the teens themselves, I think someone did their research on kids from the 1940s. All of the teens in this book are squares- except for the guest stars! Speedy, Beast Boy and a Russian lad named Starfire are all welcome visitors to this massive collection. But as for Robin and his cohorts, they might as well be speaking Japanese with their ridiculous attempts at young adult slang!
Things do seem to be changing for the better in the last 3-4 stories. We get different writers contributing including an early stint by New Teen Titans legend, Marv Wolfman.
I found myself disappointed that this volume came to a close when it did. Things started getting good!
At least there's a volume 2. However it's getting increasingly difficult to find Showcase collected volumes for a good price, much less at all.
A mixed bag of teen angst from a time when DC's best and brightest just couldn't relate.
January 9, 2009
Teen titans ah this brings back memories. the book is just about all the differents Adventures that the titans have and all of the Various villains that they faced against
December 11, 2008
All I have to say is, "Munching Mantas! Citrus Fruit! Look at all that vitamin C!".
November 7, 2013
Good stories, great art, affordable format, and they're good for kids -- what more could you ask for?
September 8, 2015
A groovy time in the swinging 60s with America's teen phenoms. We know they're teens because they like the Beatles.
April 13, 2021
Tomo 1, creo de sólo dos, dedicado a los Teen Titans de Showcase Presents.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews