Source (purchased/given/borrowed/the wife's): purchased
Date Purchased: monthly from around July 1992 - July 1994
Original Review: N/A
Thoughts/Memories/Remembrances: I recall enjoying Team Titans a lot, but then I recall enjoying most '90's comics a lot. My tastes have become more discerning since then. What I remember liking about the series is how it tied into Armageddon 2001 (only now remembering the New Titans Annual from that crossover is where the main characters were spawned), the series that I first really noticed Phil Jimenez's art, and having the really cool concept of dozens of 6-man teams displaced across the time stream as they went back in time to stop a tyrant and make a better future.
ReReview:
Wow... um, where to start? Team Titans, quite frankly, is a bloody mess at best, an utter crap-fest at worst, and didn't have a hope in hell of being a very strong book from the get-go. In the era of multiple covers (spawned by X-Men #1), an interesting gimmick kicked off the series: five different first issues, each with the same main story, but also each with it's own 16-page biography story of one of the lead characters from the team, each illustrated by a bankable artist like Adam Hughes or Kerry Gammill. The idea was solid, give the reader something worth obtaining the variants over (and at no extra cost), however, the origin stories they were revealing were awkward, far-fetched (for comic-book standards) and rather dull. Where the world of Armageddon 2001 (which I remember only with rose-colored glasses) that spawned the Teamsters was an intriguing alternate future, Team Titans veered into a dull and pocketed part of that future, where a character named Lord Chaos acts as despotic ruler of a megacity (that looks not unlike the Los Angeles of, say, Demolition Man) and is the Monarch's chief rival.
Though the cleverness of the "additional story" first issues was tempered by their lacklustreness, issue #1 ultimately fails right out the gate since it is actually the third part of a crossover. Let me say that again... the first issue is the THIRD part of a crossover. Riding a marginally successful wave of Titans revival, Marv Wolfman integrated his new book with his other titles, the New Titans and Deathstroke, and either Marv was stretched too far or he's just not a great writer because the book is an addled mess from the start. Not even the typically stellar Kevin Maguire (who pulled a 3-issue stint before high-tailing it off of this stinkfest) could help it along any. The art is easily some of the worst of his career (and yet, it's still pretty good compared to most of what was filling the shelves at the time).
The first three issues comprised parts 3, 6 and 9 of the crossover, and for anyone just picking up the book cold, it's chaos (no pun intended). The story picks up in an awkward spot with each issue, but the overall crux is that Donna Troy and Terry Long's unborn child is supposed to become Lord Chaos, the Team Titans have come back in time to kill Donna, and Lord Chaos as well has come to ensure his own birth. Eventually it becomes quite obvious that the future where Lord Chaos rules is an alternate timeline and that the new kids aren't in their own timestream. Lord Chaos is defeated, Donna and Terry take the Teamsters in and decided to show them some guidance.
Really, by the end of the first three issues, this series really should have been over, especially with the loss of Kevin Maguire on art, as what followed were a pair of pretty shaky fill-in issues. But the characters in the book weren't very appealing at all. We have Dagon, a vampire, who's not really a vampire, but has all the vampire traits, including needing blood. He's the most interesting one, but also, being a vampire, it's pretty boring terrain where he's concerned. Terra has an incredibly stupid origin, something to do with a passing resemblance to the original so she's given Earth-controlling powers by Lord Chaos and ordered to infiltrate the future Titans, only this time she's a different Terra and it's all okay. Mirage can visually turn into any human, and is completely obsessed with Dick Grayson (both future and present versions). Kilowatt is the most visually interesting character, but his hickish alter ego is decidedly unheroic and his puppy-love over Mirage is contrite and pathetic. Redwing has wings and can fly, like Angel in the X-Men and about exactly as useful. Prestor Jon, Redwing's brother, has become non-corporeal and lives inside all the Titans communicator bands. Overall, they're a whinier group of teens than the Riverdale gang and about an eighth as exciting.
Their trainer, Batallion, comes on the scene in the second issue and takes a prominent in the series from therein. He's a tough-talking, no-nonsense, Lobo-esque character with a soft side occasionally visible. He's a gaudy, hairy being with lots of straps and spikes and such on his costume, as was the style at the time. He's hideous to look at and equally hideous to read, with his fromage-fixated vernacular, cheese-head.The fourth issue introduced the fact that other groups of Titans from the future were sent back in time, including the rock-grrrrl band Metallik, and the rogue Titans, Judge and Jury. It's a neat concept, but handled poorly, as none of the original teamsters appear this issue and don't even get involved until page 20 of issue 5.
The sixth issue provides some painful reading, as we get some forced melodrama, including Mirage's troubled past, Terra's unknown past, Kilowatt and Battalion realizing they can't go home again, Dagon sulking as only vampires do, and Redwing's story happening off camera (summarized mercifully in one word balloon).
Phil Jimenez, having handled cover duties since issue four, signs on as series artist with issue seven, which reintroduces the future Dick Grayson to the readers. He's edgier and more skilled, and has a thing for teenaged girls apparently. He's attacked (and we never find out by who) and turned into Deathwing, a very bad man who wants to do bad things to the Teamsters (though we never understand why). A couple of issues are eaten up by a vampire story that has no purpose and goes nowhere, and a B-story that finds Mirage attacked by her lover, Deathwing, and left a shattered, fragile woman.
The first year wraps up with the discovery of yet another time-displaced Titan, and a Lord Chaos-bot sent back in time to destroy them all, backed up with the resolution of Battalion-as-stalker storyline and all perfectly accentuated by visuals provided by a grade five art class. Throughout the first year, Wolfman's characters had little focus, just as his storylines had little focus on them. They were reduced to petulant teenagers with little heroic value, and fit more into the mold of 90210 rather than the original New Teen Titans. Wolfman seemed determine to somehow string these disparate characters into the 10 years of Titans canon he (virtually) alone had created, introducing a new, mysterious Kole, trying to tie some emotional resonance between this Terra and the original, and keeping a powerless (but not useless... okay, useless too) Donna Troy and Terry Long around just maintain that tenuous tie.
The lack of real focus on any of the main characters of the Teamsters is only compounded by the continual
introduction and distraction of badly written new characters like Battalion, Metallik and Deathwing. The constant barrage of badly-timed and bad-taste melodrama (Kilowatt's incessant pining over Mirage, Mirage's pining over Dick and her subsequent victimhood) only compound this book's unlikeable nature.
All wasn't lost yet, however. Phil Jimenez, though barely two years into the industry, was handed the reigns of the title, and with co-writer Jeff Jensen, sought to make its focus a lot bigger and it's entertainment a lot more palatable. From the start of the thirteenth issue, there was new hope, with the introduction of even more time-travelling Titans, and the assembly of the "Time Foes" (Clock King, Calendar Man, Time Trapper, and Chronos), the series seemed to switch gears into something that was more interested in the effects of time travel on the DCU. For two issues it was funny, fun, brightly colored, and sparing of the overwrought melodrama. But it couldn't last. And it didn't.
The fifteenth issue (another artistic fill-in) did explore the time travel aspect more, but again took the lead characters out of focus and had them bickering at each other again in the background. A new main villain was introduced, but awkwardly so, and the following issue was a mess of dreams and nightmares that would prove to be a useless aside. After that, Terra squares off against mysterious elemental figures (again playing into the time-displaced theme of the series) only to be saved by a now tangible and superpowered Prestor Jon (which is never explained). Kilowatt is kidnapped by their new enemy, who will take his power with the grand idea of becoming ruler of the future.
For a handful of issues, the book actually trucks along on fairly firm ground, holding fast to it's time-travel theme, and introducing us to dozens of other Teamsters collected from varying dimensions. They all wind up squaring off against the bad man and triumphing, but not without tragedy, as the bulk of them are sucked into a vortex of death, never to return. The rest of the remaining Teamsters are taken into government custody, divided up, and put under the charge of former Titans like Aqualad, Bumblebee and Flamebird.
Though badly paced at times, and Jensen and Jimenez still novices in the field, the book was starting to come together towards the end. They had a regular penciller in an equally rookie Terry Dodson (whose art at the time is horrendously primitive compared to his lavish work of today) and a sense of direction. But two issues of a go-nowhere plot involving a radioactive wasteland and mutated creatures left the writers with one issue to wrap things up before cancellation, and they didn't even try.
At that point, Zero Hour was upon us, the Teamsters weren't the only ones time displaced as the entire world found pioneers, cavemen and dinosaurs running amok amongst them. Essentially the finale stated "continued in Zero Hour". There was no sense of finality, but perhaps, in the end, cancellation was an apt euthanizing of this problematic and misdirected.
Over 24 issues, there were about 15 different artists on the series, and an equal number of dangling, unresolved plot threads. I also think there's something like a two characters introduced for every one page. When I first read this, I was a teenager and in love with the idea of creating new superheroes (making dozens upon dozens of my own) so seeing so many new figures was so immensely cool. But now, with a love of good storytelling firmly under my belt, I can see that a good series is not measured by the amount of spandex that populates it.
Even if the book had only one or two artists throughout its run, even if those artist were, say Phil Jimenez or Terry Dodson at the tops of their respective games instead of rookies early in their careers, it still wouldn't be enough to make up for a lack of character or story focus. Wolfman burned his bridges with any potential non-New Titans reader from the get-go, and never managed to achieve any sort of rhythm with his series. While I appreciate the effort Jensen and Jimenez put into trying to craft a much larger sense of direction, they were still way too new to pull it off to any great degree.
I remembered having so much fun with the Team Titans, but I was half as old as I am no, and immeasurably more naive. It's just not very good at all.
Rating (keep/sell/undecided): Sell