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I was sort of a Teen Titans fan back in the '60s when I was a fan. I bought the first 'almost' Titans story when the characters teamed up in The Brave And The Bold #54, and then followed them into their own book, which I stayed with until the end of the original run. During that original run, I made one of my very earliest professional sales. I co-wrote Teen Titans #18, featuring a Russian super-hero named Starfire. Later, when George Perez and I brought him into our Titans run, also in issue #18 - not a coincidence, I might add - to avoid confusion with the new Princess Koriand'r Starfire, we renamed him Red Star (saying it was the Americans who mis-translated his name back then as Starfire).

But, going back to the original 60s run, I also co-wrote the infamous never-published issue featuring a Black super-hero named Joshua (but as the story was called "Titans Fit The Battle of Jericho" fans have since assumed the character's name was Jericho, which is why when George conceived Joe Wilson, we named him that). When it was decided that the Joshua story wouldn't be published, I secretly helped write the plot for the three-part Neal Adams replacement story, and then solo wrote the origin of Wonder Girl backup that appeared in Teen Titans #22. That's the story that took Wonder Girl, who was only a computer simulation of Wonder Woman as a teenager and not a character in her own right. That story turned her into a unique character and also gave her the name: Donna Troy. That was the first of what seems to be several hundred origins of Wonder Girl.

I said I was sort of a Titans fan. That is, I loved the concept of the teen heroes getting together but I never much liked the idea of them being the sidekicks, I didn't really care for the "hip" slang-filled stories where the characters, who were just a little younger than I was, spoke like no kid I ever knew, and I absolutely hated that the later Titans stories had an adult supervisor watching over them. But I was still charmed by many of the individual stories and I loved the characters, no matter how goofy they were.

In 1980, when I got the chance to co-create the New Titans book with the extraordinary George Perez, like Smallville's "No Tights, No flights" rule, I swore to myself there'd be no current slang, no adults telling them what to do, and no sidekicks acting like, well, dumb sidekicks. For the most part, during times good and not so good, I pretty much kept to my word. The Titans were in charge of their own lives. Adults were kept to the side and had little effect on them. Indeed, the Titans and their mentors were often at odds with one another. Aside from an occasional "cool" or timeless slang like that, I used no current slang (although I admit I overused topical [read: soon to be dated] references much too much).

After 16 years and an editor whose name I've mercifully put out of mind, I approached then DC Editor-in-Chief Mike Carlin at a DC Christmas party in LA and asked off the book. I loved the characters but I wasn't happy with what I was doing (16 years and 250 some odd Titans stories was way too much for anyone), the fans weren't happy, and I needed to reinvigorate myself with different work. I asked that DC revive Night Force to write, and they agreed as long as I'd stay on for four final Titans issues, with a different editor, so we could end my run on something of a better note.

While I did those final issues, they took the time to prepare a new Titans title, with new characters, to written and drawn by writer/artist Dan Jurgens. I was extremely pleased Dan was going to create a brand-new title rather than simply use the same characters I'd been writing. When George and I started the Titans, we introduced new heroes and millions of new villains. I thought anyone replacing us should do the same and make the title his (or her) own as we had done 16 years earlier. Sadly, it was probably too soon after our characters went away for DC to bring the title back. Perhaps Dan's characters would have succeeded had they waited a year or two between our runs. Unfortunately, we'll never know. Dan went off to do some little story about Superman dying, which I believe is the first or second best selling comic book story ever.

Over the years I'd been asked to write a Titans story or two. Not full issues, but small segments, and that was fine. At that point, after writing all those issues, I was not interested in going back to the book itself. It was the been there done that problem.

But despite thinking that, several years ago I came up with an idea for a Titans series I would have been interested in writing. I called it Titans-3 and it featured Cyborg, Raven and Starfire, now in their mid-20s, who, having grown up, were now all about 25 and wondering – what's next? What do I do now that I've grown up. The mid-20s are a difficult time as you've left the safety of home and are out on your own for the first time. I thought I could explore that, but before I seriously proposed it, the announcement went out that writer Geoff Johns was on the new Titans title and that he was re-developing it.

Geoff's run completely ignited the title again. And since then Geoff has virtually single-handedly recreated the DCU into a 21^st century universe. He has an uncanny knack of figuring out what made the classic characters work yet also finding a way to move them forward without alienating those who loved the early versions. He is completely immersed in the DCU and totally gets why it works and also how to make it work better for today. During his run, Geoff very kindly asked me to work with him on a few issues. It was the first time in a long time that I had written more than 4-5 pages Titans pages, and I had a great time with it. And after all those years, I re-fell in love with the characters. So much so I leapt at the chance of doing the Raven mini-series last year.

But the world is cyclical and I've now re-teamed with my friend and brilliant co-creator, George Perez, to bring a new and yet old Titans story to the shops for later this year.

Back in '87 or so, George and I started the now legendary Titans graphic novel, GAMES. George drew about 80 pages before going into a small Titans block. At the same time, I was in a massive writer's block. One thing led to another and we never finished the story. But now we're resurrecting the original story, adding a bit of today's magic to it, and are intending to finish it at long last. We're using the original plot, with a few tweaks along the way, all of George's original art, done at the height of our Titans, adding to that brand-new art to finish the story, and all new dialog. As of today, I've dialogued a little less than half of it. George is drawing the final 40 pages. Mike Perkins is inking it. And it is looking incredible. And I, who had been very nervous about going back to those characters after such a long absence, am loving every minute of it. Honest to God, I want to do more.

Hopefully, the graphic novel will be winging your way in the fall of this year, 30 years after George and I started The New Teen Titans #1. And we hope you will take to what we're doing now the way you did three decades ago.

More as we continue our work on this title.

Labels: GAMES

Labels: Random Thoughts

Labels: TV shows I like

I have very few memories of my early days when I was an impressionable kid. Oh, I remember playing stickball on East 2^nd street in Brooklyn, NY, running to catch a ball, missing it a lot but catching it often enough that I was on the street teams. Age wise, I was right in the middle of the kids living there but generally played ball with the older ones. I had several close friends at the time and several others who weren't quite as close. One was named Miles, and I can't remember how he spelled his last name. It was something like Shlosberg if memory serves, and it rarely does. He lived directly across the narrow courtyard of my four-family apartment building in a private house, so I could see his window through mine. My other close friend was Garry (or Gary, I do not know if I ever knew how he spelled it) and he lived down the block a bit. I seem to remember another friend living across the street, and the name Joel comes to mind, but for all I know I just made that up. Sorry for that. If someone knows anyone who lived on East 2^nd street in Brooklyn in the early 1950s and know who I am talking about, let me know. I moved out in '58 and never saw any of them again. When I went back to the area a few years later, those kids were gone, too. Are they alive? I sure hope so.

I remember going over to Gary's place to watch TV. I think Gary's father worked in the toy business. He had tons of toys and a bigger TV than my family's 10-inch black and white set. We were watching Howdy Doody which, back then, was on Channel Four. I also used to love Captain Video, the Flash Gordon movie serials they ran on TV, Popeye, and the cartoons of Farmer Brown and Farmer Gray, which I believe was the same cartoons only renamed. But I could be wrong there. Anyway, Howdy Doody, a totally inappropriately named kid's show, was about a cowboy marionette and his friend, the real life "Buffalo" Bob Smith. I met Buffalo Bob once at a toy trade show but he was swamped with other folk about my age, and we only spoke for a minute. But when I was a kid I loved Howdy Doody, and Clarabelle The Clown, who never spoke a word, at least until the last words of the last show, and Mr. Bluster, who I seem to recall was the Doodyville Town mayor. Kids were brought on stage to sit in what was called The Peanut Gallery. I have no idea where they filmed Howdy Doody (nor back then would I have known how the show got to be on my TV) but though I would have liked to be in the Peanut Gallery, I don't think my parents ever tried to arrange it. For all I know it was filmed in Hollywood, or even in Manhattan. By the way, I'm sure that "Woody," Tom Hanks' marionette character in Toy Story, was somewhat based on Howdy.

Anyway, one day we were watching Howdy Doody, and normally we would get up to change the channel (before there were remote controls, don't forget) to, I think, Rootie Kazootie, another stupidly named kid show, but this one was shown on channel 7. For some reason we were both being lazy and we left on channel 4. What appeared after Mr. Doody's program was something we'd never seen before called The Adventures of Superman. Unlike Howdy and company, this was a show with live actors and not puppets. But the guy in the tight clothing with the cape and the letter 'S' on his chest could not only fly, but he could outrace a bullet and bend steel in his bare hands, or so the opening of the show told us.

We sat transfixed. Do I remember what episode it was? No way. I seem to recall something aboard a ship at night, but though I recently bought the entire series on DVD, I can't seem to find it, so the boat imagery might have been a scene from the comic I bought immediately after the show, after they announced that Superman was based on the copyrighted character appearing in Superman magazine and Action Comics monthly. I do remember Gary and I running from his home to the corner where there was a candy store that sold comics and buying our very first book: Action Comics. I also bought a copy of Superboy.

That was the beginning.

If you're interested in reading more of this haphazardly written autobiography, let me know.

Labels: Me Part One

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