Thanks for the explanation Shax, I wasn't aware of the hold up on the editorial side and sometimes the editor has something to say about it.  Makes sense to me, and I was glad that Speedy got in a year time and that's made a lot of readers happy about it. 

I was a Speedy fan as much as Aqualad - but Aqualad has limitations and that's bothers a lot of writers back then.

Shax, just a note to tell you how much I'm enjoying your take on this. It may not be easy making sense of the Haneyverse, but it sure is fun for us to read!

You know, despite all of the carping about this first incarnation of the Titans, there is a charming goofiness to it all that's reminscent of the "beach blanket" movies and other similar teen-themed TV shows, magazines and movies. The younger generation of creators was still too young to be invovlved and the older generation just had to do their best to figure out the was of this gigantice bubble of teenagers moving their way through the demographics of the country.

Although most of these attempts tended to be tone-deaf, they did supply the kind of reassuring wholesomeness that the readers and viewers they were intended for still craved. It was around 1966-67 that the 12-year-olds who were supposed to be leaving comics behind stuck around instead. Thus, by 1968 and '69, they were ready for more "grown-up" Teen Titans. Dick Giordano and Marv Wolfman were the ones who made that happen.

But you'll get to that later...

Thanks for the great work, Shax!

I have seen that and I need to pay more attention to that scorecard. Thanks for the heads up!

Yup. They disqualified the Jimmy Olsen suggestion for the age reason as well.

Teen Titans #14



"Requiem for a Titan!"

Script: Bob Haney
Pencils: Nick Cardy
Inks: Nick Cardy
Colors: ?
Letters: Morris Waldinger

grade: A-

It's not often that a book lives up to its cover, especially when this is, hands down, the best Titans cover ever made, and the interior book has been...well...less than impressive to date. But no, this issue really does mark a dramatic turn for the series, dialing down the forced teen culture bit in favor of a powerful taste of doubt, self-loathing and betrayal indicative of true adolescence. Surprising stuff for a normally goofy little book.


Cardy's art is similarly strong and expressive within the book, and the action sequences are surprisingly well done and exciting (which isn't usually the case), but the truly memorable part of this issue is just how far The Titans fall. Oh, it's no illusion when the rest of the Titans appear to be tormenting Robin, their wills totally conquered by a new villain. That really happened after they gave in to doubting Robin:




But it's what follows, at the end of Part 2, that truly blows me away. The Part 2 cliffhanger is always supposed to feature the Titans at their lowest point before rallying for a final climactic battle, but Haney and Cardy take it so darn far this time around:



No problem, you think. Robin will have a plan at the beginning of Part 3.

Except that he doesn't.





It's dark. It's surprising. It's...being a real teenager. And they nailed it.

And I think it's fair to say there's a symbolic level at play too. On some level, this book is about teen suicide and the despair and social ostracizing that can lead to it, especially as Robin must literally dive into an open grave in order to give in and become a servant of The Gargoyle. In that sense, Robin serves as a powerful (if somewhat unrealistic) example of how to prevail in spite of the odds. Too bad that, in the case of most depressed teens, there's no villain to outsmart in the final moments while equipped with a utility belt.

There are other flaws with this issue. The villain's backstory never gets resolved, even though he claimed to be a villain they previously encountered that one of the Titans gave false testimony against. Oops. That goes forgotten by the close. And, in typical Haney style, no explanation is ever given for the Limbo-verse The Gargoyle controls, nor the mystical ring he uses to control it. Things wrap up far too quickly, with the rest of the team conveniently forgetting all that they did to poor Robin.

Still, this was bold new territory for this franchise, and it was damn powerful to boot.



Important Details:

- At the end of the issue, Wonder Girl explains that she's never seen Robin without his mask on before.

Untrue:


(from Teen Titans #11)


- Wonder Girl also lists their previous major antagonists: Ding Dong Daddy, Mad Mod, and Scorcher. The letter column of this issue also indicates that Haney wants to bring some of these guys back, but not before determining which ones the fans liked most.



Minor Details:

- The Gargoyle is still somewhere out there between dimensions, with knowledge of the precise location of Titans Lair


- The Titan Hook-up is still in use and gets explained a bit more this time. Anyone who asks gets five minutes of air time to address The Titans, paid for by The Titans, while a signal is sent to the lair indicating that they should tune in.


- The Titans bulletin board contains fan mail from The Beatles and LBJ, as well as the following reminders:

* "Wonder Girl! Your mother called. Says don't forget to polish bracelets."

* "Aqualad! Stop tracking water into the lair!"

* "Kid Flash. Don't be late for next meeting."




Department of Aquatic Desperation:

I'm ending this feature. For the last few issues, Haney has stopped pushing this. Aqualad is once again given no time in the water and yet still manages to be featured prominently in the story. Haney will be ditching him in favor of Speedy in a few issues' time but, until then, he seems uninterested in trying to force bodies of water into the plot any longer.



Department of Worrying About Wondy:

I may have to end this one too. Wonder Girl has stopped being a terrible female stereotype and, as of this issue, is never once portrayed as a sex object either. She's just another member of the team. In fact, it's pointed out in this issue that, in addition to being the most powerful member, she also has no super weaknesses.

Additionally, she delivers what is, to date, the ONLY funny joke I've seen a Titan crack:





Plot synopsis: The story begins with a villain known as The Gargoyle forcing Robin to reveal his identity and plunge into an open grave while specters of the other Titans egg him on. We then flash back to discover The Gargoyle is a villain previously apprehended by the Titans (identity never revealed) who accuses one of them via Titan Hook-Up of concealing evidence that would have proven his innocence in favor of getting another win under The Titans' belt. This causes the rest of the team to suspect Robin, and The Gargoyle somehow uses that suspicion to gain control over The Titans via an extra-dimensional "Limbo" he controls, making them overly large specters with enhanced powers who do his bidding against Robin. After a desperate plight of attempting to fight crime on his own, Robin appears to voluntarily join The Gargoyle, but it's a deception, Robin is able to defeat him, The Gargoyle gets lost between dimensions, and the Titans are returned to Earth, their memories of the event wiped while Robin recalls everything.

Not for nothing, of course, did I rank #14 seventh in my ranking of all-time favorite comics in 12 Days of Christmas 2014. At the time I picked it up, midway through 3rd grade, it had to be the grimmest thing I'd ever encountered in a color comic (a conditional added because of course I'd been scarred for life less than a year earlier after spending a few minutes at the grocery store, while my mother shopped, immersed in the gratuitously sleazy pages of Eerie Publishing's Weird #2, vol. 2), & the overall feeling of absolute despair has stuck with me for lo, these nearly 49 years. For some reason, I read TT only sporadically -- memory can confirm only this one & #s 7, 19 & 23 -- but it's almost as if sheer instinct made me pick this issue up. Or in this case quite possibly "sheer instinct" is shorthand for "that great cover by Cardy."

I haven't held the actual comic in my hands in decades, which means the only version I own is the first Showcase Presents reprint volume from 10 1/2 years ago. If anything, Cardy's lush pencils on the interior pages are enhanced by the lack of color. In fact, seeing his work unfiltered, as it were, is what elevated him to the top echelon of my favorite artists. Before then, for some reason, I'd always counted him as a dependable but utterly unexceptional workhorse a la Dick Dillin, Irv Novick, Bob Brown, etc.

Considering that every story in that issue, according to the GCD, is from the early '50s ... yeah.