Your points are well taken ... thanks for this recap!

Apparently, you've never worked a fast food deep-fryer.

I agree with this and suspect we're talking about DC's efforts to catch up with Marvel yet again. Marvel often used the limitations of powers to sell us on the human factor, and yet, a decade and a half later, DC still doesn't fully understand that a moment like this one:



is NOT the same as a moment like this one:




Marvel has heart. DC is trying their best to create a working imitation of one.

In Mego's defense, they were not in the habit of basing figures on lesser known characters, even if they were part of a then-current group title, hence the reason characters like The Avengers' Hawkeye or the Vision were not produced at the time, when they were in the comic.




Mego certainly consulted/worked with DC on which characters could be adapted, and what was best not only for Mego's but DC's bottom line where licensing was concerned. Regarding the Robin figure, Mego was certainly aware of Robin as a member of the Titans in the comics, as they were directly dealing with DC, and up to that time, Robin was the lone "frontman" or leader of the group, a perception that continued even as the character was sent to college. There's a more likely reason: its highly doubtful economically-minded Mego would have spent the money on what was likely seen as an unnecessary and expensive retooling (which would be more than just sticking the existing Robin head on a smaller body) just to match him to the Titans figures.

The only time Mego went that far was in the major gimmick of their "Fist Fighting" figures of Batman, Robin, Riddler and the Joker, which--being from the world of Batman--were quite popular hero vs. villain parings expected to be bought almost as a set, the theory being that no one would want a Fist Fighter Batman without an equally equipped Joker to fight against, etc.




Oh, boy.



Not many, considering the fate of this revival title. The cover--by Rich Buckler and Frank McLaughlin--is so rough and just plain wrong in capturing the characters that it almost looks like the kind of crude amateur art one would see on the Xeroxed covers of 1970s comic fanzines. Buckler was as wrong for the kind of fluid, youthful characters the Titans were as any other "should not happen" artist/character combinations (e.g., Kirby's Batman for the Super Powers miniseries or Colan's was Spider-Man). Aside from the title instantly losing that critical cover sales appeal, that's not the worst of this issue's problems...



Eh, I would counter by saying the last quarter of the original Titans comic played up relationships in a way that led to anything Rozakis tried. It was not Lee/Romita's Amazing Spider-Man of the same period (and I've certainly criticized the title's creatives for not going as far with maturing the characters as Robin was in the Bat-titles), but the title was trying to be a bit different in handling the characters than what was seen in its Brave and the Bold origins.




Is that really a Rozakis thing? Other DC titles of the time would reference previous stories, characters, etc. For example, I recall the Bates/Cockrum (and post) period of Superboy starring the Legion of Super-Heroes often referring to its own history / world-building.




Yeah...by this period in pop culture history, their kind of musician was as dated as the beatniks seen in episodes of late 1950s/early 60s TV like Maynard G. Krebs from The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (which--by the way--DC once adapted as a monthly).





See? DC did not marginalize him! He's blowing his horn....



...sure does. It also rhymes with rubble...as in what this title was turning into.




Rozakis--like other writers before him--seem too obsessed with the landmark Speedy-as-disillusioned/bitter-junkie (and its aftermath) to grow the character beyond or trading on the effects of that one storyline. The Amazing Spider-Man had that problem post-1974 with Harry Osborn, and never allowed that character to be completely free of his demons, so he became one-note. That's not character development.



In other words, Mal being Mal, the Teen Titans comic being the Teen Titans comics.




Okay, I have to defend DC here; if you're calling staff nicknames a rip on Marvel, EC/MAD did that long before Marvel and popularized the idea of their talents being more than just the lines and words on a page, but real people you might feel familiar with.





An odd choice. For Robin, its a natural for obvious reasons, but for a superhero group? Ehh....no.

I originally jumped ship with "Titans' Hunt," though I've since heard it was actually a pretty decent storyline/shake-up. I feel the true apex of the series wrapped up with the first storyline in New Teen Titans volume 2. After the whole Trigon encounter (Perez's final contribution to the franchise for many years, I believe), issue #6 is all character reflection, serving as a perfect wrap-up to the Wolfman/Perez era, and then it's all downhill from there. Not bad, but a serious decline in quality is evident after this issue.



As for how far I'll take the reviews, who knows? Ideally, I'd go to Graduation Day, after which the Teen Titans are a totally different team, but I may not have the patience to go that far. Lots and lots of lackluster work before getting to that point.

My Titans collection stops with the last Garcia-Lopez issue but I essentially agree with shax's cut-off point. The series was never the same after Perez left.

Cei-U!
I summon the fall from grace!

Probably more of a Julius Schwartz thing. Or even more likely, an asisstant-to-Schwartz E. Nelson Bridwell thing. ENB was THE continuity man at DC long before Robert Greenberger became their "continuity cop."*




Not entirely sure about that. I believe McCartney was still hitting the charts at the time, and the Carpenters were, if not still on the charts, not long off of them. Then again, I was a kid at the time, so it's not like I was reading Billboard every week or anything.

I rather liked this issue when it came out, but as noted above, I was pretty young. Reading it decades later is fun though... if I recall right, the personal lives of the Carpenters were more rock-star like than the squeaky clean image the record company pushed. They wanted marijuana legalized, and Richard married his cousin (in fairness, she was adopted). So the (high? )Flyers and the "apple pie" Woodworkers being the same people becomes much more plausible in that light.


* Why, yes, I am explaining the continuity of the people who kept track of continuity.