8 comments on “Tape #7 – The New Teen Titans”

1. Ward Hill Terry says:

   July 23, 2025 at 2:38 pm

   Hello Tape-Heads!
   Long-time listener, first time harasser. I’ve been listing to all of this podcast and there are so many comment that I should have sent! I’ll try to catch up a little.
   Regarding Lois Lane a couple of shows back. I think you and your distinguished guest were far too dismissive of the stories of 1970s Lois, aka Earth-1 Lois. You focused on those stories form the Mort Weisinger era, and not the woman who was seen ripping the descriptor “Superman’s Girl Friend” from the title of her own comic (See Lois Lane #80 {okay, that was a Weisinger book}). From the early 70s in her own title, through her series in Superman Family, the focus of these stories was on Lois the reporter, not Lois the wannabe bride. For this young reader starting circa 1975, Lois in the comics was decidely different from Lois on TV. Her life and character was not defined by her boyfriend. She was her own woman. She, like most of the Superman family, was shown to have grown and developed beyond previous depictions. Once the movie came out, most of these developments regressed, IMHO. Not only was she a constant in Superman titles, she had her own strip in Supergirl and an excellent 2 issue mini-series in 1986. Her stories mostly did NOT involve Superman directly!
   Regarding the most recent episode focusing on the Teen Titans, this is something that picks at my Crisis scab. I was there before day one. Even though I am listening to your show, overall I do/did not like Crisis On Infinite Earths. I don’t like the story. I don’t like the results. I don’t like the legacy. The things I liked were what your guest did not like, all though DC characters drawn by George Perez. I’m the guy that wanted to see the Atomic Knight. And Mlle. Marie. And Tommy Tomorrow. And Anthro. And Firehair. And The Gay Ghost. I was/am captivated by depth and breadth of DC characters. Psycho Pirate was a fine choice for the story. Harbinger and Pariah were made up for the story and were nothing more than propellants. Psycho Pirate at least had faced the Justice Society. I do subscribe to the Batman and Robin theory, however. The Titans. Here is one of the largest reasons that Crisis fails for me. Wolfman was not going to get rid of his babies. He created Kole in order to excise her in Crisis and reflect some of the heat, but his originals (Starfire, Cyborg, Raven, Jericho) and his revamps (Nightwing, Changeling) were never in danger. As a result, the continuity that emerges from Crisis is DC trying to appease old fans and new fans. “Everything is changed! Everything happened as it did! (Sort of). Dick is Nightwing. He used to be Robin. He was Robin at least 10 years. That means Batman has been around at least 11 years. But Wonder Woman wasn’t. Now she’s brand new. Where does Wonder Girl come from? That’s a problem for later! Like Hawkman! All those Justice League stories? They happened! Except for the Wonder Woman parts. Oh, and the Superman parts. Oh and the satellite parts, I guess, since that was built with Kryptonian and Thanagarian technology. But the stories still happened! Except for the parallel world stories. The only thing that survived the Crisis was the death of Mr. Terrific, which couldn’t have happened! And don;t get started on The Legion!
   If DC and Marv had played fair with the rest of the DC books, Batman would have ended before it was re-booted. It wasn’t, because they wanted to keep Dick as Nightwing. Batman’s continuity stayed and Flash’s continuity stayed. And the stretch marks from those pieces being forced into place still show prominently.
   What a rant! I think I’ll find that article you referenced and see if I’ll get angry all over again or find a fellow spirit.

   Reply
   1. Captain Entropy says:

      July 25, 2025 at 7:00 am

      I agree with big chunks of this rant, Terry, although I enjoyed Crisis much more than you did. And it’s certainly true that Psycho-Pirate, while not an A-lister, doesn’t belong in the same category as the made-for-Crisis characters

      Reply
2. Symbol Pending says:

   July 24, 2025 at 6:06 am

   Someone basing their fandom on a single character… I’m just not seeing it! 😀

   DC must have agreed with Davo about introducing new characters just for a Crisis, as I recall, for every subsequent Crisis, and a few other cross-over events, most of the baddies are people whom we’ve met before. Even if it was in this Crisis, but that still counts, right?

   The Titan’s aren’t my team, and I know them better from the animated show, but your guests enthusasm for the team just shines through. Though I’m disappointed that Doug didn’t explain how over here Tara (rhymes with Kara) and Terra are said differently herer, so the “joke” about her name(s) just doens’t work here, and confused little Symbols when I was (a klot) younger!

   Being called a friend of the show and told I’m right about something by Martin, I’m not sure there’s a greater honour!

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3. Captain Entropy says:

   July 25, 2025 at 7:09 am

   First, terrific episode to all involved! Doug, I think you’re going to have to stop insulting yourself for laughs. You have fans now, and you don’t want to insult us by implication.

   Second, Davo, you rocked this! Thanks for the praise to me as a past guest, but your reflections and analysis were outstanding, and they spurred great thoughts from DC Dave and Doug too. (Hey, is this the first episode in 3D–Doug, Dave, and Davo?)

   Doom Patrol is the other team that’s a de facto family of sorts, although the Chief’s machinations may ruin that dynamic. They have each other partly because they have no one else, and that feels a little like family.

   I find Geo-Force as a character inoffensive, but that isn’t exactly praise. His name should’ve been Landslide.

   Thanks again for the great show and for the intro to Brain Ladle!

   Reply
   1. Martin Gray says:

      July 25, 2025 at 8:55 am

      I like to think of Geo-Force as being pronounced ‘Joe Force’. It’s just more fun, so much less awkward.

      Reply
4. Anj says:

   July 25, 2025 at 8:08 am

   Really liked this episode!

   One of the things that is going to be interesting about this show is seeing fans of specific characters or group talk about the Crisis through that lens. I am a drive-by Titans fan so hearing Davo speak about the Crisis from that angle was completely fresh.

   I don’t think I realized just how much they are in the book, definitely more than the then-JLA. More than the Legion I’d say. So they were THE team.

   Great work!

   Reply
5. Martin Gray says:

   July 25, 2025 at 8:50 am

   Thanks for another fun episode, it felt very hot under the Florida sun, I’d happily have teleported into the pool, electrocution risk aside.

   What a treat to hear a new voice, hello Davo, I enjoyed your insights… and I disagree that we shouldn’t have had space given to the likes of the Wild West heroes, it showed the breadth of the DC Universe, and we got to see George join different locales and historical costumes.

   The reason Marv and George had the likes of Pariah and Harbinger in the book was that, at least according to interviews at the time, because they were taking some big characters away from DC, they wanted to contribute something new as well – could anyone argue that the addition of Lady Quark and Dr Light II didn’t make up the loss of Supergirl and Flash?

   On the subject of Nightwing, he has had some good looks… for other people. The point of Robin was that he was a bright hero, a contrast to Batman – giving up his own colours for Batman‘s grey and blue, he may as well have called himself Bat-Teen. He should have taken the name Flamebird, meaning he’s still a bird, and he could be bright.

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6. Alexander M Osias says:

   July 25, 2025 at 9:02 am

   As a collector of both the Legion of Super-Heroes and the New Teen Titans at the time, I was happy to see the characters so active, but not necessarily the main focus of the event. The insight that the Titans, given their power level, would be focused on helping bring people to safety, doing support work when needed, fighting in teams when needed, and so on was one I hadn’t considered before.

   I’ve started reading the series again with my son, and it’s trippy to hear him talk about bits and pieces of Crisis and DC Multiverse lore coming largely from the animated movies and series as we do. But I do hope to let him know what the universe before the Crisis had been…

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