New Teen Titans #1 (1980) Comic Book Review

 Hey everyone, how were your weekends? Mine was pretty good. I went to the Carleton Place Comic-Con on Monday with Brad, and I got my smallest haul ever of anything I collect, be it comics, novels, or movies/TV shows. But, I'm not here to talk about the comic that I got at the convention. That's going to be for next week's comic book review. This week I'm going to be talking about the first issue of The New Teen Titans by Marv Wolfman and George Perez, which I got the Facsimile Edition of back in January. I'll get into that a bit more later on in the review. Let's get into it.

While this was my first time reading this issue, I've read other issues from this series from the '80s and early '90s, so I'm pretty familiar with Wolfman and Perez's work. Of course whenever the Teen Titans are adapted into a TV show, this is the team they tend to go with. Minus Kid Flash and Wonder Girl. The 2003 Teen Titans animated series basically popularized this team with people my age and younger as we were either kids or teenagers in the 2000s and being that the show was heavily influenced by the Anime explosion of the late '90s and early 2000s, we really got into it. Even the live action series, Titans used a mix of this original Wolfman/Perez team, including Wonder Girl, the late '80s/post-Crisis On Infinite Earths team, which included Hawk and Dove and Jason Todd, and the 2003 Geoff Johns comic book team, which included Superboy, in the late 2010s and early 2020s. 

The Teen Titans is one of my favourite superhero teams of all time, next to the Sailor Scouts/Sailor Senshi from Sailor Moon and the original Power Rangers team from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and is probably my favourite comic book superhero team of all time, even over the Justice League. I think it's because I was introduced to them on television, and in the comics when I was a teenager, with the 2003 animated series being on the air at the time (it ended in September, 2006), and picking up the first 18 issues of the original '60s Teen Titans comic book series in the first volume of the DC Showcase Presents: The Teen Titans black and white trade paperback reprint series in 2006. 

It also helps that the Teen Titans have always been present be it in comics or on TV as Young Justice, which featured a version of the original '60s Titans team, began airing in 2010. Plus the older comics have been pretty readily available at conventions and comic book sales, even when I wasn't looking for them in particular. AND DC has been doing a series of Titans six issue mini-series in the last few years too.

All of that was to say that I'm a fan of the Teen Titans, no matter what incarnation they're in, though I enjoy some versions more than others. So when I saw the foil variant of the Facsimile Edition of New Teen Titans #1 on the rack at the Comic Book Shoppe, I knew I had to grab it. I read it when I got home and I really enjoyed it. I also reread it today for this review, and I still enjoyed it.

Marv and George did such a good job setting the story up for further issues. While comic books published by DC were still mostly one and done issues with the occasional two or three parter thrown in at the time, Marv and George had come from Marvel, as had the book's editor, Len Wein, and Marvel books had ongoing, semi-serialized, storylines running through them, where actions taken in one issue would have consequences in later issues, and you'd get real character development and growth. That's what Marv and George brought to the New Teen Titans. It allowed the readers to follow the story and see the characters grow and change over many years without rebooting the story, despite the fact that DC DID reboot the entire Universe at the end of Crisis On Infinite Earths in 1986.

This issue is a good introduction to returning characters, such as Robin, Beast Boy (now known as Changeling), Kid Flash, and Wonder Girl, as well as new characters, Cyborg, Raven, and Starfire. It also introduces the Gordanians, who had captured Koriand'r a.k.a. Starfire as a slave during their invasion of her homeworld, Tamaran. Of course, none of that is in the actual issue itself, it's all stuff we'll find out in later issues, but the issue does open with Starfire attempting to escape the Gordanian ship. The Titans fighting the Gordanians and rescuing Starfire after she'd been recaptured is the focus of this issue. We're also introduced to a guy named Grant, who, surprise, turns out to be Deathstroke's son, Grant Wilson, and after the Titans inadvertently wreck his apartment, as that's where Starfire ended up, he hires H.I.V.E. to destroy the Teen Titans for no other reason than they accidently wrecked his apartment.

This reason for Grant's animosity towards the Titans is so stupid, but it fits right in with the various reasons that their other enemies have for hating the Teen Titans. But it's still so dumb and it made me laugh. I mean, it's the very pinacle of villainous behaviour for someone to hire someone to kill a group of heroes just because they wrecked his apartment during a battle that happened there only because HE had taken Starfire there.  

Perez's artwork is fantastic. Backgrounds, characters, scenery, all of it looks amazing. George Perez, may he rest in peace (he died in 2022), is one of my favourite comic book artists. Like I said, his artwork is amazing and I could spend hours looking at it. Even without any dialogue on the page.

New Teen Titans #1 was first collected in 1999 when it was collected with the rest of the first eight issues of the series in The New Teen Titans Archives Volume 1, which was a hardcover in the long running DC Archive Editions hardcover series that had begun collecting old Golden Age and Silver Age comics published by DC.

In 2011 the issue was included in the The New Teen Titans Omnibus Volume One hardcover collection, which includes issues 1-16 of New Teen Titans, the DC Comics Presents #26 short story, which acts as a prologue to this issue, and issues 1-4 of Tales of the New Teen Titans, which began as a four issue mini-series before becoming the continuation of the main series after New Teen Titans (Vol. 1) ended with issue #40.

Three years later in 2014, DC began collecting every issue of New Teen Titans and Tales of the New Teen Titans in trade paperback form. The first volume contains issues 1-8 of New Teen Titans and DC Comics Presents #26. This is probably the easiest way to read this series since the DC Archive Editions only collected up to issue #27 and the Omnibus is out of print. This series collected the entire first run of New Teen Titans and issue #41 where it was renamed Tales of the New Teen Titans. 

As mentioned this issue was reprinted as a Facsimile Edition in December 2023. This is the version that I have, though my copy is the silver foil variant cover. Which is really cool. I can't say enough good things about the Facsimile Editions, from both DC and Marvel. It's a great way to experience key issues, such as this one, as the issues were originally published, without having to shell out hundreds of dollars for either an original copy or a collected edition, be it hardcover, Omnibus, or trade paperback.

Overall, this is a great issue. While Grant's reason for hating on the Teen Titans is pretty stupid, if you're a fan of the Teen Titans I highly recommend picking up this issue. It's a bit dated, but every comic book is in one way or another. So definitely pick up the Facsimile Edition if you're able to. 

Alright my friends, that's going to be it for me for today. I'll be back soon with more blog posts. So until then have a great afternoon and I will talk to you all later.