The (Teen) Titans (original) (raw)

The Teen Titans, one year after Infinite Crisis Teen Titans Robin (Tim Drake) Wonder Girl (Cassie Sandsmark) Blue Beetle Kid Devil Ravager (Rose Wilson) Miss Martian Adult Titans Beast Boy Cyborg Donna Troy Flash Raven Nightwing Red Arrow Starfire Base of Operations: San Francisco (current), New York City (previous) First Appearance: The Brave and the Bold #54 (June–July 1964)
History The Teen Titans The New Titans The Darkening Checkmate Teens Again The Titans Graduation Day: Teen Titans Teen Titans Reborn

The Teen Titans (1966–1978)

The Original Teen Titans

The Teen Titans began when Kid Flash, Robin, and Aqualad banded together top save the town of Happy Harbor from a villain calling himself “Mr. Twister.” Shortly afterward, the three of them met again, along with Wonder Girl and Speedy, battling an alien called the Antithesis who had taken control of various JLA members. They decided to make the team permanent, and became known as the Teen Titans.

Speedy himself did not immediately join, but worked with them occasionally, and the team gained additional members. During a dark chapter of their history, in which they inadvertently allowed an important man to die, they abandoned their costumes for grey uniforms while working for a wealthy man named Loren Jupiter. Eventually, of course, they were back in costume. Yet the pressures of growing up tore the team apart, and as members began heading off for college, the team disbanded.

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The New Titans (1980–1991)

The New Teen Titans

Some time later, a woman named Raven appeared, attempting to gather together a new group of Titans. She convinced Robin to start recruiting, and they collected Wonder Girl, Changeling, and the cyborg Vic Stone. Kid Flash declined, trying to be Wally West instead. Raven, an empath, needed him on the team, and so she interfered with his emotions, made him feel that he loved her, to convince him to join. On their first case they met the final member of the team, the alien princess Starfire. With all of them assembled, they were able to face the threat Raven had discovered: her own father, the greatest evil of an alternate dimension, was coming here. They elected to keep the team going, making their headquarters in New York.

The golden age of the Titans ended when they brought in a new member, Terra. The pressures of “real” life continued to wear on some of the members; Dick Grayson decided to abandon being Robin and find a new identity, and Wally West decided to give up heroics forever. Uncomfortable with what Raven had done, still unsure whether he was really Wally West or Kid Flash, and faced with his super-speed killing him, he retired. Two members down, the Titans were then captured by Deathstroke the Terminator and turned over the the H.I.V.E, where they learned that Terra had actually been a double agent. In the ensuing battle Terra died, the Titans recruited Deathstroke’s son Jericho as a new member, and Dick Grayson took on the identity of Nightwing.

Eventually, Raven lost control of the evil within herself, and Trigon was able to reach Earth. The Titans faced their own inner demons (literally), and they were able to force Trigon back, but at the apparent cost of Raven’s life. Then Starfire was called back to her homeworld Tamaran for an arranged marriage, and the team fell apart. It took a major battle with Brother Blood and his entire church, the return of Raven, and a coalition of former Titans (including Wally, now the Flash) before the team returned to anything resembling normal.

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Titans Hunt and the Darkening (1991–1994)

The New Titans: The Darkening

On the team’s third anniversary, all the Titans (and many former Titans) were captured by the Wildebeest, except for Nightwing, who managed to subdue his attacker, and discovered something astonishing: there was more than one Wildebeest! Together with Deathstroke (whose contract to destroy the Titans had long since expired), Raven’s mother, and a few unfamiliar faces (and eventually Troia, who had been lucky enough to be on vacation during this whole fiasco), they tracked down their former teammates only to discover that Jericho had been possessed—some time back—and had taken over the Wildebeest organization. Deathstroke was forced to kill his son, Raven died (again), Cyborg was left catatonic in a remote-controlled robot body, the Titans were discredited and targeted as menaces by the city of New York, and everything just sort of generally went to hell.

Then they got worse. First a team of future Titans came to the present to kill Troia, since her son would be born with godlike powers and take over the world. When Donna gave up her powers to prevent that future, they found themselves unable to return to their own time, and settled in the present... ironically, under the guardianship of the now-powerless Donna. Cyborg was revived by an alien computer sentience, but was only able to stay aware within it, and so left to explore the universe.

Then there was Raven. Since she had always had the ability to separate her soul from her body for short periods of time, her soul was able to remain on earth. The evil in her freed, she took possession of a new body and began recruiting allies, implanting seeds of Trigon’s soul in various captives—including Changeling and Frances Kane, who had finally begun to turn her life around. She interrupted the wedding of Nightwing and Starfire, implanting a seed in Kory—one which her alien biology appeared to fight off, but which eventually turned out to contain all the good in Raven’s soul. It led her to return to her homeworld once again, leaving a drastically reduced team of Titans. Troia had given up her powers, Raven was evil, Starfire and Cyborg were both in space, and Nightwing was going solo.

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Checkmate (1994–1996)

The New Titans under Checkmate

Roy Harper (formerly Speedy, later a government agent, and now Arsenal) stepped in to fill the leadership gap Nightwing had left. He made a deal with Sarge Steel of Checkmate to solve the Titans’ credibility problems, which ended up with them essentially working for the government. Unhappy with the deal, nearly everyone from the previous team left. He was left with the two Teamers who had survived Zero Hour, Damage (who had been remanded into the Titans’ custody), and Impulse. Fortunately by this time Donna had joined the Darkstars, and they were able to add the latest Green Lantern, Supergirl (the Matrix/Earth Angel version), and an alien with a powerful morphing battlesuit (the Omegadrome) calling himself Minion.

This team was a disaster. While they managed to succeed against Raven and other threats, the internal dynamics were... turbulent, to say the least. Kyle was still learning the ropes, Terra was facing an identity crisis, Damage’s temper was at its worst, Donna was dealing with her divorce, Mirage was secretly pregnant, no one could stand Impulse, and Arsenal—who has always had a problem with authority—found himself having problems exercising it.

The return of Cyborg (now Cyberion) from his exile in space led the Titans to head for Tamaran, seeking out Starfire as Raven began recollecting the pieces of Trigon’s soul. This left Changeling freed, and in the final confrontation, the piece of Raven’s soul that Starfire had carried was able to destroy Trigon’s soul forever (for the third time, mind you), leaving Raven a disembodied, but pure, spirit. Raven, Changeling, and Cyberion remained for a time on New Tamaran to help the survivors of the world’s destruction rebuild, while the rest returned to Earth and disbanded.

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Teens Again (1996–1998)

The Teen Titans: Atom’s team

The Teen Titans
The Atom
Prysm
Risk
Argent
Joto

Omen
Fringe
Captain Marvel, Jr./CM3

A decade and a half ago, an alien race called the H’san Natall hired Psions (the same aliens who accidentally gave Starfire her starbolt powers) to impregnate several Earth women with genetically-engineered H’san Natall/Human hybrids. The women were returned home, their children growing up as humans who eventually developed powers. Shortly after the disbanding of the previous group of Titans, Loren Jupiter contacted four of these now-teenage children and recruited them to form a new group of Titans, under the leadership of former JLA member the Atom (who had been de-aged recently and was once again a teenager).

They operated in Metropolis for a while, discovered that the mysterious Omen was not only the Lilith of the original Titans, but that she was also Mr. Jupiter’s daughter, and picked up several new members. They also lost Joto. Eventually the H’san Natall came to take them back to their world. Prysm and Fringe elected to leave, while Argent, Risk, and a revived Joto returned to Earth.

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The Titans (1999–2003)

The Previous Titans (Titans #1)

Cyberion, in his explorations of the galaxy, began losing touch with his humanity. Completely mechanical at this point, there was still a human soul inside him. To reconnect, he/it returned to Earth—along with all the machinery (including a number of very large starships) that it had bonded with, slowly engulfing the moon, and sought out those Vic Stone had considered family: the Titans. All of them. Some who had only been Titans for about five minutes. Once they began to realize what was going on, the Titans came into conflict with the JLA; the League’s main concern was to ensure the safety of the Earth, while the Titans wanted to somehow save Vic first. Eventually, they were able to provide the Omegadrome as a new body for Vic.

This adventure brought all the Titans together for the first time in quite a while, and over the next few weeks the original five talked about reforming the group, partly out of their friendship, partly out of the responsiblility to train the next generation of heroes. To that end each of them nominated an additional member, and the latest Titans were formed.

Within a few months, however, half the team left. Starfire returned to her people, Cyborg left with a new body cloned from his original one, Flash left to pursue his commitments in the JLA and Keystone City, and Damage left to work out some personal issues.

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Graduation Day: Teen Titans (2003–2006)

The Post-Graduation Day Teen Titans

As both the Titans and Young Justice were hearing out funding offers from international conglomerate OptiTron, a cybernetic robot appeared and latched onto Cyborg. Believing themselves under attack, members of both teams tried to subdue the robot. By the time the battle was over, most of the heroes were injured, and two—Lilith and Troia—were dead. Both teams dissolved.

While Arsenal went off to found a new Outsiders team (recruiting Nightwing, among others), Cyborg, Starfire and Changeling (now calling himself Beast Boy again) set out to form the Titans in a new way. This time based in San Francisco, they planned to formalize the mentor/training aspect. They started by inviting the core members of Young Justice—Robin (Tim Drake), Wonder Girl (Cassie Sandsmark), Superboy (Kon-El), and Impulse (Bart Allen)—to spend weekends at the new Teen Titans headquarters on an island in the San Francisco Bay.

Early on they learned that Jericho, just before dying, had used his possession abilities to leap into his father’s mind. He had been lurking in Deathstroke’s subconscious ever since. Determined to prevent any more “kids” from dying by being super-heroes, he attempted to break up the newly-formed team. As the Terminator, he shot Impulse—the final trauma that led to the speedster’s decision to become Kid Flash. Raven also returned, her spirit bound to the body of a teenaged girl.

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Teen Titans Reborn (2006—)

The Teen Titans, one year after Infinite Crisis

Robin III
Wonder Girl II
Cyborg
Raven
Jericho
Kid Devil
Ravager (Rose Wilson)
Miss Martian

Infinite Crisis left the team shattered. Superboy was dead, leaving Wonder Girl grief-stricken. Kid Flash had aged four years and lost his powers. Robin left to travel the world with Batman. Cyborg was in a coma and Starfire was lost in space. Even the reserve Titans had been decimated by Superboy Prime, who had killed Pantha, Wildebeest and Bushido, and ripped off Risk’s right arm.

Beast Boy and Raven tried to keep the Titans going during the next year, but the team couldn’t hold any traction, with dozens of heroes passing through its ranks: new members like Zatara II, Miss Martian, Bombshell, Mas y Menos, and returning members like Mirage, Flamebird, Argent, Hawk & Dove and Speedy. (Teen Titans #38, 2006; 52*, 2006–2007) Even Raven disappeared with no explanation. Things finally turned around when Robin returned from his travels and Cyborg awoke from his coma.

Robin, Cyborg, and two new members, Kid Devil and the Ravager (Rose Wilson), convinced Wonder Girl to rejoin the team, then traveled the world searching for Raven. Raven had fled for two reasons: one member of the team during the past year had been a traitor, and she wanted create a new body for Jericho using the same process that had created her own. With the traitor revealed as Bombshell, Raven introduced Rose to her brother Jericho, and Miss Martian rejoined the team. (Teen Titans #34–41, 2006–2007)

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Text revised May 6, 2007
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Profiles

Significant Legacy-Era Flash Appearances (as a group)

Significant One-Year-Later Flash Appearances

Series

Out-of-Continuity Series

Notes

* The missing year. According to this post [archive.org], the Teen Titans appear in the following issues of 52: 21, 32, 35, 40 and 47. Checking those issues shows: Week 21 features a team with Beast Boy, Raven, Zatara II, Power Boy and Little Barda. In week 32, they hold tryouts. Beast Boy and Raven appear briefly in week 33. A team consisting of Beast Boy, Raven, Aquagirl II and Offspring help with damage control after the “rain of the supermen” in week 35, and help Steel take down Lex Luthor in week 40. Week 47’s story only has a brief cameo by Beast Boy, but the back-up story is a two-page origin of the Teen Titans.

The missing-year Teen Titans also appear in 52 Week 50 and World War III as Beast Boy, Raven, Hawk & Dove, Young Frankenstein, and Terra II. Terra and Young Frankenstein are killed.

** Tales of the Teen Titans continued to print new stories concurrently with the new deluxe-format New Teen Titans for about a year. After issue #60 it began reprinting the deluxe-format stories. So technically the series kept going, but there were no new stories after 1985.