Titans secret files 2 download

5/19/08

AM

Page 1

TwoMorrows Publishing $ in the US ISBN

Following in the footsteps of the critically acclaimed Titans Companion, The Titans Companion Volume 2 picks up where its predecessor left off, covering every incarnation of the Teen Titans from the mid-’90s through their return to the top of the sales charts! Featuring interviews with Geoff Johns, Mike McKone, Phil Jimenez, Peter David, and other Titans alumni, The Titans Companion Volume 2 also showcases art by George Pérez, Mike Wieringo, Neal Adams, Tom Grummett, Todd Nauck and more! Plus: interviews with solo Titans writers Chuck Dixon, Mark Waid, John Byrne, and Karl Kesel! Sections on Young Justice and Outsiders! A comprehensive chapter on the Teen Titans animated series! More with Marv Wolfman and George Pérez! Featuring an all-new cover by Mike McKone, The Titans Companion Volume 2 completes any Titans fan’s collection!

ISBN ISBN X

9 Teen Titans, Outsiders, Young Justice and all related characters and indicia are TM and ©DC Comics. All rights reserved.

by Glen Cadigan

Raleigh, North Carolina

The Titans Companion Volume 2

CELEBRATING TITANS TEAMS PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE!

Teen Titans TM and © DC Comics.

Titans2 Cover FInal:TC2_covers_out

by Glen

Cadigan

Titans2 Cover FInal:TC2_covers_out

5/19/08

AM

Glen Cadigan, Editor • Mike McKone, Front Cover

Page 2

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreward by Glen Cadigan Roll Call The Pre-Teen Titans 2 ROBIN Marv Wolfman Neal Adams Chuck Dixon SUPERBOY Karl Kesel Tom Grummett IMPULSE Mark Waid Mike Wieringo WONDER GIRL John Byrne TEEN TITANS II Dan Jurgens George Pérez YOUNG JUSTICE Todd Dezago Peter David Todd Nauck THE TITANS Phil Jimenez Peter David

Bill Walko, Layout, Logo & Design

John Byrne Devin Grayson Jay Faerber Barry Kitson NIGHTWING Chuck Dixon Devin Grayson OUTSIDERS Judd Winick Phil Jimenez TEEN TITANS III Geoff Johns Mike McKone Tom Grummett Judd Winick Geoff Johns Phil Jimenez ONE YEAR LATER Geoff Johns Judd Winick TEEN TITANS GO! Sam Register Glen Murakami Marv Wolfman & George Pérez J. Torres Todd Nauck

Phil Jimenez/Glen Murakami, Back Cover • Marcus Mebes, Cover Colors • John Morrow, Publisher

Robin, Superboy, Impulse, Wonder Girl, Teen Titans, Young Justice, Nightwing, Outsiders and all related characters and indicia are TM and © DC Comics. All rights reserved.

TC_Intro rollcall:TC_Intro rollcall

5/16/08

PM

Page 4

roll call

Titans Together! Titans Membership:

Argent: Following her 16th birthday, Toni Monetti developed the ability to manifest plasma energy in solid forms. She is a half-human, half-alien hybrid, and has been a member of two Titans teams.

Robin: The third person to assume the title, Tim Drake became Batman’s partner after he deduced the true identities of Batman and Robin. He was the leader of the first grouping of his peers, Young Justice, and is currently the leader of the Teen Titans.

Risk: A natural risk-taker, Cody Driscoll’s alien heritage manifested itself after his 16th birthday. Following an adventure in outer space, he joined the team of Titans funded by Mr. Jupiter.

Superboy: A teenaged clone of Superman, Conner Kent first appeared following the death of the Man of Steel, and later joined the group Young Justice. He was a member of the Teen Titans when he sacrificed his life to save the universe.

Joto/Hotspot: Hailing from a middle-class background, Isaiah Crockett’s super-powers manifested themselves following his 16th birthday. Although he was later killed in the line of duty, he was revived using alien technology, and served as a member of the team of Titans funded by Mr. Jupiter.

Impulse/Kid Flash: The grandson of the second Flash, Bart Allen was raised in a virtual reality in the 30th Century before he was brought back in time to be cured of a life-threatening illness. He joined both the New Titans and Young Justice before becoming a member of the Teen Titans.

Prysm: Raised in a virtual reality environment on the moon of Titan, Prism is an half-human, half-alien hybrid who is able to refract light and use it as a weapon. Following her 16th birthday, she joined the team of Titans funded by Mr. Jupiter.

Wonder Girl: The second person to assume the title, Cassandra Sandsmark became Wonder Woman’s junior partner after she aided the Amazon in the defeat of various foes. She possesses the teenage equivalent of her mentor’s powers, and was briefly the leader of Young Justice. She is currently a member of the Teen Titans.

Atom: When Ray Palmer discovered a fragment of a white dwarf, he developed the ability to shrink to microscopic heights. Having been de-aged to a teenager during the events of Zero Hour, he later joined the team of Titans funded by Mr. Jupiter.

Secret: When Greta was murdered, her spirit became a warder which shepherds souls to the next world. Unaware of her true purpose, she was captured and detained by the DEO before she was liberated by Young Justice, whom she later joined. She currently has regained her human form.

Captain Marvel, Jr: When Freddie Freeman’s leg was damaged as a result of a battle involving Captain Marvel, the super-hero arranged for a portion of his power to be given to Freeman whenever he said the magic words, “Captain Marvel!” When the Teen Titans held a membership drive, the Junior Captain Marvel appeared and won a place on the team. He was also briefly a member of Titans L.A..

Arrowette: The daughter of a former crimefighter, Cissie King-Jones was raised from an early age to succeed where her mother had failed as a super-hero. Assuming her mother’s former identity of Arrowette, she first fought crime solo, then alongside Young Justice. She left the team following an incident in which she almost killed a murderer.

Fringe: A half-human/half-alien hybrid, Fringe is a being of immense strength and limited intelligence who is possessed by an otherworldly spirit that acts as his protector. He joined the Teen Titans upon being rescued by Prysm from the intergalactic bounty hunter, Jugular.

Empress: The only child of a secret agent, Anita Fite learned the practice of voodoo from her maternal grandmother after her mother’s death. Assuming the super-hero identity of Empress, she later joined Young Justice.

Omen: A former member of the original team of Titans, Lilith Clay developed mystic powers as an adult in addition to the psychic abilities she already possessed. Upon discovering that she was the daughter of Mr. Jupiter, she joined her father in developing a new team of Titans.

Li’l Lobo/Slobo: After he was de-aged to a teenager by Klarion, the Witch Boy, the intergalactic bounty hunter Lobo joined Young Justice as Li’l Lobo. When he later regained his proper age, a second Lobo which grew from a single drop of his blood joined the team as Slobo.

Mr. Jupiter: Formerly the world’s richest man, Loren Jupiter once used his fortune to fund the original Teen Titans. The father of Omen, Jupiter used his wealth to finance a new team of Titans in preparation for an alien invasion by the H’san Ntall. He is also the father of Titans’ villain Haze.

The Ray: Raised in darkness, Ray Terrill later discovered that he was the son of the original Ray, and that he could absorb and redirect light. He briefly joined Young Justice. 4

TC_Intro rollcall:TC_Intro rollcall

5/16/08

PM

Page 6

pre-teen titans 2

The Pre-Teen Titans 2 Mythical Angels & Crystal Sidekicks Spinners The Story BehindTitans, the Second Generation

It all began with Robin. In , Dick Grayson, the original teen sidekick, retired as Batman’s partner in The New Teen Titans (Vol. 1, #39), and later chose the adult identity of Nightwing. Before long, he was replaced in the role by Jason Todd, a tough, street kid who was caught in the act of stealing tires from the Batmobile. Reader response to the character was mixed, and in , four years after his creation, fans voted, by a difference of 72 votes, to kill the character via a phone-in poll. After the decision, Batman was a solo crimefighter once again. In , the first Tim Burton Batman film debuted, and that same year, Tim Drake made his initial appearance as a character in the pages of Batman # (Aug. ). In a flashback scene which occurred before the death of Dick Grayson’s parents, Drake was established as having met the future crimefighter and his family on a trip to the circus with his own family. It was revealed in subsequent issues that the Drakes were in attendance the very night that the Graysons were killed, and that the event traumatized the young child. As a result, he developed an unnatural fascination with both Batman and Robin, largely due to the former’s appearance at the crime scene.

Batman deals with the death of Robin in trading card artwork by Phil Jimenez. From the collection of Michael Lovitz. © DC Comics.

As time passed, Drake continued his hobby of studying the Dynamic Duo, and one night while watching television, he saw footage of the pair in battle. In order to defeat the Penguin, Robin used a specific maneuver—a quadruple somersault—which Drake had previously seen Dick Grayson use. Since members of the Flying Graysons were the only acrobats capable of performing such a feat, the young detective concluded that Dick Grayson must be Robin, and thus Bruce Wayne was Batman. Initially, Drake kept this information to himself, but once Jason Todd died and Batman’s behavior became more and more erratic, he concluded that Batman needed a Robin in order to stabilize his own self-destructive behavior. Drake approached Dick Grayson with his evidence and tried, unsuccessfully, to convince the crimefighter to once again become Robin. When Batman and Nightwing were later trapped in an explosion set by Two-Face, Drake realized that he had no other choice than to become Robin himself in order to rescue the two. Although Batman was initially furious at the decision and adamant that Robin should stay dead, he eventually relented and agreed to train Drake as his third Robin.

Tim Drake pleads his case to Nightwing following the death of Robin. From the collection of Michael Lovitz. © DC Comics.

6

TC_YJ_Solo:TC_YJ_Solo

5/16/08

PM

Page 15

ROBIN

Chuck Dixon Tim Drake Spreads His Wings as the New Robin

[An industry pro with over twenty years experience, Chuck Dixon rose from the ranks of independent comics to work first for Marvel, then for DC on an impressive eleven-year stretch as the author of such titles as Robin, Nightwing, and Detective Comics. On January 29, , Dixon was interviewed via phone by Glen Cadigan, and he copyedited the following transcript.]

CD: Oh, yeah. Somehow I got involved with a bunch of guys from Chicago, and did work for fanzines like Chronicle and FTP. A guy named George Breo was the first one to publish my work, and through him I met Chuck Fiala and Jim Engel. TTC: So did you learn anything while working in those fanzines? CD: Well, you learn by doing, and they had such low print runs and so little feedback [laughs] you really didn’t get too much constructive, or any kind of, criticism. And in those days, I had to draw all my own stuff, because still, to this day, the hardest thing for a comic writer to accomplish is to find an artist willing to go along with him. But by having to draw my own stuff, at least I learned the plight of the penciler, [and] what they had to put up with from writers. I learned that first hand, which I think is valuable for me.

TTC: Okay, Chuck, this is the “getting-to-know-you” part of the interview. Where are you from originally? CD: [The] Philadelphia area. TTC: How old were you when you first started to read comics? CD: Boy, I can’t even remember. It’s before I could read. [laughs] I basically learned to read from comics, so definitely pre-school. [Maybe] around four. TTC: Can you remember which books you would’ve read first?

TTC: How old were you when you took your first serious run at being a professional writer?

CD: I was really into the presuper-hero Marvels, all the Robin’s solo adventures began in the first of three solo mini-series written by Chuck Dixon. Art by Brian Bolland. © DC Comics. monster books. Y’know, Tales CD: I was probably twentyof Suspense, Strange Tales. two or twenty-three when I “Googam, Son of Goom,” that sort of thing. first started really trying to get interviews at the companies, and that was in the Seventies, when it was a horrible time to try TTC: At what point would you say that you decided you wanted to break into the business. to be a writer when you grew up? TTC: So what were you doing between your fanzine work and then?

CD: I really wanted to be a comic book artist, but I wasn’t talented or disciplined enough. I still wanted to be involved with comics on the creative end, so I got more interested in the writing, and kept taking runs at that.

CD: Everything. I drove an ice cream truck, I was a security guard, I was a janitor, I worked in a as a cashier Anything that would pay the rent.

TTC: Didn’t you have work published in fanzines when you were a kid?

TTC: Did you learn anything from those jobs that benefited you later on as a writer? 15

TC_YJ_Solo:TC_YJ_Solo

5/16/08

PM

Page 16

CD: I think [for] any writer, if you get into writing too early, it’s not a good thing. In hindsight, I’m glad it took a while to get into writing, ’cause you get some human experiences, [and] you meet people. I don’t know so much that the jobs I worked at informed [me], although the job, working graveyard shift, I met a lot of weirdoes, so that always helps in comic writing. But it’s also an impetus to continue writing, so I never have to go back to the everyday world. [laughs] I really wasn’t built for holding a regular job.

time. My full-time comic book writer career really begins there, because I got a fifty-page-a-month feature. TTC: How did you know Tim Truman? CD: I met him at conventions. [It’s] the same thing I tell guys now that want to break in: go to conventions and meet other professionals. I ran into him at conventions, and we got along, and he began to recommend me, mostly to Eclipse, because he was working there at the time. TTC: Was it the same story with Larry Hama?

TTC: What was your first professional sale? CD: The first professional sale I ever had was with an outfit called Countrywide, and it was a really crappy rip-off of Heavy Metal called Gasm. I actually didn’t find out ’till recently that these guys had previously published Witches Tales and the really bottom of the barrel rip-offs of Creepy and Eerie. I worked for them for three issues, and they paid forty dollars a page for completely written and finished artwork—just forty bucks a page—but I was thrilled. I was published; I was on newsstands; I was getting a check at the end of it.

The Teen Wonder trashes bad guys in DC Vs. trading card artwork by Shane Davis. Robin TM and © DC Comics.

TTC: Did you ever show that work to other people in order to line up future work? CD: Oddly enough, it was soft-core pornography, science-fiction stuff, and I was able to use it to show that I had been published to get work in children’s books. And that makes no sense to anybody unless you’ve been in publishing, and you realize that being published is important. It really doesn’t matter what it is; you showed you could meet a deadline. So yeah, from that I went on [and] worked in mass market paperbacks [doing] children’s books. I did some licensed Winnie the Pooh stuff for Disney, and Raggedy Ann and Andy things like that.

CD: Larry was totally cold. It was a total cold meeting. I heard through Hilary Barta that he was looking for writers to write tough guy, real blood thirsty stuff, and so I contacted him out of the blue. He wasn’t familiar with anything I had done before, [so I] sent him some samples, and he bought a bunch of ’em. Once I proved my reliability

TTC: So when did you get your first big break?

Evangeline, the original killer nun, as drawn by her creator, Judith Hunt. Evangeline © its respective owner.

CD: Well, I was doing some work at Eclipse—Timothy Truman recommended me to them—and I was just starting to get in with them. We were starting up the Airboy book. Simultaneous with that, Larry Hama started buying some stories from me for magazines that he was doing at Marvel, and from there I got the lead feature in Savage Sword [of Conan]. From that point, I pretty much worked full 16

Dixon’s early career included work on Airboy by Eclipse Comics. © Todd McFarlane Productions.

TC_YJ_Solo:TC_YJ_Solo

5/16/08

PM

Page 27

superboy

Karl Kesel Writing The Reign Of Superboy

[Nicknamed “The Kibitzer” by John Byrne, Karl Kesel has worked professionally in comics since , first as an inker, then as an author. He teamed with his first wife, Barbara, on the Hawk and Dove mini-series in , and then joined forces with her again on the monthly book of the same name one year later. In he was tapped by Superman family editor Mike Carlin to become the new writer of The Adventures of Superman, and shortly thereafter he co-created the current Superboy with artist Tom Grummett. The two worked together on the Kid of Steel’s adventures for a total of four years, from , and again from ’ Interviewed by Glen Cadigan on January 16, , the following interview was approved by Kesel.] TTC: Okay, Karl. Let’s start with name, rank, and serial number. KK: [laughs] I think I’ve just got a name. TTC: So where did you grow up? KK: I grew up in a little town called Victor, New York, just outside of Rochester, New York. TTC: What was your first exposure to the wonderful world of comics? KK: You know, I’m not sure. I know I picked up some various issues of comics—[maybe] two or three when I was a kid—but I know for sure that when I started really reading them seriously was when I was ten years old. Our family took a cross-country trip, and as a ten-year-old kid, that was pretty boring, so we’d pull into gas stations, and at that point, they had comic books. That’s when I actually started buying comic books, and it was a long enough trip that I would get two or three issues of books in a row. Then I got hooked. TTC: Did your parents support your comic book reading habits? KK: I wouldn’t say they tried to talk me out of it. I think there were times when they probably weren’t really thrilled with it, but they never stood in my way. There was a time when my mom gave away some of my Silver Surfer comics, and I had to go get them back. [laughs] So I guess they didn’t realize how seriously I took it at the time.

The direct market cover to the Adventures of Superman #, which was originally hidden beneath a die-cut cover showing only the Superman shield. Art again by Tom Grummett and Karl Kesel. Superboy TM and © DC Comics.

to be a little bit of foreshadowing there, because all of my favorite comics kept getting cancelled. TTC: When did you first start following the Superman family of titles?

TTC: What books would have caught your eye first? KK: The very first book I remember really liking was the original Silver Surfer series, the John Buscema/Stan Lee stuff. In fact, that was the summer I started reading them, and I started buying it off the stands with issue number one. I just loved it. And shortly after that, the X-Men of the time, and that would have been just about the time Jim Steranko drew a few issues. Then, of course, Neal Adams came on. I just loved the X-Men at the time. There seemed

KK: I did pick some up at the time. [When] I was a kid, I mostly read Marvels, and when I would pick up DCs, I kept thinking I wasn’t old enough to read them. They seemed like they were for more mature readers, and maybe once I got older, I would understand them better. But oddly enough, the very first DC title I did collect on a regular basis was the Teen Titans. It was the great Nick Cardy stuff, although I started reading them when they gave 27

TC_YJ_Solo:TC_YJ_Solo

5/16/08

PM

Page 32

and many, many times during the Superman summits, we would mention what we were planning to do in Superboy, and, [it was], “Can we borrow Professor Hamilton?” [or], “We were thinking of doing this” There was a time we actually wanted to move Project: Cadmus to a Pacific island, and that idea was approved by the Superman people. We never did that, but they were always aware of what we were doing, and we always wanted to coordinate with them because Superboy was part of the Superman family, and there was no Earthly good reason to distance ourselves from that.

couple of those characters; Knockout, in particular, was the villain that you developed the most. Was it always your intention to use her as much as you did? KK: No, not at all. She just had a lot of life to her, let’s face it. I’m thrilled to see that Gail Simone is using her in Secret Six, because I think she’s a really powerful character on many, many levels. So some of these characters, they just have a life of their own, and she was definitely one of them. TTC: You did tease readers with the idea that she would become a legitimate good girl. Were you tempted to take her down that path?

TTC: Why did you set the series in Hawaii? KK: The thinking was this: when Superman was first created, he was very definitely a wishfulfillment character. He was the guy who would throw the evil Senator across town and catch him. He would do the sort of things that you or I, or Siegel and Shuster, wished they could do, and so Superman was very much, especially at the beginning, a wishfulfillment character. So that’s the tact I took with Superboy. I said, “All right; in today’s society, what would every kid wish if they had super-powers?” and I decided they would want to live in Hawaii! [laughs] So that’s where we set it, because it’s this tropical paradise with beautiful gals in bikinis, and it just sounded really exotic. It just sounded very much like a dream come true. Very wish fulfillment. TTC: Hawaii isn’t exactly known for its super-villain problem, though. KK: But you know, you could say that about any city. It’s got super-villain problems when you decide it does. In the very first issue of Superboy, I did set in motion half a dozen different problems that really are because Superboy shows up. [laughs] If he hadn’t shown up, probably three or four of those problems never would’ve raised their heads, so there is a certain cause and effect going on, yeah. TTC: What was your train of thought when you would create a villain for Superboy to fight? Would it start with the villain, or would it start with, “Superboy needs a

KK: No. Knockout could never be good good. She can be kinda good, but she never could really be what you and I would call a hero. She can do the right things at times, but she’s far too selfish and self-involved to really be a hero.

Supergirl and Knockout duke it out on the cover of Superboy #28, courtesy of Miki Annamanthadoo. All characters TM and © DC Comics.

certain problem to solve?” KK: You know, it probably should’ve been Superboy has a certain problem that he needs to solve. I think the best stories come out of that, and I would just say that at that point of the early Superboy comics, I was not experienced enough to do that. I would just have ideas I really wanted to do, as far as villains and stuff. I mean, the villain of Scavenger I had in my head for a very long time. The character of Knockout, not so much, but I did really want a good bad girl in his life, so Knockout filled that role. I was really inexperienced as a writer. I actually think my run on Superboy, starting with issue fifty, is much stronger than my first run, only because I actually had a concept [laughs] I was working with, and I think the first time through, I was just doing the best I could, but I was kinda making it up as I went along. TTC: You did end up giving Superboy a rogue’s gallery of his own. You mentioned a 32

TTC: The Superboy book also had a rich supporting cast. How important do you think those characters were to the series? KK: I think they’re really important. I really enjoyed doing the first run on Dubbilex and Rex and Roxy and Tana. I think all of those were really good characters that I enjoyed a lot, and I think later on the cast of characters we had in Cadmus was just as rich. I always go back to early Spider-Mans that Stan Lee was writing, especially when John Romita was drawing it. Many times, many times I have gone back and pulled out those old comics, and I’ll flip past the fights because I know Spider-Man’s gonna beat the Shocker, but I always stop and read the Coffee Bean scenes because the interplay between the characters is just so great. There’s no way my work ever came close to that, but I’ve always remembered how grounded that makes any character. I’ve always tried to surround characters with interesting supporting characters because of that. TTC: You also brought Tana Moon over from Adventures of Superman. Was that always the plan? KK: Well, once we decided to put him in Hawaii, we realized, “Hey! Maybe she’s

TC_YJ_Solo:TC_YJ_Solo

5/16/08

PM

Page 35

superboy

Tom Grummett Co-Creating The Kryptonian Kid

[As Karl Kesel’s collaborator on the Adventures of Superman, Tom Grummett fell into the role of Superboy cocreator, which was followed shortly by his regular assignment as the penciler of the new Superboy series. Interviewed by Glen Cadigan on June 10, , Grummett remembered his role in the creation of the character as follows.]

another and said, “Superboy!” and realized we were on to something. [We] threw it out in the middle of group and everybody seemed to respond really well to the idea, so we went off into a corner by ourselves and started working out the details of it, and lo and behold, Superboy was born. It kind of went from there. What I do remember most vividly about it was coming up with his costume on the flight home on an airline napkin. So I had it pretty much by the time I got home, and then worked up a more detailed sketch and sent it in to Carlin. A little tinker here and a tinker there, and we had his look. It happened pretty quick.

TTC: How did you originally become involved with Superboy during the “Death of Superman” storyline? TG: After the death, there was a tremendous amount of attention on the Superman books. The plan was to stop the publication of the regular Superman titles, and for a month or two there were specials released. Then we were going to come back with the next step, which, at the time, we didn’t know what the next step was exactly going to be.

TTC: Did you keep the napkin? TG: I unfortunately did not keep the napkin. [chuckles] But I do have those sketches that I sent to Carlin. They’re framed on the wall. I don’t think the napkin would’ve survived until now, actually.

So we had our usual Super-summit to bring everybody together to Following the “Reign of the Supermen,” Superboy took solo flight in the pages of his very own series. TTC: Was it always the work out the next step Artwork by Tom Grummett and Karl Kesel. Superboy TM and © DC Comics. intention to spin him off of the storyline, and we into his own series? came up with the idea of four new Supermen, one for each of the TG: No. At the time, it was more reactive than proactive. There Superman titles. Karl Kesel and I were sitting beside each other, certainly was a certain amount of proactivity in what we were and some of the other characters were being talked about. I don’t doing—we were working towards a goal—but we had no idea know where it came from, but at one point we turned to one that it was going to turn into what it turned into. Spin-off 35

TC_YJ_Solo:TC_YJ_Solo

5/16/08

PM

Page 38

Impulse

Mark Waid Running On Impulse

[A writer whose name has appeared on such titles as The Flash, Captain America, and Fantastic Four, Mark Waid entered the super-hero mainstream via the fan press, first as a member of Interlac, then as a contributor (and editor) of the Fantagraphicsproduced Amazing Heroes. He also wrote the Index to the Legion of Super-Heroes for Independent Comics Group (nee Eclipse) before becoming an editor at DC Comics. On May 10, , Waid was interviewed by Glen Cadigan about his role in the creation of Impulse, as well as his tenure on the title of the same name. What follows is a transcript of that conversation, as copyedited by Waid himself.]

MW: The first one I remember would be issue of Flash, which was “The Doomward Flight of the Flashes,” and it was a triple Flash team-up with Jay and Wally and Barry. I may have read a Teen Titans or two before then, but that’s my first real memory of Kid Flash. TTC: Do you remember what you thought of the character? MW: I remember to this day that I knew even then that his is the single best super-hero costume design ever. Ever. It’s perfect. Y’know, the hair is open, so you can see the wind effects as he runs the sleekness of the rest of the costume, and the color composition it’s just perfect. TTC: As a kid, did you have any delusions of one day growing up to tell Flash stories yourself?

TTC: When would you say you first started reading The Flash? MW: I started reading Flash in , like most of the school children in the world, because that was shortly after the Batman TV show hit, and then super-heroes just got huge. TTC: Do you remember the first issue you read?

Waid began his super-speed career as the author of the Flash, in which he introduced Impulse. Artwork from the collection of Caesar Alvarez. Flash, Starfire, and Nightwing TM and © DC Comics.

MW: Yeah! The very first one was issue , which was the famous cover with Flash holding up his hand saying, “Stop! You must read this issue! My life depends on it!”

MW: I honestly didn’t. It never once occurred to me that I would ever write the Flash. I thought, at some point growing up, that I might someday write Superman or Batman, or something like that, but as much as I really loved the character, I never had any real, burning compulsion

to write the Flash. TTC: So how did you get the job as the Flash writer? MW: What changed me around was Brian Augustyn, who was the editor at the time. I had just left staff to go freelance, and so he’d thrown a story my way in the Flash TV Special that DC did, the one that adapted the continuity of the TV show. I kinda got a taste for writing Flash, and then not too long after, Brian took me out to lunch and sat with me and said, “Listen, Bill Loebs is leaving the Flash and we need a new writer. It’s the perfect position for you because everybody expects this book will be cancelled in a year.” Not that it was

TTC: So would you say you were drawn to the character right away? MW: I was absolutely drawn to the character immediately, because the costume design was brilliant. The artwork that Carmine Infantino did just drew you into the stories, and the power of super-speed is my favorite super-power. TTC: So when do you think you first read a story with Kid Flash in it? 38

TC_YJ_Solo:TC_YJ_Solo

5/16/08

PM

doing terribly poorly under Bill, but the general expectation at DC was that, with the TV show off the air, the ensuing drift in sales would just kill the book. TTC: Did you have a game plan in mind when you began your run?

Page 39

[laughs]. I felt the need, just so I could get a clear handle on Wally, to strip away a lot of the supporting characters that Bill had built up. Not out of any disrespect for Bill, or the characters, but just because it was too much information for me to try to digest at

MW: Only in that I knew that we wanted to retell the origin, because it had not been retold in any sort of detail since it first ran in So thirty years later, [laughs] seemed like a fair amount of time to pass before you tell the origin again. I honestly had no game plan, as you can actually tell as you look at the first dozen issues, because we follow the four-part origin story with a really pedestrian Aquaman crossover [#66—Ed.]. Clearly, I didn’t quite know what I was doing. But once we got up and running, Brian encouraged me to put as much of myself in the character of Wally as I could, and that’s what made the difference. That’s what made it so attractive to me for such a long time.

MW: At that point in the series, it was about the same as it had been for the last six years before that, which was, “Where’s Barry? When’s Barry coming back?” Not a week would go by when we didn’t get letters from fans going, “Yeah, yeah. But where’s Barry?” And so [it was a] constant, constant uphill struggle to try to establish that Wally had the suit, and he’s not going away. TTC: In other words, you saw it as a challenge to turn those naysayers around. MW: Well, it turned into what, arguably, was the best story in our run, which was we embraced the pro-Barry sentiment and turned it into “The Return of Barry Allen.” [#’s —Ed.] Basically, the whole message of that story, as Brian and I put it, was, “Be careful what you wish for.” TTC: Growing up, do you think you saw Wally more in the pages of the Titans or in The Flash?

TTC: Were you already reading the series at that point? MW: Oh, yeah. I was a huge fan of Bill Loebs’ stuff. I read Mike Baron’s run. I wasn’t huge on it just because it didn’t feel like Wally to me. It felt very cynical and dark, but that’s a matter of personal taste. I thought Bill Loebs had a great take on the characters in general. The biggest difference between our approaches to it is that Bill tends to write everything like it’s a team book, whether it’s a solo character series or not. He’s always populating it with a big cast of characters—which is great, and it works for him as a reflection of his life, because Bill has lots of friends. I, on the other hand, am a very lonely man

reaction was to Wally as the Flash at that point in the series?

The very first cover appearance of Impulse, as seen on Flash #92, by Mike Wieringo and José Marzan, Jr.. Impulse TM and © DC Comics.

once as a writer. It was too hard for me to try to figure out, from my point of view, who all these characters were, so I just figured, “Well, we’ll start with Wally, and then we’ll build to Linda, and then we’ll build back outward toward the rest of the speedsters.” TTC: Do you remember what the reader 39

MW: Growing up, I probably saw him more in the pages of Titans, but that was the Bob Haney days, and they all had the same, identical personality, so it’s not as if he made any particular mark on me there. He made more of a mark on me as a character when Steve Skeates wrote a few [Kid] Flash stories as a backup series in Flash in the early Seventies, because Wally, under Steve Skeates, had a slightly more youthful voice, and just a slightly different personality. TTC: Had you followed Wally’s progression from Kid Flash to Flash during Marv’s run on the Titans? And did that influence your handling of the character in any way?

TC_YJ_Solo:TC_YJ_Solo

5/16/08

PM

Page 49

WONDER GIRL

John Byrne Cassie Sandsmark: From Normal to Wonderful

[Beginning with his work in the s, John Byrne has been one of the most prolific storytellers in the industry, with long runs on Fantastic Four, X-Men, and Superman to his credit. In , he began a three year stint as the writer and artist on Wonder Woman, during which time he introduced the current version of Wonder Girl, Cassandra Sandsmark, to the DC universe. Conducted via email on January 5, , the following interview was conducted by Glen Cadigan.]

JB: Even though it had been a number of years since his direct association with the character, I still felt as if I was “following” George Pérez. I was very much aware of the long shadow he cast, and principally, my concern was to find some new— and some old—areas to explore without overturning what George had established. TTC: How long did you plan to on stay on the title, originally? JB: I had no set target in mind. I certainly was surprised when I realized I was on Wonder Woman longer than I was on Uncanny X-Men!

TTC: How early in your comic book reading career would you have discovered Wonder Woman?

TTC: That wasn’t the first time that you had handled the character. You drew her in Legends, and she appeared in Action Comics # Even then, did you have ideas of what you would do if you became her writer some day?

JB: I would almost certainly have “met” her via the Justice League, whose adventures I began reading with their first independent issue. TTC: What was your initial response to the character? JB: Being that I was about 10 years old, I will confess to not being overly impressed with a “girl” character.

JB: Whenever I write and/or draw a character I find my mind running Wonder Girl in action in the pages of Wonder Woman. From the collection of Joel Thingvall. off along different Wonder Girl TM and © DC Comics. pathways, wondering what I might do with the character as an ongoing assignment. TTC: What were the circumstances around you becoming the writer/artist on Wonder Woman? TTC: In issue , you introduced Cassandra Sandsmark, who would go on to become the new Wonder Girl. I’m curious as to JB: Paul Kupperberg, who was editing the title, decided he why you used an entirely new character, as opposed to an wanted to change the creative team, and he realized if he asked already established one, like Vanessa Kapatelis. me to do the book, he got the job done in one fell swoop. JB: Again, it came down to not wanting to mess with what TTC: When you began your run, did you have a set series of goals George had done. He’d not taken Vanessa in that direction in mind that you wanted to achieve? 49

TC_YJ_Titans90s:TC_YJ_Titans90s

5/16/08

PM

Page 51

Teen Titans II

Teen Titans II

The All-New Teen Titans of Alien Origins!

Teen Titans (Vol. 2) #’s Teen Titans Annual #1 Genesis #’s Robin/Argent Double-Shot #1 Impulse/Atom Double-Shot #1 Superboy/Risk Double-Shot #1 Supergirl/Prysm Double-Shot #1 Dark Nemesis #1 When the alien race H’San Natall decided to expand its sphere of influence to the Earth, it embarked upon a long-term strategy which involved impregnating various Earth women with alien DNA in order to produce hybrid, super-powered individuals as sleeper agents for future domination. Sixteen years later, when the subjects reached maturity, they were teleported to the moon Titan for further experimentation. When the Atom, who had been de-aged to a teenager in Zero Hour, stumbled upon the operation, he followed one of the teens there and helped to liberate both them and another teenager who was discovered in the scientists’ lab. It was then that the teens discovered the truth of their births, and that it was the original intention of the alien race to use them as sleeper agents in their conquest of Earth. Upon their return home, the teens came under the sponsorship of Mr. Jupiter, who had previously sponsored the original Teen Titans team. They choose the codenames Argent, Risk, Joto, and Prysm, and formed a new Titans group, along with the Atom. Their adventures mostly brought them into conflict with the anti-alien organization known as the Veil and its leader, Pylon, as well as with the mercenary villain group Dark Nemesis. Ultimately, the team split up, but not before resolving to remain good friends.

Dan Jurgens and George Pérez’s tribute to the cover of Giant-Size X-Men #1, as originally published in Diamond’s Previews catalogue. Teen Titans TM © DC Comics. TM DC Comics.

51

TC_YJ_Titans90s:TC_YJ_Titans90s

5/16/08

PM

Page 52

Teen Titans II

Dan Jurgens Tiny Titan Atom Leads An All-New Teen Titans

[In , after writing and drawing Sensational Spider-Man for Marvel, the man who killed Superman turned his sights on the Teen Titans. The following interview was conducted by Glen Cadigan on February 14, , and was copyedited by Jurgens.]

just got to kicking around some names, and around that time I had run into George somewhere—I believe at one of the cons. I don’t remember where it was for sure—and he had expressed this desire to get back in working with DC again. He had had some issues where he hadn’t been doing real regular work, and what he had explained to me is that he just wanted a platform to get back into the rhythm of a monthly book.

TTC: A lot of people forget this, but your very first Teen Titans job was actually a fill-in issue of the New Teen Titans following the “Terror of Trigon” storyline [NTT v2 #6— Ed.]. Was it intimidating to follow George Pérez on the Titans then?

I think anyone in the business can tell you, working on special projects is so different than working on a monthly book, because you just don’t have that rhythm of everything being due, say, the fifteenth of the month. Once you get off that train, it’s hard to get back on it sometimes because of the discipline it requires. So anyway, George was looking for a way to do that, and I think I said, “Yeah, I have a couple of ideas.” So I went to DC, and we kicked it around, and that’s really how we ended up calling George up to say, “Hey! Would you have any interest in inking Titans?”

DJ: [laughs] Let me put it this way: when DC called me and asked me to do the book, they had found out that George was leaving, and they knew at that time that José Luis García-López was going to step in for a while, but one of the things they said was, “We’re doing a lot of Titans stuff, [and] maybe this’ll all be yours one day,” [that] type of thing. I said, “Yeah, that sounds cool.”

But the plot comes through, and I clearly remember this: Marv had written a plot, and I TTC: Where did the idea for a think his first paragraph was new Teen Titans originate, with something to the effect of, you or with someone at DC? “Ticker tape parade in New Another promotional image from Diamond’s Previews catalogue for the then-new York City. So many characters DJ: I’m not sure you could Teen Titans series. Artwork by Dan Jurgens and George Pérez. Teen Titans TM and © DC Comics. with so much detail and so break it down quite that much going on that it will simply. I think what often make George Pérez jealous.” I just read that and said, “That ain’t happens within the context of assignments is you have eight gonna happen.” [laughs] “There ain’t nobody in this business who discussions that might start out where you’re talking about could do that.” So intimidating? Absolutely. Batman, and then you move on to Mars somehow, and then you’re talking about the Fifth Quadrant of whatever, and TTC: How did George become involved with your Teen Titans? somehow it ends up being Titans. I think that’s sort of how it DJ: DC and I had made the agreement to do Teen Titans, and Eddie happened, where there were a lot of discussions between me and Berganza, who was the book’s editor, and I were kicking around the various people at DC about “What are you gonna do next?” That idea of different inkers. I said, “I really want something here that’s kind of thing. What would my next project be? We had kicked different from what I’ve had recently on a couple of projects.” I’ve around a lot of stuff, and this was primarily at the time where I always been one, whenever I work with inkers generally, who likes was doing most of my stuff at Marvel. I was doing Spider-Man at to, to use a happening phrase, “step outside the box” a little bit. We 52

TC_YJ_Titans90s:TC_YJ_Titans90s

5/16/08

Marvel around that time, and one of the things that I knew DC wanted was a Titans book, and what they really wanted was a group of new characters. So as we kicked things around, that’s how the project evolved. It starts with general discussions, and then you keep talking and talking, and pretty soon, you have that project materialize somehow. TTC:What was the appeal to you of doing a Teen Titans book? DJ: I think the appeal was, besides having been a commodity, a group of characters that I liked a lot as a kid, it’s another one of those things that has real good franchise potential; it can stretch a lot of ways. One of the things I’ve always liked are books where you can go a lot of different directions story-wise. When you think about it, not to harp on Batman, but the constraints on that character are tighter than they are on something like Titans or Superman or Fantastic Four, where you can tell a story in a small neighborhood in Metropolis, or you can have them five galaxies away. I think it is that kind of elasticity that appealed to me, in terms of the Titans. TTC: How did you decide on the group’s lineup? DJ: I had wanted to build a little more around existing characters. I have always thought that the absolute

PM

Page 53

backbone of the Titans, to me, was Dick Grayson and Donna Troy. I saw them as being their version of, say, Scott Summers and Jean Grey. They, to me, are the constants in the Titans. DC really wanted to go all new with the characters somehow. One of the reasons we ended up adding Mr. Jupiter to the book is, to me, there just needs to be that touchstone with the past of some sort, and that’s why we had him in the book. But as far as the characters themselves, DC really wanted to go new. TTC: When you start to create a new character, how does that work? Do you start with the powers first, or the personality, and how does it differ when creating a group as opposed to a solo character—or does it differ at all? DJ: It actually differs. New characters tend to grow in a more organic fashion. Sometimes you might first think of a power and build around that; other times you might think of a character type and build around that. Still other times, particularly with a villain, you set out to create a specific counterpoint to something that’s already there, and there are those really precious times when all of a sudden it’s all there in your head, top to bottom, as though instantly created without conscious thought. TTC: Let’s go through those new characters one by one. I’ll give you a name, and you give me your thoughts on the character. Let’s start with Risk. DJ: I think Risk was our irreverent personality, probably the character that I had the most fun with, just in terms of being more of that irreverent kid-type spark within the group.

Jurgens’ model sheet for Risk. Risk TM and © DC Comics.

An Argent model sheet by Dan Jurgens. Argent TM and © DC Comics.

my heart for spoiled rich kid brats, [laughs] and that’s certainly what she represents. TTC: She lasted longer than any of the other Titans characters. She was in the Titans series which followed your Titans series. That must have given you some satisfaction as a creator. DJ: It does. I still think there is potential there. I don’t necessarily know what, if anything, they have in mind for any of those guys these days, but she was fun. TTC: Joto. DJ: Joto was my attempt to break out of the mold of [stereotypical black characters]. I have a real problem with the fact that whenever we see an African-American in comics, they seem to have this chip on their shoulder. I mean, it’s been done a hundred thousand times, and what I really wanted to do was take this kid, have him be AfricanAmerican from a very middle-class, suburban African-American environment, where you didn’t have all that baggage that many writers automatically throw onto black characters. In many ways, he is the most well-balanced one in the entire group. I just thought, for some reason, that seemed a little bit fresh in comics.

TTC: Argent.

TTC: Why did you kill him later on?

DJ: I always have a fond spot in

DJ: I believe at that time we really wanted

53

TC_YJ_Titans90s:TC_YJ_Titans90s

5/16/08

PM

Page 61

young justice

Young Justice

DC’s Next Generation of Heroes Unite

Robin Plus Impulse #1 Superboy/Robin: World’s Finest Three #’s Legion of Super-Heroes (Vol. 4) #’s Unlimited Access #’s Young Justice: The Secret #1 JLA: World Without Grown-Ups #’s Young Justice #’s Young Justice #1,, Secret Origins Page Giant #1 Young Justice Secret Files #1 Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. #’s Supergirl (Vol. 3) #’s Young Justice: No Man’s Land #1 Young Justice: Sins of Youth #’s Young Justice: Sins of Youth Secret Files #1 Young Justice: Our Worlds at War #1 Spyboy/Young Justice #’s Titans/Young Justice: Graduation Day #’s After a series of preliminary adventures in which the future members of Young Justice met individually, the team was founded as the result of an episode in which all adults were banished from the Earth. When an ancient artifact came into the possession of Matt Stuart, the son of an oft-absent archeologist father, he discovered that it possessed a genie, and used its power to remove all grown-ups from the planet. With only children left behind, chaos ensued and it was up to the junior heroes Robin, Superboy, and Impulse to restore order. The trio then decided to remain together as a group, and were joined in short order by the female members Secret, Wonder Girl, and Arrowette. From their base of operations in the original headquarters of the Justice League of America, Young Justice dealt with teencentric problems, as well as greater threats to the world. They were originally mentored by the Red Tornado, and their roster expanded to include the characters Empress, Li’l Lobo (later Slobo), and the Ray. Young Justice traveled the Earth (and beyond) on the SuperCycle, a vehicle originally from the planet New Genesis, and after an adventure on Apokolips, Robin and Impulse left the team, although they later rejoined. The group was dissolved after the deaths of Donna Troy and Omen in the Graduation Day mini-series, although its core members later reformed as the Teen Titans. The cover art to Young Justice #6, as drawn by Todd Nauck and Lary Stucker, showing the current generation of teen heroes as the Justice League looks on. Young Justice and Justice League of America TM and © DC Comics.

61

TC_YJ_Titans90s:TC_YJ_Titans90s

5/16/08

PM

Page 66

Young Justice

Peter David On The Follies Of Super-Powered Youth

[Best known for his runs on Marvel characters such as the Hulk and Spider-Man, Peter David has also written his share of stories for DC, and when Todd Dezago passed on the opportunity to write the ongoing Young Justice series, it was David who got the job. Interviewed by Glen Cadigan on February 9, , the following interview was copyedited by the Young Justice author.]

PD: I originally was skittish about taking on the title because since my protagonists were all in other books, I was concerned about my ability to write the book while juggling what was going on in the Batman titles and in Robin, Impulse, and Superboy. I was worried that I would just be pulled in so many directions that I wouldn’t be able to do it, and so I originally only made a commitment for six issues, just to see how it was going. I wound up staying for the run of the series.

TTC: How did you become the writer of Young Justice? PD: I was approached by DC about taking on the series. What they told me was they were looking to have a book that would skew towards younger audiences. The concept was that Young Justice would serve as the title to pull in the younger readers. They would read Young Justice for several years, and then they would graduate, so to speak, to the more adult skewing Teen Titans book. So it was a feeder book.

TTC: Did you have much contact with the writers of those series? PD: We would occasionally [send] e-mails back and forth, but most of it was handled through the editors. TTC: When did you start to feel like you had a handle on the characters? PD: Once I brought in the girls, actually. Maybe it’s because I only have daughters, but I found that I was much better able to get a handle on the guys once I had the girls for them to bounce off.

TTC: Why did writing Young Justice appeal to you?

PD: I love writing books that are aimed at younger readers. One Young Justice deals with conflict in its own manner, from the collection of Brian McKenna. Young Justice TM and © DC Comics. of the biggest problems we TTC: Did the decision to bring in have in this industry is the lack the girls originate with you, or with editorial? of younger readers. There’s a number of reasons for that, but PD: I honest-to-God don’t remember. You will generally find in one of the reasons is that so many comic books are simply not these kind of situations that ideas will crop up, and sometimes appropriate for younger readers. Whenever I’m doing a book it’s really hard to remember who said what, or who came up that is aimed at a younger reader, I feel like I’m doing more than with what. just writing a comic book; I’m providing a service for the industry in that I’m trying to write a book that is going to pull TTC: Did you gravitate toward any of the characters more so in younger readers, because younger readers are the future of than others, initially? the industry. If we don’t have younger readers coming in, then PD: I liked them all, actually. I actually found—I guess because we’re pretty much screwed. of the fact I have daughters—[that] once I introduced them, I TTC: How long did you plan to stay on the book, originally? really found myself gravitating towards Wonder Girl and 66

TC_YJ_Titans90s:TC_YJ_Titans90s

5/16/08

Arrowette. I really liked those characters, particularly Wonder Girl. I had a field day with her. TTC: Were there any other characters considered for the team in the early days? PD: No, it was pretty much Robin, Superboy and Impulse from the get-go. TTC: You were technically the second Young Justice writer PD: Well, I wasn’t the second Young Justice writer. I was the second writer to handle that group of characters. Todd Dezago wrote the one-shots—the “World Without Adults” stuff—but he never wrote the ongoing book. He was offered the opportunity, from my understanding, and passed on it. TTC: How fluid were things in the early days? PD: I had a lot of latitude. TTC: Very early on, you introduced the characters of Fite ’N’ Madd. What dynamic did you see them bringing to the series? PD: I wanted a couple of adult antagonists for them to play

PM

Page 67

off. A couple of Feds who would occasionally run into them to represent authority figures connected to the government. TTC: Why bring the Red Tornado into the group? PD: [We] wanted to have an adult presence for the kids to bounce off of. TTC: But why, specifically, the Red Tornado? PD: I don’t remember why. I think that he was part of the package when I came on the book, that they said they wanted to have the Red Tornado there, [as] a mentor thing, which I was completely up for. TTC: How much of Young Justice was planned in advance, and how much did you make up as you went along? PD: Oh, pretty much all of it. Generally speaking, I would have an idea of what I was doing for the next four to six months, but even that was very much subject to change. TTC: To what extend did you feel obligated to keep it a light-hearted book? PD: It really flowed naturally out of the characters and the visuals. Todd Nauck is a brilliant artist; I loved working with him on Young Justice, but his style isn’t what you would want to do if you’re doing heavy-duty sturm und drang, you know? TTC: You did change the tone a bit when you did the “Dark Arrowette” story [Young Justice #15—Ed.]. PD: Yes, absolutely, I did, and I think the reason that it worked as well as it did was because it was relatively short. It would not be a longterm direction that I think would have been beneficial for the series. TTC: So why did you switch gears at that point? PD: I wanted to have some variation. If all you do is humor, then sooner or later the book is just going to float right off the page. You have to have serious issues every so often to ground your book. You just have to.

Todd Nauck’s original character design of Secret, courtesy of the artist. Secret TM and © DC Comics; art © Todd Nauck.

TTC: That story was obviously influenced by “violence in school” stories which were occurring in the real world. Given the age of the 67

David’s stories took a darker turn with the introduction of Harm, as seen here in a design sheet by Todd Nauck. Harm TM and © DC Comics; art © Todd Nauck.

characters in Young Justice, did you feel an obligation to reflect the real world of teenagers at the time? PD: Yes. TTC: When it came to the villains which Young Justice faced, some of them were obviously silly, like Mighty Endowed, but then you’d introduce someone like Harm, who was anything but inconsequential. Even then, were you walking the line between serious drama and horseplay? PD: Yes. I always wanted to mix things up: the humor set up the seriousness and vice versa. TTC: Were you ever concerned that people might have been dismissing the book because they thought of it as just a comedy? PD: Oh, sure. Or that they were dismissing it because they figured it was aimed at younger readers, and it’s very, very strange, because by today’s standards, the original run of Amazing Spider-Man or Fantastic Four would have been considered kid’s books. There was no profanity, there was no sex, there was no really horrific on-panel violence. All the criteria that we have for books that are considered kid’s books, or all-ages books, were met by the original Stan Lee/Steve Ditko/Jack Kirby collaborations, but no modern readers look back at those books

TC_YJ_Titans90s:TC_YJ_Titans90s

5/16/08

PM

Page 75

young justice

Todd Nauck Joining The Youth Movement With DC’s Teens

[When DC Comics first decided to group Robin, Superboy, and Impulse together into their own team, Todd Nauck was the artist who got the call. A former employee of Extreme Studios under Rob Liefeld, Nauck went on to have an impressive run on the title, missing only two of its fifty-five issues. The only artist associated with the series in most reader’s minds, Nauck was interviewed by Glen Cadigan on April 8, ]

it was issue nine where Captain America was leading a charge of heroes up a hill, racing toward Galactus—and half these characters I recognized from cartoons, but the other half, I had no idea who they were, and that totally intrigued me. It was like, “I’ve got to find out who these characters are!” Just all the costumes and the idea of all these heroes taking on this giant I’d never seen before, I had to find out [what it was all about], and that’s what got me hooked. From that I cut out a subscription coupon and started subscribing to Uncanny X-Men there in

TTC: What part of the country are you from? TN: Originally, I’m from Texas. I was born and raised in Texas, but I’ve been living in California for the last eleven years.

TTC: When you were drawing as a kid, were you drawing superheroes?

TTC: Is drawing something that you started to do at an early age?

TN: As a little kid I was drawing more Looney Tunes type stuff. I was really into funny animals. Even though I loved watching super-hero cartoons, I also loved all the Hanna-Barbera and Looney Tunes [cartoons]. I was really big into that, and that was what I was into when I was drawing. Then in high school, [it was] more Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Mighty Mouse type stuff. It wasn’t until art school that my tastes started to mature into wanting to draw more traditional type superheroes, and once I started focusing on that, I left funny animals far behind, and actually, funny animals have no appeal to me anymore.

TN: Yes, it was. Some of my earliest memories are of drawing, so I’ve always loved to draw. TTC: How old were you when you first started to read comics?

TN: My first comic was a Spidey Super-Stories from the Electric Company, the one with the guy with the bag of measles? That was the first comic book I remember getting, and I was probably about seven. I was into super-heroes prior to that thanks to the Super Friends cartoon and the old SpiderMan cartoon, so I was into super-heroes before I was into TTC: Which artists influenced reading comic books. I didn’t you growing up? The cover of Young Justice #1, which was “homaged” by Nauck multiple times start collecting comic books during the course of the series. Young Justice TM and © DC Comics. regularly until eighth grade, TN: A lot of artists influenced when I was about thirteen years old. me growing up, and a lot of artists influence me now. There are so many great artists out there whose work I enjoy, but I TTC: What comics jumped out and caught your eye again? remember the first one that really influenced me was Arthur TN: I remember the first comic that really grabbed me was a Adams. I know he influenced a lot of guys. His art—then and three-pack of Secret Wars comics that they sold at Target stores. now—is just some of my favorite, but other artists that really I just remember seeing issues seven, eight, and nine—I believe appealed to me at that time were Alan Davis, Rick Leonardi, 75

TC_YJ_Titans90s:TC_YJ_Titans90s

5/16/08

PM

Page 76

to do this for a career.” From then on, that’s all I wanted to do, and I just started doing what it took to achieve that. TTC: Where did you go to art school? TN: The Art Institute of Dallas. I studied commercial art and graphic design back in the early nineties. It was before they had an animation program, so there was no real training along the lines of comic book art or cartoon art at the time, so I just applied everything I learned in advertising towards A JLApe crossover cover by Arthur Adams, who was a major influence comic books. So it on Nauck growing up. Impulse TM and © DC Comics. helped me get more and Walter Simonson. professional skills that made it a lot easier to break into the business. TTC: Right off the bat, those are a lot of Marvel artists. TTC: Did your teachers know about your comic book aspirations? TN: Yeah. As a teenager in junior high, early high school, I was a Marvel zombie. TN: Yes, they did. Well, I kept it hidden for I didn’t care for DC; I thought they were a while because at the time they didn’t boring. I just did not like them at all— offer anything along the lines of that, wouldn’t touch them. I didn’t even want and many instructors were against to bother with it, but when I bought a animation and cartooning. They just friend’s comic book collection, I bought thought it was a nowhere business; in everything he had, and that included fact, one instructor told me I would end tons of DC stuff like Crisis and the first up homeless and penniless and I’d forty issues of the Wolfman/Pérez wasted my years and time and money at Titans. Since I had them, I’d read them, the school pursing that, not knowing and that’s when I really started to that at the time it was the McFarlane, understand and appreciate DC. By Liefeld, Jim Lee record-breaking boom college I was reading half DC, half where comics were selling in the Marvel. I was really plugged into the millions and those guys were becoming DCU and enjoyed it a lot, even more than millionaires off of doing comics. It was Marvel, sometimes. back in ’91, ’92 when I was in school, so I had a little different insight and opinion TTC: At what point did you start to take into that. But there were also some art seriously as a career option? instructors that saw my work, saw the TN: Probably my freshman year of high passion that I had, and took my work to school. After reading comic books for a the head of the department, and she year, a friend said, “Why don’t you make was kind enough to let me graduate a little mini-comic?” [so] I made a little with a comic-themed portfolio. I was mini-comic of my funny animal, superonly the second person for them to have hero characters, and that was so much allowed to do that at the time. fun I thought, “You know what? I want TTC: Did you try and use that portfolio 76

when you were breaking in? TN: I did not use my Art Institute portfolio to break in whatsoever. It has never served a purpose for me, mainly because the stuff I was doing was for graphic art design jobs, so I was sitting there while I was doing my art project, working up my three to four pages of sequential art to show off to editors whenever they’d come through a Dallas convention a couple of times a year. So my portfolio was the same as anyone else’s trying to break into comics. Despite my college education, I had to put together my sequential art. TTC: What would people say when they saw your art at the conventions? TN: I remember the first time I showed off my artwork. I was eighteen years old, I was still in my funny animal stage, and it was really cartoony. Really, really cartoony stuff, and I didn’t know who to show it to. I saw a professional—I didn’t know this person’s name—so I thought, “Well, I’ll see if I can get a critique from this guy,” and he just tore me a new one. He just lit into me, and [used] every foul word you can imagine to describe what I was doing with my art. It was just the most brutal critique I’d ever received. I grew up in a small country town, [and] there were no cartoonists or comic book artists around there, so when I went to Dallas to get a critique from a professional, it was a

Another influence on Nauck was Alan Davis, whose artwork comes from the collection of Robert Jewell. Starfire and Nightwing TM and © DC Comics.

TC_YJ_Titans90s:TC_YJ_Titans90s

5/16/08

PM

Page 87

THE TITANS

The Titans Arsenal Special #1 Batman Plus Arsenal #1 Tempest #’s JLA vs. Titans #’s Arsenal #’s The Titans #’s The Titans Secret Files #’s Legends of the DC Universe Page Giant #’s Beast Boy #’s Secret Origins of Super-Villains 80 Page Giant #1 The Titans Annual #1 Titans/Legion of Super-Heroes: Universe Ablaze #’s When an alien presence approached the Earth and interfered with electronic communications on the planet, the Justice League of America took action and soon discovered that it was actually the former Titan, Cyborg, in his new identity of Planet Cyberion. Having lost his humanity, Cyborg was engulfed by the Technis entity with which he had merged, and the ex-Titan had returned to the planet of his birth, guided by notions of family and home. Choosing the former site of Titans Tower as a base of operations, Cyberion collected as many former Titans as he could locate, then stored them in pods beneath the surface with their minds plugged into a virtual reality. When the Titans freed themselves from their virtual prison, they found themselves in conflict with the Justice League, who had also gathered on the island and had decided that the only way to save the Earth was to terminate Cyberion. Convinced that their friend’s soul was still intact, the Titans fought the Justice League to save Cyborg. During the battle, Nightwing discovered that the fight was actually a ruse by Batman to distract Cyberion while its CPU could be located, and that a thirty-minute assault had been planned to dismantle both the CPU and the moon-based main body of the threat. The Titans leader then formed his own team, which consisted of the five original Titans

The Fab Five Tackle Twenty-Something Tribulations

and Changeling, to travel to the moon and rekindle Cyberion’s humanity. Their mission was a success, and Cyborg’s soul was downloaded into the Omegadrome battle suit which had been left behind by the former Titan, Minion, when he left Cyberion to find a new home. The reborn Cyborg was now officially no longer considered to be a threat to the Earth, and Planet Cyberion was dismantled. Following their experience with Cyberion, the five original Titans decided to reform as a group, with five additional members to help support the team. Each member selected a second, with Damage, Argent, Cyborg, Starfire, and Jesse Quick joining the roster. The new team battled such adversaries as the newly reformed H.I.V.E., Goth, Tartarus, and the Gargoyle before Cyborg, Starfire, Flash, and Damage left the group due to personal reasons. After an attack by Dark Angel in which she attempted to remove Troia from existence, the Titans found themselves in the position of protecting a group of teenage runaways from the Department of Extranormal Operations (DEO), and the situation was compounded when it was revealed that their new ally, Epsilon, was actually a villain under the mental influence of one of the DEO children. When that connection was terminated, Epsilon returned to true form and wrecked the Titans’ headquarters in battle. The team then investigated the Apex Corporation and its founder, Garrett Donovan, who turned out to be a fugitive from another dimension. Donovan had developed his own super-powered army, known as the Favored, in order to return to his home world and free its people from the chemical dependencies which they had been subjected to by their own government. The Titans followed Donovan to his dimension, where they ultimately were responsible for liberating the citizens from the corrupting influence. Upon their return back home, they then thwarted an alien invasion of Earth by a force known as the Consensus, and were reunited with their former teammate, Starfire. The group then went to San Francisco to meet with a potential corporate sponsor in the form of Optitron, and subsequently became entangled in a sequence of events which resulted in the deaths of two of their members, Omen and Donna Troy. Following their deaths, Nightwing left the team and the group disbanded.

TM DC Comics

87

The no-longer-Teen Titans spring into action from the pages of Titans Secret Files and Origins #1, from the collection of Michael Lovitz. Titans TM and © DC Comics.

TC_YJ_Titans90s:TC_YJ_Titans90s

5/16/08

PM

Page 94

THE TITANS

Devin Grayson Titans Together! The Fab Five Plus Five

[In , the comic book community and Devin Grayson were both equally unaware of one another. A chance encounter one afternoon with a television program changed all of that. A veteran of the Batman office, Grayson rose through the ranks to first become the author of the Titans, then of their leader’s solo series, Nightwing, a few years later. Interviewed by phone on April 11, , the following interview was conducted by Glen Cadigan.]

called the Bat-office. I actually got Denny O’Neil, and I just started asking him [questions]. DC has a receptionist, and you just say, “I want to speak to the guy in charge of Batman,” and she went, “Okay,” and put me through to Denny O’Neil. We talked for a while, and he was very nice and very interested in writing and the creative process, and what it meant for someone to want to learn how to write in this medium. He passed me on to Scott Peterson, who was an editor working with him, and basically I just started a longdistance tutelage with them where they recommended material for me to read and classes to take. I went and took the story structure class by Robert McKee, and everything from Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics to everything Alan Moore ever wrote, and [started] discussing that with them. I just did that kind of casual email correspondence with them for about a year-and-a-half, and then Darren Vincenzo called one day and said, “Are you ready to write a script?” It was just a little ten-page script for the Batman Chronicles [#7—Ed.], but I did that with more excitement and passion than I’ve ever done anything, and I’ve been working in the industry ever since.

TTC: You have a different background than a lot of people that work in comics—comic books aren’t something that you grew up with. DG: That’s true. TTC: So how did you become interested in them?

DG: Actually, I was studying fiction—I’ve always been interested in fiction writing—and I came across the Batman animated series on TV. I was working my normal nine-to-five job and writing a novel at night, and I was really taken by the complexity of the characters and the richness of their relationship. I think the episode was, “If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich?” Robin had his feet up on the dashboard of the Batmobile, and I was just really taken with the idea that Batman had raised a kid. That just seemed totally crazy and interesting, and I wanted to TTC: How soon after you first started write about it. Two things became to research Dick Grayson did you immediately apparent: one was that segue into reading about the Teen they were copyrighted characters that Grayson’s first exposure to the Batman universe was through Titans? were owned by a company, so I would the animated Batman series. need to get in touch with that company, Batman and Robin TM and © DC Comics. DG: Pretty fast. I had a friend who and second, that they actually came worked in a comic book store, and I from a medium I didn’t know anything about, which was comic went down and I asked, “I’m interested in this character Dick books. Boy, once you start exploring that medium, it is so exciting, Grayson. How did I find out about him?” [Actually,] the first store and I think it took a week for me to be completely hooked. I went to was closer to me, and he was not in that one. They were not helpful. They were the typical comic hardcore aficionados TTC: So how did you go about trying to become a writer of those who won’t answer any questions if you don’t already know the characters? answer. They said something to me about Wizard, which I DG: I contacted DC directly. I was living in California at the time, imagined as some owl with large glasses. I was just completely and I just found their number on an Internet web search and coldconfused. I did not know what was going on, so I went to my 94

TC_YJ_Titans90s:TC_YJ_Titans90s

5/16/08

PM

Page 95

about who those characters were as people, and I think it’s impossible not to fall in love with them once you get to know them. So my second gravitation was I became very attached to Roy Harper, and got really interested in his story, and then Donna snuck up on me and became someone I really cared about, and just as you keep reading, you learn more and more about these characters, and you come to care about them more and more. I think my focal point has always been Dick, but they mean so much to him that it’s impossible to care about him without caring about them. TTC: How did you first become aware of Titans fandom?

A page from Grayson’s first published story in Batman Chronicles, from the collection of John Bayer. © DC Comics.

friend, and he [said], “Oh, okay. Well, he appears in this book, and he led this team, the Teen Titans,” so he gave me a bunch of those, and that was great, because that was this character I loved interacting with peers and friends his own age. So that was really fun to read about. I think there were two different Titans series out at that time—I guess they published two simultaneously or something. Anyway, I had them all mixed up. I didn’t have them in the right order, so trying to make sense of that storyline and not realizing that it was two storylines was a lot of fun and very engaging, but also quite confusing. [laughs] TTC: Did your love of Dick Grayson become a love of the Titans, or did they only appeal to you through their association with Dick? DG: No, it did extend through loving that character, and coming to understand what mattered to him and what he loved. I really got to know those characters well. And they were written so beautifully; the Wolfman/Pérez stuff was really soap operatic in a good way. You learned a lot

DG: That is a good question. Probably online; I can’t remember. I ended up joining an APA, and I met a bunch of people through the APA, so it seems like I must have known one of them first and they introduced me to it. There was a group at that time called Titan Talk, and they were writing fan fiction. They were based in Ohio, but you would send in your story and they would put a big book together and send everything out. That was incredibly helpful to me in terms of getting that continuity stuff straightened out, because these people had been following it quite loyally for years and were just a font of information, as the fans often are, and I firmly believe knew more about it than the editors. So they were a great group to be in touch with for a while, and I wrote some fan fiction with them, and even went to a coalition party in Ohio once and met a bunch of them. I’m still really good friends with two of them, one of whom is Jay Faerber, who also ended up writing the Titans professionally.

Batman and a young Boy Wonder on the back of a Nightwing TPB, courtesy of Michael Lovitz. Batman and Robin TM and © DC Comics.

going to end up doing when you’re scripting for a major publishing house. I was actually doing that because I didn’t think I had a shot at working professionally in comics, so this was a wonderful way to stay connected to the characters and keep learning about them, and be with a group of people who were as passionate about them as I was. Actually, when I did start working professionally, one of the first things you’re asked to do is disassociate yourself from APAs and stuff. I’m not exactly sure why. I think the concern being that they don’t want you to pick up material accidentally or on purpose that isn’t really yours and use it and put them in a copyright situation. I was ready to move on by that time, anyway. I had some personal issues with people in the group, but that was just an amazing outlet and a great social activity. It didn’t occur to me that that could lead into

TTC: Were you hoping that your Titans fan fiction would one day translate into writing the Titans professionally? DG: No, I didn’t. That was part of my research. You’re working in such a different format with fan fiction. That’s short story fiction in prose, so it’s obviously very different from what you’re 95

Scott McDaniel draws the New Teen Titans, also from the collection of Michael Lovitz. New Teen Titans TM and © DC Comics.

TC_YJ_Titans90s:TC_YJ_Titans90s

5/16/08

PM

Page

THE TITANS

Jay Faerber New Directions for a Downsized Titans Team

[A former card-carrying member of Titans fandom, Jay Faerber graduated from the ranks of his fellow fans to become a Titans author in his own right. With stints at both Marvel and DC on such titles as Generation X, the New Warriors, and the Titans, Faerber developed a fan following which has followed his career to Image Comics where he currently writes the critically acclaimed Noble Causes and Dynamo 5. Interviewed by Glen Cadigan on March 31, , the following transcript explores all aspects of Faerber’s career.]

It was just a bunch of fans that would write fan-fic stories and talk about the issues, and it was all done through the mail. This was before the Internet was really in full swing, and that was fun. It was a good way to get me to think about my stories more, and think about plot, and there were deadlines. You [also got] real audience feedback, so that was really helpful. I started pitching stories to Marvel and DC. Eventually they bit, and I got a couple books under my belt. I met Devin Grayson while I was in Titan Talk—she was leaving as I was joining—and she ended up getting the Titans gig for a while. When she decided she wanted to leave, she helped grease the wheels for me to come on and co-write with her for a little while, and then take over the book from her. That’s how I ended up on Titans for, I guess, about two years. I forget exactly how long my run was.

TTC: Okay, Jay, this is the part of the interview where you get to tell everyone who you are and how you came to be. JF: [laughs] All right. How far back should I go? TTC: As far back as you feel is necessary.

JF: [laughs] Well, since this is a Titans interview, I first discovered the Titans about the second year of the New Teen Titans run. I think issue twentyfive was the first one that I TTC: What was your first remember reading. They were professional work? The Titans take it to the streets in a Secret Files splash page by Paul Pelletier. on Starfire’s planet, and I just Dialogue by Faerber. Titans TM and © DC Comics. JF: Technically it was the remember being blown away last issue of one of Marvel’s that Robin and Kid Flash, who I What If? series. It was What If? # That was the first book remembered from the [Super Friends] cartoon, had their own that I was hired to write, but within weeks I got a gig at DC team and were grown up, more or less. That totally captivated retelling the origin of Wonder Girl, the Cassie Sandsmark me, and the writing and the artwork were so far above some of version. [It was] just a little ten-page story in a Secret Origins 80the other comics I’d been reading, I was hooked from there. Page Giant. The Secret Origins book ended up being published I went into college wanting to be an artist: a comic book artist. I before the Marvel book, but the Marvel book was the one I was wrote and drew my own comics all through high school and hired to write first. So they came out right around the same majored as an art major for about a semester, [then] just washed time. out. I just didn’t have it, so I switched over to writing. I ended up TTC: When Devin helped you get the job on the Titans, did any of joining a Titans amateur press association (APA) called Titan Talk.

TC_YJ_Titans90s:TC_YJ_Titans90s

5/16/08

PM

Page

the titans

Barry Kitson Drawing Titans To A Close