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Shotgun Reviews presents:
The
Team Concept, Part 4:
The Teen Teams
by: Troy Brownfield
When
examining the overall concept of comic book super-hero teams,
it's necessary to take a sidestep and look at the subgenre
of the "teen team". While various team combinations and concepts
have met with varying degrees of success or failure over the
decades, it seems that the "teen team" holds a somewhat constant
presence. Taking that into account, I'm going to explore the
appeal of several "teen" groups: The Teen Titans, the early
X-Men, Infinity Inc., the New Warriors and Young Justice.
The
Teen Titans: The first teen team, the Teen Titans' original
five member line-up was composed entirely of the sidekicks
of DC's big guns. Sidekicks themselves had been a 1940's phenomenon;
publishers thought that the big, imposing heroes needed a
young partner to enhance the accessibility of the stories.
Of course, now we know that a hero or a sidekick can stand
on their own when the writing and art is superior, but then
it was common practice to try to shoehorn a teen version of
the character into the adventures.
At any
rate, Robin, Wonder Girl, Kid Flash, Aqualad and Speedy (the
sidekicks of Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Aquaman and
Green Arrow, for the uninitiated) were molded into a team
whose goal was to tell "mod" and "hip" stories from a young
perspective. Just as the JLA was supposed to hook readers
with cosmic level battles between good and evil, the appeal
of the Titans lay as much in their civilian clothes and day-to-day
situations.
The formula
proved appealing; the Titans have pretty much existed without
much interruption since their first appearance in The Brave
and The Bold #54, a mere two-and-a-half years after the first
appearance of the JLA. The core of the team has always been
teen sidekicks and younger versions of big DC stars (with
the notable exception of Dan Jurgens' mid-90s all-original
character run). At one point in the 1980s, the "new" Teen
Titans (written by Marv Wolfman, art by George Perez, roster
of Robin, Starfire, Wonder Girl, Kid Flash, Cyborg, Raven
and Changeling) was second only in popularity to Marvel's
Uncanny X-Men.
The
Uncanny X-Men: When the X-Men first debuted in the early
1960's, the five members (Cyclops, Iceman, Beast, Angel, and
Marvel Girl) were all teens. Coupling the theme of the outsider
with a direct age-appeal factor, it's no wonder that the mutants
have always been huge among adolescents.
Consider
this: it's always cool to be the outlaw, the rebel. The X-Men
were that in spades. In their early adventures, they would
hang out in swanky Greenwich Village beat dives and try to
hunt down other outcasts. The subversive nature was a total
compliment to a lot of the '60s social issues that were running
concurrently in America. Really, it's no wonder that the book
was running out of steam and verging on cancellation as the
Vietnam War was ending; the teens who grew up with the X-Men
had more to worry about than just being different. They worried
about getting shipped out and coming home in black bags.
Still,
viable franchises can always reinvent themselves. The X-Men
relaunched in 1975 with a broad new international line-up
and they exploded. Central to this popularity surge was Wolverine,
who was far from a teenager. Still, even though the X-Men
have grown up, their teen roots are still evident in their
many spin-offs, like The New Mutants (now X-Force) and Generation
X.
Infinity
Inc.: Infinity Inc. arrived in the 1980s, just after the
period when the X-Men and New Teen Titans were slugged it
out for sales. A direct market book that was shipped exclusively
to comic shops and not newsstands, it was geared toward a
slightly older reader.
The theme
of Infinity Inc. was built on the back of the Titans with
a new twist. Like the Titans, the Infintors were second-generation
heroes, but they were the actual children of heroes from DC's
Justice Society and All-Star Squadron. Therefore, you had
a built-in generation gap, the ability to update older characters
through their children, and dozens of story possibilities
just by having a supporting cast of parents that was already
familiar to fans.
Infinity
Inc. ran for only 53 issues, but in my estimation the book
has had boundless impact. It introduced a group of characters
that appear in nearly a dozen current DC books with frequency.
It even recently experienced a rebirth of sorts with DC's
new JSA title. JSA features original Justice Society members
alongside their children and grandchildren; it truly is a
book that appeals to the oldest and youngest readers.
New
Warriors: A late '80s/early '90s entry into the genre
was Marvel's New Warriors. A mix of pre-existing young characters
and brand new ones, Warriors was always something of a cult
book. It never really broke out or came into its own. It lasted
75 issues, and a recent relaunch only 12.
My suspicion
is that the title never had an exact sense of itself. When
Fabian Nicieza wrote it, it was balanced between super-action
and young-adult problems. As it was passed to other writers,
it became a sort of Avengers-lite/X-Men wannabe and was far
less fun. It was also increasingly hard to believe that Nova
and Namorita, characters introduced in the '70s, could still
be classified as "New".
Young
Justice: Everything comes full circle, I suppose. DC's
current teen group, Young Justice, went back to the idea of
young sidekicks and versions of older heroes. With a roster
consisting of the current Robin, the current Superboy, Impulse
(the far-future grandson of the Barry Allen Flash and Wally
West's cousin), the current Wonder Girl, Arrowette (a young
female version of Green Arrow) and the Secret, the team embodies
the concept of the original Teen Titans with timely humor,
snappy banter and great art. As the Titans themselves have
been allowed to grow into their 20s and into their own teen-less
The Titans title, YJ have taken the mantle of the teen group
at DC.
So what
does it all mean? Teen groups will continue to be a staple
of comics, but their very nature is cyclical. Teenagers change.
Every new crop brings new tastes and outlooks. Therefore,
teen-groups may have a shorter half-life as the fickle nature
of adolescents demands the new and different almost constantly.
Whereas an older group like the JLA will continue to endure
through the decades on the basics, the teen titles (like music
and teen-drive TV) entertain for their generation, then tend
to fade. Still, they leave characters and impressions that
linger long after the last page has been turned. Like puberty,
they are an important and necessary component to the maturation
of comics as a whole.
In part
5 of my team concept essay series, I'll look at how
the emergence of Image in the early '90s changed the face
of team books. In part 6, I'll take on the ideal of the post-modern
superteam, using Watchmen as my model. And in part 7, the
last team concept essay, I'll go over the last great super-team
of the 1990s, The Authority, and how it reflects what has
gone before.
Troy
Brownfield is the Editor-In-Chief of Shotgun Reviews. He never
got to be a teenage super-hero, but at least he got to read
about them. Email him at psikotyk@aol.com.
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