(New comics don't arrive until Thursday this week, so here's another "Classic" review to fill the gap.)Continuing with The Brave and the Bold, this issue presented the second appearance of the Teen Titans (although it's the first time they were called by that name) - and it included a huge mistake.
The team included Robin, Aqualad, Kid Flash (whose costume is mis-colored inside, though it's fine on the cover) and Wonder Girl.
And that's where the mistake came in - there was no such character as Wonder Girl! Well, not exactly. Wonder Girl had appeared in issues of Wonder Woman's comic - but they were the adventures of a teenage Wonder Woman.
But in this issue we see Diana and Hippolyta waving goodbye to Wonder Girl as she flies off to join the team. It was a continuity glitch that several writers and artists have tied themselves in knots trying to fix. I'm not even sure what the last "fix" was.
All that aside, this is one wacky issue. The Titans are summoned to the town of Midville when a giant lumpy red hand starts damaging buildings. They arrive and find the town under attack by the body parts of the titanic Separated Man. (As far as I know, this was his only comics appearance. Shocking, I know.)
The story (credited to Bob Haney) is fine, though nothing extraordinary, but the art by Nick Cardy is outstanding, with lots of great action scenes, beautifully illustrated characters and terrific layouts. Cardy would go on to a long and happy relationship drawing the adventures of the original Titans.
As a 9-year-old kid reading this comic (which is cover dated June-July 1965), I have to admit that I wasn't crazy about sidekicks, but I did enjoy this team and followed the Teen Titans for years.
Heck, I didn't even know about the mistake with Wonder Girl for years, because I didn't read Wonder Woman. Perhaps readers were more forgiving in the years before the Internet. Or perhaps ignorance really is bliss.
Grade: B+
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2 comments:
To be fair, all of that backstory was explained in the previous series.
Yep, they've tackled Wonder Girl's backstory several times - including during the original run of the series and then twice in the Wolfman and Perez "New Teen Titans" - and then John Byrne tackled it in his run on "Wonder Woman."
I find it interesting that Wonder Girl and Power Girl (and to a degree, Supergirl) have had to go through retcons, largely because of the "Crisis" events that were supposed to clear up continuity problems.
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