Fanholes Comic Books Mutha@#$%! Do You Read 'Em?!? #137: Titans Hunt 35th Anniversary (Part 1 of 4)!
It's the 35th Anniversary of Titans Hunt! Join the Fanholes for a 4 part podcast that covers one of the most epic storyline in the history of the Titans!
1982's New Teen Titans #19 was my first issue, and one of the few that didn't have Romeo Tanghal giving Perez the Vinnie Colletta treatment. It was a great looking, kinda scary issue with a neat Hawkman appearance, but it didn't prompt me to start collecting the book. I think I tossed through them sometimes at 7-11, but I don't recall if they were consistently stocked, and I know that the inks returned to inadequacy. New Teen Titans Annual #2 introduced the new Vigilante, was fairly bloodthirsty, and had superior Pablo Marcos inks. That one was a childhood favorite, and I also got a couple of the drug awareness comics out of a thrift store (transparent) grab bag. Again though, I think distribution was spotty, and I don't think I saw most of the iconic issues that followed on the stands. I fairly randomly got a Jericho/Cheshire showcase in 1985's Tales of the Teen Titans #52, and the even more bizarre Teen Titans Spotlight on Aqualad #10 in 1987. More reasonable were Tales of the Teen Titans #59's reprint of the original Bonus Book story and a digest short, plus I got the wicked Baxter series New Teen Titans #4 out of a discount bin circa 1986. The switch to direct market upgraded and more expensive stock killed any interest on my part, especially once Perez was off the title. I fished some back issues of the second series and Tales (first run and reprints) out of quarter bins in 1989. I was also exposed to Titans in animation via the '60s Filmation shorts and Cyborg on Galactic Guardians, but I wasn't a DC guy, and sidekicks were a tough sale.
In 1991, I was just starting to get regular access to the direct market again, and was barely dipping my toe in at DC again. "Titans Hunt" was a key part of that, but I missed most of the arc in first run, so we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
I was still in Texas when I finally got into Titans, and most specifically The New Titans. I think their dropping the "Teen" from the title was inviting. I was living in a burnt out industrial area that had a flea market within easy walking distance-- closer than the school I was attending. It had a feeble comic shop with one wooden new release rack and maybe a dozen longboxes of back issues. Luckily though, I was able to score most/all of "Titan Plague" there, the true precursor to "Hunt. "
Gar Logan had more or less made his piece with The Terminator and his role in Terra's death back in 1985, in issues I read around '89, and then Slade Wilson was gone from comics entirely (aside from COIE cameos and a minor annual.) Tom Grummett stepped up from the minors to ink a couple of Perez's final prodigal issues, which had otherwise suffered under Bob McLeod and (sigh) Romeo Tanghal. Grummett took over pencils with Perez's final co-plotting issue, "A Lonely Place of Dying" tie-in. That one got McLeoded, but the new regular inker started with "Titan Plague" in #62.
I sincerely love Tom Grummett more than John Byrne, even though he's a blatant clone. I will never love him more than when he was inked by Al Vey, his Terry Austin, except fuck Terry Austin because Vey laps him. "Titan Plague" has the team going up against rat creature werewolf things in a rather bloody story where they need Deathstroke the Terminator to come save them. Mike Zeck drew Deathstroke covers for several years, is one of the greatest cover artists of all time, and he still comes up way short against Grummett/Vey. So does his co-creator, George Perez. Fight me.
"Titan Plague" had its faults, but it also clearly indicated where the book needed to go, and in who's hands. Like "Titans Hunt" and that Vigilante annual, it was violent try-hard grimdark, but damned if that wasn't what the Titans needed to overcome the sidekickery and get my attention. Honestly, I would have been buying those back issues around the time X-Force was getting started, and Titans was accomplishing what Rob & Fabian kept promising but not delivering (ditto Youngblood.) As you guys mentioned, these were young heroes still unpolished and fearful enough to go to a "I'm going to break your fingers" place when you put their backs this forcefully to the wall. They went from pun-spitting dorks to teen angst avatars.
I don't think I got ahold of New Titans #65-70 all at once, or even in the same state of the union, and they were mostly fumbling about until new editor Jonathan Peterson helped the creative team develop not only "Titans Hunt," but an expanded line of Titans spin-offs. Within the same year Cable was introduced, Mutants and Titans New were speeding in similar directions, but "Hunt" got there first.
I'm pretty sure that I got New Titans #71 in Colorado. It was nice to finally get the first part, but it was recapping stuff that I already knew, either from quarter bins or those later "Hunt" chapters. I also remember it having a Nightbreed insert pamphlet with a bunch of character introductions that thickened the book up. If I'd heard of Wildebeest before, I skipped those issues because they're doofy-looking. I guess all the fake fur makes more sense on an air-conditioned armor than whatever the hell Wildcat's doing. The serial killer guy was part of a narrative thread that ran for a while in those meandering pre-Hunt issues, but I'm not sure that it was ever resolved.
I also never heard of Golden Eagle before he was referenced as one of the dead later in Titans Hunt. If anyone could and should stay dead... and that one revival aside, Eagle mostly has. As I go through these issues... maybe not peak Byrne, but I certainly prefer the art here to contemporary Byrne on Namor and such.
New Titans #73 gets me to wondering with that Phantasm cover. I figure it's still too soon for me to be looking at solicitation catalogs, but I feel like I was exposed to this somewhere? Maybe Comic Shop new or DC Currents? Again again again, I had managed to dodge Danny Chase before starting on the Hunt. I didn't end up hating him as much as most, but I can't say that I was a fan, either. Phantasm was near literally the type of character that I'd have been drawing on notebook paper during class-- mine owed vastly to Moon Knight, but that shredding of the cape was de rigeur. I liked these issues, but they were a tad deliberate in pace compared to where I started. I'm also curious to what proximity I was reading these and cheapie bin copies of "The Judas Contract." There are a lot of similarities, but I took to this much more. Probably a big part of that was Hunt demonstrating greater stakes with the multiplication of character introductions/deaths. Again again again again, I've never despised Terry Long as much as most, and I'm way more favorably disposed toward Jericho than is the norm. Yet, there are few Titans that I adore near as much as the one coming in the next round...
1982's New Teen Titans #19 was my first issue, and one of the few that didn't have Romeo Tanghal giving Perez the Vinnie Colletta treatment. It was a great looking, kinda scary issue with a neat Hawkman appearance, but it didn't prompt me to start collecting the book. I think I tossed through them sometimes at 7-11, but I don't recall if they were consistently stocked, and I know that the inks returned to inadequacy. New Teen Titans Annual #2 introduced the new Vigilante, was fairly bloodthirsty, and had superior Pablo Marcos inks. That one was a childhood favorite, and I also got a couple of the drug awareness comics out of a thrift store (transparent) grab bag. Again though, I think distribution was spotty, and I don't think I saw most of the iconic issues that followed on the stands. I fairly randomly got a Jericho/Cheshire showcase in 1985's Tales of the Teen Titans #52, and the even more bizarre Teen Titans Spotlight on Aqualad #10 in 1987. More reasonable were Tales of the Teen Titans #59's reprint of the original Bonus Book story and a digest short, plus I got the wicked Baxter series New Teen Titans #4 out of a discount bin circa 1986. The switch to direct market upgraded and more expensive stock killed any interest on my part, especially once Perez was off the title. I fished some back issues of the second series and Tales (first run and reprints) out of quarter bins in 1989. I was also exposed to Titans in animation via the '60s Filmation shorts and Cyborg on Galactic Guardians, but I wasn't a DC guy, and sidekicks were a tough sale.
ReplyDeleteIn 1991, I was just starting to get regular access to the direct market again, and was barely dipping my toe in at DC again. "Titans Hunt" was a key part of that, but I missed most of the arc in first run, so we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
I was still in Texas when I finally got into Titans, and most specifically The New Titans. I think their dropping the "Teen" from the title was inviting. I was living in a burnt out industrial area that had a flea market within easy walking distance-- closer than the school I was attending. It had a feeble comic shop with one wooden new release rack and maybe a dozen longboxes of back issues. Luckily though, I was able to score most/all of "Titan Plague" there, the true precursor to "Hunt. "
Gar Logan had more or less made his piece with The Terminator and his role in Terra's death back in 1985, in issues I read around '89, and then Slade Wilson was gone from comics entirely (aside from COIE cameos and a minor annual.) Tom Grummett stepped up from the minors to ink a couple of Perez's final prodigal issues, which had otherwise suffered under Bob McLeod and (sigh) Romeo Tanghal. Grummett took over pencils with Perez's final co-plotting issue, "A Lonely Place of Dying" tie-in. That one got McLeoded, but the new regular inker started with "Titan Plague" in #62.
I sincerely love Tom Grummett more than John Byrne, even though he's a blatant clone. I will never love him more than when he was inked by Al Vey, his Terry Austin, except fuck Terry Austin because Vey laps him. "Titan Plague" has the team going up against rat creature werewolf things in a rather bloody story where they need Deathstroke the Terminator to come save them. Mike Zeck drew Deathstroke covers for several years, is one of the greatest cover artists of all time, and he still comes up way short against Grummett/Vey. So does his co-creator, George Perez. Fight me.
"Titan Plague" had its faults, but it also clearly indicated where the book needed to go, and in who's hands. Like "Titans Hunt" and that Vigilante annual, it was violent try-hard grimdark, but damned if that wasn't what the Titans needed to overcome the sidekickery and get my attention. Honestly, I would have been buying those back issues around the time X-Force was getting started, and Titans was accomplishing what Rob & Fabian kept promising but not delivering (ditto Youngblood.) As you guys mentioned, these were young heroes still unpolished and fearful enough to go to a "I'm going to break your fingers" place when you put their backs this forcefully to the wall. They went from pun-spitting dorks to teen angst avatars.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I got ahold of New Titans #65-70 all at once, or even in the same state of the union, and they were mostly fumbling about until new editor Jonathan Peterson helped the creative team develop not only "Titans Hunt," but an expanded line of Titans spin-offs. Within the same year Cable was introduced, Mutants and Titans New were speeding in similar directions, but "Hunt" got there first.
I'm pretty sure that I got New Titans #71 in Colorado. It was nice to finally get the first part, but it was recapping stuff that I already knew, either from quarter bins or those later "Hunt" chapters. I also remember it having a Nightbreed insert pamphlet with a bunch of character introductions that thickened the book up. If I'd heard of Wildebeest before, I skipped those issues because they're doofy-looking. I guess all the fake fur makes more sense on an air-conditioned armor than whatever the hell Wildcat's doing. The serial killer guy was part of a narrative thread that ran for a while in those meandering pre-Hunt issues, but I'm not sure that it was ever resolved.
I also never heard of Golden Eagle before he was referenced as one of the dead later in Titans Hunt. If anyone could and should stay dead... and that one revival aside, Eagle mostly has. As I go through these issues... maybe not peak Byrne, but I certainly prefer the art here to contemporary Byrne on Namor and such.
New Titans #73 gets me to wondering with that Phantasm cover. I figure it's still too soon for me to be looking at solicitation catalogs, but I feel like I was exposed to this somewhere? Maybe Comic Shop new or DC Currents? Again again again, I had managed to dodge Danny Chase before starting on the Hunt. I didn't end up hating him as much as most, but I can't say that I was a fan, either. Phantasm was near literally the type of character that I'd have been drawing on notebook paper during class-- mine owed vastly to Moon Knight, but that shredding of the cape was de rigeur. I liked these issues, but they were a tad deliberate in pace compared to where I started. I'm also curious to what proximity I was reading these and cheapie bin copies of "The Judas Contract." There are a lot of similarities, but I took to this much more. Probably a big part of that was Hunt demonstrating greater stakes with the multiplication of character introductions/deaths. Again again again again, I've never despised Terry Long as much as most, and I'm way more favorably disposed toward Jericho than is the norm. Yet, there are few Titans that I adore near as much as the one coming in the next round...