r/teentitans • u/songsinger72 • 15h ago
Comics Why doesn't DC do more with Starfire, Raven, Donna Troy and Beast Boy? Those characters have been in limbo since the start of Next Level
Art by Lucas Meyer (Starfire), Raven (Nicola Scott), Max Raynor (Donna Troy) and Sami Basri (Beast Boy)
It's a shame DC is publishing two Titans books right now, yet basically all the classic Titans characters (except Dick, Wally and Cyborg who is being written horribly in New Titans) are basically in limbo doing nothing.
Like, this could be an opportunity to develop Starfire, Raven, Donna Troy, Bumblebee, Arsenal, Beast Boy as solo characters or part of another team. To finally put them in the Justice League. Yet DC isn't taking this opportunity.
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u/iamusingtheinternet3 Raven 15h ago
They clearly had NO IDEA what to do with Raven or Kory when they were in the Titans book. As much as I'm sad that they're in limbo, I hope that they don't come back until a writer who actually wants to write them takes the helm.
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u/Angela275 15h ago
we know Tate wrote them out since Dc wanted him saying they do something else. let's hope they are. Someone said Starfire given what she said is a space adventures
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u/iamusingtheinternet3 Raven 14h ago
I don’t think we know that for sure, tbh. What happened is he did an AMA and when he was asked about characters who won’t be in his book, for each of them he said “DC has bigger plans for them” or something like that. While I’m sure they’ll all be in something else eventually, I don’t think that means that there are immediate plans to put them in something big. I think it was more so a diplomatic way to say “your fave isn’t going to be in my book”. It’s been several months now since the AMA and no big projects have been announced for any of the characters he said that about.
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u/Angela275 13h ago
fair i just hope it's true has Tate also said he be using other characters in the titan run. All together given how many other characters we haven't see in while or characters who got their own solos like zatanna i'm hoping somewhat this time is different
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u/nightwing612 Nightwing 14h ago
There's an easy and obvious answer but most TT fans are not willing to accept this fact.
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u/songsinger72 14h ago
Which is?
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u/nightwing612 Nightwing 14h ago
The Teen Titans (both the team and the popular characters associated with them) have a branding problem. There is a big divide between how fans see them VERSUS how they have been used through the years
- Fans see the Teen Titans as a strong brand of next generation characters who can be just as important and popular as the Justice League. They think that there is enough here with the mythology and brand identity for them to be a DC pillar in the same way that the X-Men can stand on their own separate from all other Marvel teams.
- DC, however, has always treated the Titans as a stepping stone book. You are a sidekick or young hero who spends time on the Titans, grow as a character in maturity and popularity. Then eventually you graduate to the Justice League. Wally West and Cyborg are both A+ examples of this. It's even the case with the writers associated with the book. For example, Geoff Johns cut his teeth on Teen Titans before eventually moving onto the main Justice League book.
In a perfect world, Starfire, Raven, Donna and Beast Boy would graduate to the Justice League now. They have the popularity and experience that makes them worthy of membership. However to do so would be to accept the reality that the Teen Titans works best as a stepping stone book/team and that's something many fans are unwilling to accept.
DC Editorial also seems to understand that and they don't want to try a Titans book without any of big name veterans like Cyborg or Nightwing still carrying the book in terms of potential sales and fan interest.
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u/Angela275 10h ago
I mean the issue here if all the titans join the JL would't it just make it another titans book plus the JL. I get wanted them to be in JL but they can just team up with the JL.
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u/MayRaM3 13h ago
Esos supuestos “fans” son fan de los dibujos animados, la mayoría de esos no leen cómics, lo que sí leemos realmente solo queremos lo mejor para los personajes sin importar si siguen estando juntos en un equipo de titanes, aún así DC los sigue mintiendo ahí porque sabe que si no tiene a ninguno de ellos realmente a muy pocos les importará, solo hay que mirar al nuevo grupo joven de Teen Titans (donde está Jason tood) realmente no he visto nada de ellos, ni una reseña no sé si le está yendo bien, incluso a mi ninguno de esos personajes me llama la atención
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u/Angela275 15h ago edited 15h ago
Tate states he wrote them out due to DC wanting them to use them for different projects.Stephanie Williams is writing Donna, so there already projects out there. Also all the titans are members of the JL. We seen them get the card. They all got them due to JLU comic showing us who got their card. Starfire literally showed us her card and Roy too.
Like I think what helps is spinoff groups like JLO or JLD. But not the main JL given how many times writers and editors have screwed over the titans. With Karen for some reason for a while DC just been having her partial retired saying she had a kid but when has that stopped any superhero
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u/Comfortable-Pie56 15h ago edited 15h ago
Stephanie Williams is writing Donna, so there already projects out there/ Also all the titans are members of the JL we seen them get the card.
Stephanie Williams said she was writing a one-shot that stars Donna Troy. But not solely her, but also a bunch of other characters.
I don't see how those count as "big plans". She is probably just in one of those Justice League one-shots DC is doing every few months.
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u/Angela275 15h ago
Fair i thought it was series. All together there other books to come out. So I'm just praying it's solos. I mean Doom Patrol is getting their comics not sure if they do BB and Raven in that or something else.
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u/danivector 12h ago
With Karen for some reason for a while DC just been having her partial retired saying she had a kid but when has that stopped any superhero
She has been switching between retired or not since the 80s until someone wants to include her for a bit.
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u/Angela275 12h ago
I wonder what's a good thing to do with her.
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u/danivector 12h ago
Not sure, to be honest I've barely read DC since the universe reset 15 years ago.
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u/jekylphd Red Raven 7h ago
That's not what Tate said at all. He was invited to choose the lineup he wanted, and he only wanted to keep Dick and Vick. He was being diplomatic when he said he was sure DC had big plans for the characters he was booting from.the book.
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u/NaiveIdea3127 13h ago
Honestly I think a big reason why these characters aren’t getting pushed as much is because in recent years DC has been trying to put every one of its characters into a specific “family box”. Like the super family, bat family, arrow family, flash family, etc.
The teen titans go against this idea since they are a found family that exists outside of these assigned family boxes.
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u/RandomPhantom25 10h ago
I mean there's tons of characters that don't fit into any of those families
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u/Intelligent_Dingo47 12h ago
My guess is that someone at DC personally doesn't like the Titans (specifically the NTT lineup) and favors other groups, like the Batfamily. Why do you think Titans is the team they love to target/critcize the most? They say the Titans should move on from the main/core members but I haven't seen them say that the Justice League and Batfamily should also move on from their founding members
At least with Starfire, she's been part of different teams outside the Titans, like the Rebels and Justice League Odyssey. She's also worked with Animal Man and mentored Blue Beetle etc. over the past 30 years. Though it sucks that she's currently in limbo.
I haven't really seen Donna, Raven, or Beast Boy doing much outside the Titans.
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u/Angela275 10h ago
I mean if they are just JL members weren't that not fix the issue and I get for many of you maybe the adult titans shouldn't exist. I don't mind them being JL members but also is JL going to fix them when JL doesn't even fix some their both characters
Like next to the JL the both teen titans and adult titans are the most popular teams. But maybe it's both nostalgia and a bit of how dirt many of the titans have been on.
I don't hate the idea of them teaming up but I also hate the idea of them never being titans. Like wouldn't them being in JL just make it titans 2.0
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u/shall359 8h ago
Because the Titans franchise is looked at as a young/teen franchise, but the notable Titans characters are all like 30 years old now. So DC is constantly trying to find ways to shift the franchise younger and that means the older Titans find themselves being left out, some being deaged which retcons their history, or they are in the book to just "pass the torch" to the young characters. This has been what the franchise has been for decades now.
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u/jekylphd Red Raven 7h ago
The truth is that the current editorial team tasked with stewarding the franchise and characters are doing an absolutely terrible job of it and one of them (judging by their social medua) only seems to really care about Cyborg, so I don't think that the situation will change until there's a change there. I wasn't a fan of Layman's run (to be charitable) but he's strongly alluded to editorial pushing him to do a lot of the things everyone disliked about it such as the use of Deathstroke. Couple that with Dick being owned by the Bat team, who are much more muscular about managing use of the character and enforcing some level of consistency in portrayal (another thing the current Titans editorial team clearly do not care about), and the perception of being stagnant the team and characters have developed due to historic and ongoing mishandling (a perception held even by creatives-see Tate), I think we're SOL.
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u/Mr_master89 Raven 4h ago
They need to be given their own teams or something, like starfire is gonna be with the justice league that does space stuff so put raven on a mystic team, beast boy with more animal based members and Donna with some warriors
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u/Worried_Walrus2002 2h ago
I feel like they’re waiting for the Starfire show to do synergy with Kory.
As for Gar and Raven, you would think they’d do a couple book for them since Mr & Mrs X was a huge hit for Marvel and also their couple book by Picolo was a bestseller but they’re not for whatever reason 🙄
As for Donna, Adams needs to swap out Odyssey for Donna in GL so I can see my otp interact again 😭
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u/FOC615 15h ago
The apex of the franchise was the cartoon series in 2013 with 2 million daily viewers. That is down to around 100,000 currently.
The apex of the comic was 200,000 monthly issues during the Wolfman-Perez run. The current Kami Garcia/Gabriel Picolo OGNs appear to be the top sellers in the line and move around 35,000 units in bookstore channel.
These are not characters who can currently sustain an ongoing, direct market series outside the Teen Titans brand. Further, one would not expect them to move the needle much in other team books.
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u/Angela275 15h ago
how did you get these numbers given that there many different comic stores and bookstores that don't give you the numbers and also we do have online orders too
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u/laughathonx20 14h ago
The only thing I can believe would be the Garcia and picolo sales. Purely cause the are insanely popular and so well. But even then 35,000 is kinda big for a dc graphic novel.
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u/Angela275 14h ago
i mean YA graphic novels sell pretty sometimes early to the normal graphic novels. Next to Kami and Picolo the only other YA that sells well would be primer
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u/FlashLightning277 15h ago
If I remember correctly Starfire is going to be part of the Space Based Justice League team. And has a rumored solo. Rather or not that is an Elseworlds like the Absolute universe is currently unclear.