Aug 1984
Old Times, Old Friends
By Marv Wolfman, George Perez, Mike DeCarlo, Ben Oda, Adrienne Roy
Aqualad and Aquagirl arrive at Titans Tower only to find it deserted. They are having trouble breathing and collapse before anyone finds them.
Donna gets permission from Queen Hippolyta to get married while Terry and Dick attend a bachelor party thrown by Barry, Terry’s brother.
Changeling breaks up the sale of high-powered rifles to some shady looking men from outside the United States. He almost kills one of the men while in the form of an elephant. Cyborg shows up and pulls Changeling off the arms dealer. He tries reasoning with Gar but he doesn’t want to hear what Vic has to say. Gar seems to still be angry about the death of Tara and ready to exert his energy on any one who he thinks might deserve a beating. He transforms into a bird and flies off.
Wally West and Frances Kane return to Titans Tower and find the unconscious bodies of Aqualad and Aquagirl. Wally alerts the rest of the Titans but only Nightwing, Starfire, Wonder Girl, and Raven respond. Changeling is mysteriously absent, possibly detained by an unknown visitor who is waiting for him at his house. Cyborg’s absence similarly goes unexplained. His paternal grandparents arrived at his apartment while he was confronting Changeling.
The Titans who respond to Wally’s call for help, plus Jericho, converge on Titans Tower. They revive their friends from Atlantis and get the full details of what happened to them and brought them to Titans Tower. They were underwater, near Atlantis when they were attacked by the forces of HIVE. They escaped and barely made it to Titans Tower before they collapsed.
The Titans don’t understand why HIVE keeps coming after them but Nightwing decides that they have to do something about HIVE. He wants Wally to join them but Wally declines without fully explaining why. The others get in the Titans submarine and take off in search of HIVE.
Thoughts
There is brief meeting between Wally and Raven. She says she still cares about him but she probably means as a friend and former teammate. There was never anything between them even though he wanted there to be and she used her magic at one point to lead him to believe that there was. What he doesn’t tell the others is that he has been experiencing pain when he uses his superpowers. Frances is the only one who knows about this issue.
Frances seems to care about Wally in more than a friendly way and wishes that he would stop thinking about Raven.
I have no idea who it is that is waiting for Gar at his palatial home. I think it is a woman and she talks with an accent but she is mostly hidden from view in the one panel in which she appears.
The first two pages, which show the arrival of Aqualad and Aquagirl at Titans Tower are both nine-panel grids.
Raven has a new admirer, a classmate named Steven. He isn’t pushy but she brushes him off as politely as she can.
Notes
Aqualad previously appeared in New Teen Titans (1980) 23 and 33. In both cases he helped the Titans retrieve something that was buried in deep waters. In one case it was a spaceship and in the other a body. Those were his most recent appearances prior to this one.
Aqualad would frequently appear in Aquaman stories and his most recent appearances in Aquaman stories were in World’s Finest 262 (Apr/May 1980) and 264 (Aug/Sep 1980). He also appeared in a New Teen Titans story that is (inexplicably) not included in this series of New Teen Titans reprints from Best of DC 18 (Nov 1981). According to the Grand Comics Database that story takes place between New Teen Titans (1980) 12 and 13.
Aqualad’s origin was revealed in his first appearance in Adventure Comics 269 (Feb 1960) but in Adventure Comics 453-455 he went on a quest to learn about his parents in a short series of 6 page stories that filled the spot that was usually taken by Aquaman stories (which usually included Aqualad). Aquaman was the lead feature in Adventure Comics prior to issue 453 (Sep/Oct 1977) but his book was revived with issue 57 (Aug/Sep 1977). The Aqualad story in Adventure 453-455 was not written and drawn by the same team that was writing and drawing the ongoing Aquaman story.
Aquagirl first appeared in Aquaman 33 (May-Jun 1967). Her most recent appearances prior to this one were in the Aquaman stories in Adventure Comics 446 (Jul/Aug 1976) to 450 (Mar/Apr 1977). Her only prior appearance in a Teen Titans comic book was in Teen Titans (1966) 30 (Nov-Dec 1970).
Titans Tower
There are no letters or notes from Marv, this month. There is a preview of the cover to New Teen Titans (1984) 2, which doesn’t reproduce very well. There is also a full page ad advertising subscriptions to both Tales of the Teen Titans (1984) and New Teen Titans (1984).
Meanwhile...
Dick Giordano reminisces about the genres and sorts of comics that he drew as he developed as a professional artist. He also makes an appeal for people to try things other that super hero books. He singles out Blackhawk, which was canceled later in 1984 although Giordano’s writes about it as though the decision had already been made, and Swamp Thing, which Alan Moore had been writing since early 1984.
Joe Kubert writes about Sgt. Rock and the men of Easy Company.
No comments:
Post a Comment