Something I wanted to share with all of you.
This weekend, at Comic-Con, I found and purchased Teen Titans #89. While this number might seem rather unexciting, it was incredibly important to me. You see, for the past eight years or so, I’ve been collecting the second run of Teen Titans. With this final purchase, I completed that journey I began on the other side of adolescence.
When I was 10, the Cartoon Network show of Teen Titans was just starting, and I loved it. I knew it came from comic books, and one day my mom surprised me with the first 8 issues of the second run. They had rebooted the series right around the same time the show started, so people would want to pick it up.
Even as a little kid, I knew that these weren’t necessarily the best of stories. At their core, they’re popcorn-stories, with lots of explosions and cool abilities. What I didn’t expect, though, was how intimate the series would be. Right off the bat, the writers and artists made me care so much for these characters, because they were people I could relate to. They were young people, with a lot of potential, growing up in a world that they didn’t really understand, and just trying to find their place in it.
More than anything, that’s what drew me to Teen Titans, over all of the other multitudes of comics out there. These are kids who get scared, and frustrated, and depressed, just like any other teen. Even more importantly, they can’t excel, or sometimes even survive, without each other’s help. The messages of trust, acceptance, and teamwork rang true for me, if only because those were values that so often eluded me. There’s a reason their battle cry is “Titans Together”—it’s the phrase that sums up why they are so important.
There’s a lot of people who write off Teen Titans, and that’s depressing, because if they looked, they’d see differently. I don’t read a lot of DC titles, but I’d be a very different person today if I hadn’t decided that I wanted reading comics to be a part of my life, and for that, I thank them.
It’s been fun, guys. Thanks for the ride.
(and yes, that is Teen Titans #1 signed by the god himself, Geoff Johns)
