Teen Titans: The Silver Age Vol. 2

Teen Titans (1966) #12-24

by Bob Haney, Len Wein, Neal Adams (Artist)

By the time the Silver Age rolled around, teenage sidekicks had been a staple of superhero comics for a long time. But as popular as they were, these young heroes-in-training never considered forming a junior Justice League. That all changed with the debut of Teen Titans in 1964 when Robin, Kid Flash and Aqualad united for the first time to fight crime and injustice. Later joined by Wonder Girl and Speedy, the Teen Titans quickly became the most iconic team of super-teens of all time.

 Teen Titans: The Silver Age Volume 2 collects Teen Titans #12-24 and features an amazing array of talented creators such as Bob Haney, Marv Wolfman, Len Wein, Nick Cardy, Neal Adams, Gil Kane and Wally Wood.

Genres: Comics, Dc Comics, Graphic Novels, Graphic Novels Comics

349 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 4, 2018

About the author

Robert G. Haney was an American comic book writer, best known for his work for DC Comics. He co-created the Teen Titans as well as characters such as Metamorpho, Eclipso, Cain, and the Super-Sons.

Reviews

[Michael Emond · Rating 2 out of 5]

Are you ready for some groovy way out fun from Bob Haney and the Teen Titans? Well too bad! Haney is a horrible writer. How he got to write so many Teen Titans and Brave and Bold stories is beyond me. What a wasted opportunity. This was a great chance to write some fun super hero stories with Wonder Girl, Robin, Kid Flash, and Speedy and Aqualad pitching in sometimes. But Haney time and time again proved he had zero ability to come up with interesting villains (Mad Mod was his one villain that made a double appearance - and he was a stinker) and didn't know how to effectively use their powers to write clever adventures. Len Wein and Marv Wolfman come in for a couple of adventures and show us how it could have been done, and write the lone classic story in this collection (Eye of the Beholder) and what saves this collection from one star is we get some Neal Adams art some Gil Kane art and some Nick Cardy art. In fact, the art in this collection is some of the best you will find in the Silver age of DC. What a shame Haney - the worst writer to ever write for an extended period - stinks it up with his one gag stories ("What if there were a DJ in outer space and...that's all I got" Haney) that don't go anywhere and have no internal logic.
Look - I read this because I am a comic book nut and wanted to see these at least once. But once was enough. And no need for anyone else to suffer. The art is amazing...just redact all the words.

[Christopher (Donut) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yeah. Not very good, although I dread to think what the earlier or later stuff was like- the series went on into the "Bronze Age" with art by Don Heck and George Tuska. (sez the Internet)

Gil Kane inked by Wallace Wood, of course, is a dream team.

(Never mind the seemingly un-ironic ridiculousness of "Punch")



Neal Adams fans will recognize some of his tropes:

[Bob Wolniak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Late 60s collection contains some fun Neal Adams layout work along with the underrated Nick Cardy (who did a lot of great covers for DC besides his tenure on Teen Titans), a smattering of the ever reliable Gil Kane and even a bit of the great Wally Wood. At points, DC tried too hard to capture the teen lingo of the times, but it makes for an amusing time capsule in some respects—there were tales about a rock n roll star, a radio Dee-Jay, peaceful hippies, flower power, biker gang, dancing at a discotheque, space race stuff, Mad Mod replete with pop art cover, other dimensions, and not up to today’s standards depictions of natives in the Amazon jungle. The origin of Wonder Girl and her costume change is also here (Though she is called a cringe worthy “Wonder Chick” and “Wonder Doll” a few too many times by her adolescent teammates.)

[Megan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh, boy. I was really excited to try this collection of Silver Age Teen Titans tales because the Fab Five Titans are probably my second favorite DC team! The best thing I can probably say for these stories are that the art, mainly by Nick Cardy, is definitely the best that was coming out in the late 1960s. I don't have as much experience with older comics as I do with the modern age books, but I have a feeling this is pretty standard issue for the time. The stories were cheesy and disjointed and the overwhelming use of, what I am hoping, is period-typical slang were very off-putting to me. The best story was definitely Marv Wolfman's "The Origin of Wonder Girl". The last two stories are pretty abhorrently racist and that definitely didn't help my opinion. I may or may not attempt another stab at some Teen Titans stories just because I really do love the characters. That's comics, I guess!

[Fraser Sherman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This second collection of Titans stories runs through 1969, and like many Silver Age comics it's YMMV. I'm fond of them despite their flaws but if your definitive Titans are the Wolfman/Perez team, this may not be to your taste.
It's also interesting (YMMV again) as a sign of changing times. Bob Haney, who'd scripted the team from their debut, turns over several issues to younger creator. Mike Friedrich has some fun with the loser teen super-villain punch. Len Wein and Marv Wolfman introduce a Soviet superhero (a clear sign the Cold War was losing some steam) and attempted to introduce DC's first black superhero (didn't happen. Look it up some time it's quite a story). The book ends right before a reboot changed the direction of the team.

[Valerio Pastore · Rating 1 out of 5]

OK, mi sono fatto punto di recuperare tutti i Titani a partire dalle loro origini, ma per la miseria se non sapessi che sarebbero diventati l'iconico e maturo gruppo che conosciamo oggi, non ci avrei scommesso una lira che fosse una!
Qui la nostalgia non può battere il cringe, che ti viene addosso a pacchi, a maleodoranti zaffate di scrittura orrida come poche, di forzature agghiaccianti. E' chiaro che non si può giudicare tutto con l'occhio di oggi, questa roba era stata scritta in altri tempi e per altre sensibilità, ma sono ragionevolmente certo che persino un giovane lettore di allora avrebbe lanciato bestemmie brutte. oggi diremmo che un boomer al cubo ha scritto queste fetenzie che per fortuna sono state abbandonate.

[Kurt Rocourt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent closeout

While not as fun as volume 1 it's still a nice read. You can move onto the other Titan books knowing the original run ended like this.