Follow the link at the bottom for the full interview.
Here’s an example (and I promise to get back to your questions in a moment)… in issue one Tim and Cassie share a good part of the issue together… the plot calls for this, that and this, and based on what happens in issue one, I know that they have to be together again in issue two. But then the art comes in on issue one and their interaction with each other is so vivid and has so much energy and is so dynamic that it can’t help but change what I had in mind for their interactions in the next issue. Same with issue three and so on.
(It is like meeting someone for a first date: hardly anyone thinks “I am going to meet this person for drinks and then we are going to hit it off and have lunch tomorrow and then dinner on Friday and we’ll spend the night making love and I’ll move in on Saturday morning and she’ll get pregnant and we’ll get married and have three kids and then get divorced and I’ll make a fool of myself at her second wedding and two of our kids will stop talking to me.” At least I hope people don’t think that way. No, you go out on a date and you see what happens! That is mostly how I approach working on a monthly title.)
So the round about answer to your question is I don’t know, not exactly. Right now, it feels to me that if you read TEEN TITANS #1 and SUPERBOY #1, they serve two masters at the same time: if you are reading the characters for the very first time you should feel like you haven’t missed a thing… and if you’ve been reading the characters for the past 15 or 20 years you’ll be surprised to discover most of what you know about the character is there… just tweaked.
(Sort of like the way you read a favorite book and then it becomes a movie. An actor is going to bring his or her talents to the role, and it is going to be different from what you’ve had in your head. Same character for the most part, just different choices, perhaps, in interpretation.)
Tim Drake is a perfect example. Yes, he figured out Bruce’s secret identity and yes he became Robin and yes things happened in his past that prompted him to move on from that role and become Red Robin. How long ago was that? What brought him from there to issue one of Teen Titans? I’d like to leave it vague enough that long time fans can take comfort in knowing a lot of the stories they loved still happened…and a lot of new readers (or fans who haven’t read the book in five or ten or twenty years) can sit down with issue one and feel they haven’t missed out on several decades of continuity with these characters and this world.
Similarly, Superboy comes to Teen Titans and his own series with a lot of his D.C.history in place. He still showed up shortly after the Death of Superman, he is still the clone of Superman and Lex Luthor. How we reconcile his past with the opening issues of Teen Titans and Superboy? That, I’m afraid, has to remain vague for now (it is bad enough if someone in the audience shouts out the ending of the movie — imagine how much more depressing it would be if the writer shouted out the end of the movie four months before the movie was released!).
Are there changes and trims and tweaks — in some cases total re-imagining of characters? Yes. But, you’ll find, even with those characters, 95% per cent of them are totally recognizable. (Bart isn’t a serial killer sentenced to the present from the 30th Century. Cassie is still the daughter of archeologist Helena Sandsmark.)
Regarding tight continuity between the titles, absolutely. While it won’t be a sneeze in one book and a “God bless you” in the other, the actions in both books will impact on the other. I was originally asked to write another title besides Superboy, but when Eisner-nominated Jeff Lemire opted not to relaunch Conner again so shortly into his own run, I jumped at the chance to writer Superboy.
(My favorite comics have always been ones that felt like they were taking place in the same world with stakes for both books. Like if I’m reading Teen Titans with Superboy, and Superboy was trapped in the 30th Century for a year in his own book, I would have to make a choice which story is “real”… and I always hate that.)
We seem to have a relatively diverse cast – 7 people, three women, three from ethnic minorities. Is this kind of mix important to you and what kind of stories does it suggest?
I’ll say this: if the comic industry never created another young white male super hero, we’d be okay. Not that I have anything against them, but I don’t think the over abundance of them reflect the world we live in.
So yes, the three characters who are not the Core Four are “diverse” — even the villain in the second issue is Samoan, and the forth member of the Outlaws is a young black man.
What kind of stories does that suggest? It almost sounds like a trick question, LOL. I think it suggests stories that take place in a “real world” where not every president or pop star or neighbor is a young white male. But I don’t think there are inherently different types of stories that are told because there are black or Japanese or Mexican super heroes fight alongside Robin and Wondergirl.
Over the years I’ve shared in the creation of a handful of super heroes that have been “diverse”… Skin, Mondo, Cecilia Reyes, Synch, the unfortunately named Maggot, Noir over in Wildcats, Puck’s daughter, Centennial and M to name a few. Do I do it on purpose? Honestly, yes… because I can’t imagine how frustrating it must be to pick up a comic book and not see “yourself” reflected on the pages.
At Marvel I used to argue you can’t have a team sub-titled “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes” and then have no people of color represented. “Really? Seven billion people on the planet and you can’t find one of them that isn’t white to put on a team of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes? On Earth. On all of earth?” One editor even told me “Vision is red!” Seriously.
Okay, so what’s the real hook do think is going to make people pick up this book, when we have 51 other issue ones from DC in the same month – including two of your own?
Now. It is all happening in the moment. We’re seeing a team — a new generation — of young men and women with abilities and powers coming together for the first time and trying to stay alive and even flourish in a very hostile world. I am almost hesitant to call them “super heroes” at this point in the series, because I think that is a role you grow in over time based on your experiences and the choices you make.
Honestly, how many sixteen year-olds know what they want to do with their lives? How many change their minds along the way?
I think Tim Drake is a fascinating character because unlike Dick or Jason or Damien, he’s never seen himself on a career trajectory to someday grow up to be Batman. So if he’s Red Robin until he’s twenty and decides to go to college and become a heart surgeon, would that be so crazy? The world can always use a good heart surgeon as much as they need another super hero.
Relax, Tim’s not going to quit the Titans to be a doctor! I’m just saying, these kids are young and they should be free to make any future choices based on their experiences — this notion that every young person who calls themselves a Teen Titan is destined to grow into a full-fledged super hero with membership in the Justice League or Outsiders some day? That idea should be put to bed right now, otherwise we’re just watching kids going through the motions on the road to Destiny instead of living their lives in the now.
So how much input did you have on the new designs for these characters?
Lots and lots! LOL! Brett said on another site that “the battles between me and Scott were epic!” And they were. We would go round and round about Red Robin, for example. Brett didn’t want to change him at all — and I wanted huge steam-punk wings that would allow him to get from place to place without being cradled in Wondergirl’s arms or riding Superboy piggyback. (I’m sorry, but Starfire cradling Robin in her arms while he’s shouting out orders to the team is one of those images you just never forget.)
I felt really strongly that Red Robin has to be different from Robin who has to be different from Nightwing and Red Hood and Batgirl and Huntress and everyone who puts on a mask and becomes part of the “Bat Family”. Tim has to be more than just another teen detective in an ever revolving domino mask — and part of the way to do that is for him to adapt to his environment. When he’s leaping from roof to roof with Batman, he can function like a Batman. But when he’s running around with guys that can topple buildings or speed around the city in ten seconds, he needs to adapt in ways that don’t make him a liable to the rest of the team.
Brett would write to me and say “Robin is named after Robin Hood, not the bird. No wings.” I would write back and say “Let’s just TRY the wings, see how they look.” He would write back “I sketched out some wings. They don’t work.” I’d say “Can I SEE the wings and we can DISCUSS the different looks?” and he’d write back and say “Fans don’t want to see Red Robin with wings. I know, I am a fan. They won’t accept him with wings.” LOL! This went ’round and ’round and ’round until he relented and showed me the wings and then we all got really excited because Red Robin looks so great with those wings! They say “Yeah, I’m a teen detective — but I’m smart enough to know what I need to kick your ass!” (Storywise, how he came by those wings in continuity and the other additions to his “utility belt”, is so exciting I want to blurt them out right here! And when you look at the character’s history, he grew up around a guy who had bat-mobile, a bat-copter, a bat-boat, a batcave, and the most expensive toys in the world. This notion that Red Robin wouldn’t similarly use today’s technology to help him in his own fight against crime flies in the face of everything we know about the character.)
Brett saw himself as a vanguard for what is traditionally the Teen Titans. But it was always a matter of philosophy. He felt we shouldn’t change the look that much…that Robin and Wondergirl and Kid Flash and etc were iconic. I had a totally different view:
Of all the teams in the D.C. Universe, none of them have been more about change than the Teen Titans. Dick Grayson is maybe the first character I can think of who “graduated” from being a sidekick into being his own superhero, lets start there. Donna Troy started out as a mod girl in essentially Wonder Woman underoos, into that red jumper, into losing the name Wondergirl completely, into being one of the most respected super heroines in DCU. Wally eventually became Flash. Speedy and Garth waded off to parts unknown (and even they came back as Red Arrow/Arsenal and Tempest at some point) with the second relaunch of Teen Titans, their seats replaced by a cyborg, an orange pin-up model in a purple armored bikini and a woman in big black cape (and you know, those three went on to become the superstars we know and love twenty years later).
Eventually entirely new people took over the roles of the Titans: Tim Drake became Robin, Cassie Sandsmark went from geeky tagalong to Wonder Woman to the hot kick ass in the T-shirt and fashion plate she is today, Bart, formerly Impulse, became Kid Flash, and Superboy joined the team — and even the notion of a Superboy went from the original younger Clark, to a clone in a leather jacket and maybe the worst hair cut in the industry, into the drop dead sexy T-shirt wearing beefcake we’ve come to know and love. And that’s not even counting the two dozen other characters who have come and gone over the years in all the incarnations of the Teen Titans.
To me, the most iconic part of the Titans, is that they change.
Source: Bleeding Cool
