Amazing Heroes Issue #2 Representative Page

Amazing Heroes Issue #2 Representative Page

Periodicals
Comic Strips

This is the first page of an article found in the second issue of the periodical Amazing Heroes. This article was written by Tom Burkert and it is described as a hero history of the Teen Titans in the table of contents of this issue. Around the title of the article are the heads of six superheroes who were in the Teen Titans group. They are Robin, Wonder Girl, Kid Flash, The Harlequin, Mal, and Speedy. The part of the article on this page gives a brief overview of the publication history of the Teen Titans from conceptual birth to the time of this issue’s publication with some additional commentary and speculation about that history. This is followed by the first section of this article which is titled “The First Team-Up” and is accompanied by a small drawing of Robin. This section gives a description of the first time some of these heroes joined forces. The sections that follow are titled “The Titans and Teen Culture”, “Origin of the Titans”, “The Early Days”, “The Batman Craze”, “Hip Haney Dialog”, “Clamor for More Members”, “The Giordano Influence”, “WG’s Origin, New Costumes”, “Haney Returns”, “The First Revival”, “Mal Gets Super”, “Heroes Galore”, and “The New Titans”.

The six superhero heads around the title represent only some of the Teen Titans and pull from different parts in the Titans history. Robin and Kid Flash were part of this “first team-up”, but they were not called the Teen Titans at the time and Aqualad who was also a part of that “first team-up” is not pictured. This may be due to his leave of absence from Teen Titans #19, though he made appearances after that. Wonder Girl joined the group the first time they were called the Teen Titans and Speedy joined in issue #19. Mal joined in issue #26 and the Harlequin joined in issue #48, after the first revival. These representations are to give a broad overview of who was in the Teen Titans during its run. The mission of this article was to give a detailed history of the Teen Titans due to the popularity of The New Teen Titans series which had released its ninth issue during the same month of the publication of this issue of Amazing Heroes. Due to both the large disparity in popularity between the original series and this new series and the time since the group’s inception, it would have been reasonable to believe that a good percentage of the current comic audience would not have known this information. The article also discusses the way the series responded to cultural and market pressures. The group was originally conceived in the wake of the Justice League with the market interest in team-ups. Teen Titans did not resist the camp influence that the sixties Batman television show had but was originally canceled after the Batman craze died. The series was revived due to good sales of reprints but was canceled again due to management feelings. The group was brought back again in the wake of the X-Men’s success.

Tom Burkert - Contributing Writer
J. Michael Catron - Executive Editor
Laura K. Beal - Editorial Assistant
Peppy White - Art Director

MSU Special Collection Comic Art, PN6725.A47

Zam Inc.

1981-07

Gregory McClure

Rights Restrictions Apply

8 3/8" x 10 7/8", black and white

English

Periodical

1981-1992

Periodical

8 3/8" x 10 7/8"