In any employment environment... outside of the job of finding a job, mutter-mutter... you have to start off at your basic level. With due diligence, and positive results, you may eventually find yourself in line for a promotion. And really, why wouldn't you desire such a change to your status quo? Higher pay rate? Increased sense of responsibility? Maybe even better vacation and health benefits? Lemme think... Uh, YEAH, it's definitely a positive! Now, when DC's premiere youth team, the Teen Titans, were united, they sought to make their own place in the world of crime-fighting, outside of the shadows of their mentors. Our original line-up included:
- Robin the Teen Wonder, to that point the athletically and mentally sharpened ward of Batman.
- Speedy, the arrow-slinging ward of Green Arrow. (Who, for Oliver Queen's early comic years, was really just a different armed version of Batman.)
- Kid Flash, the cousin to the Barry Allen Flash, and junior super-speedster in his own right!
- Aqualad, Atlantean youthful accomplice to the King of the Seven Seas, Aquaman.
- Wonder Girl... who is very confusing. For all intent purposes, she was MEANT to be the teenage version of Wonder Woman, with all inherit powers, but at some point she was created to be a separate character of her own right. ... Makes PERFECT sense.
None of these Teen Titans initially had designs to become anything more than a super team in their own right, with their own identity. But eventually, promotions can even come to a team of beings that were by-proxy the "Junion Justice League of America". Let's take an initial look at the core Teen Titans to see who made the cut!
Dick Grayson: It's unusual that out of all of the initial DC Teen Titan "legacy characters", Dick was the one that possibly took the longest time-span to be included in the ranks of the JLA. What was potentially even MORE irksome was that he had to wait until he assumed the mantle of Batman... when Bruce Wayne was displaced in time by Darkseid, or simply thought dead... to become part of the DC team-supreme! But still, there's no denying Dick Grayson's qualifications to become part of the World's Greatest Superhero team. He undertook years of training under the watchful eye of Bruce Wayne. He successfully managed and led BOTH the original Teen Titans, and the New Teen Titans. (I guess you could also count the bizarre Bronze Age relaunch of the Teen Titans, which included Joker's Daughter. ... Yes, that was a thing.) And he became a Batman city guardian in his own right when he first unveiled his new identity as Nightwing, and became protector to the corrupt city of Bludhaven. Dick's time on the JLA was all too short, but hey... One COULD say that if you counted the "Super Friends", Robin could well have been just as long tenured a JLA member as any of the Bronze Age team luminaries!
Roy Harper: What a twisty road Roy Harper's life took. Kid sidekick. Strung-out heroin addict. Searcher for a new identity. Latter-day matured Outsiders addition. BUT he did manage to weather the effects of "Infinite Crisis", and become a father with DC villainess Enchantress, to transition from the grim-'n'-gritty identity of Arsenal to Red Arrow, the JLA archer supreme in the then-current new DC Universe. But just like Dick Grayson, Roy's time in the JLA was almost a blink-and-you-miss-it event, leading into his creative degradations in the forms of "Justice League: Cry for Justice" and "Justice League: Rise of Arsenal". Let's see... His daughter ends up murdered. Roy loses an arm to gain a trendy cyborg arm. Roy, after the lackluster "Flashpoint", ends up being stuck in "Red Hood and the Outsiders"... With ANOTHER former JLA member I'll discuss in a little while.
Donna Troy: Ugh... Detailing her past is almost as frustrating as my recent job search efforts, so I'll just say if you REALLY want to know the details of her past, please feel free to research it on your own. But somehow she was able to escape being an weirdly time-displaced version of a teenage Diana Prince to become her own person. Wonder Girl survived two tenures of the Teen Titans into the New Teen Titans. Donna Troy was ALSO the first Teen Titan to be married... to a major wimp of a character with a SPECTACULAR 80's "sensitive guy" perm and mustache combo! After that, my knowledge of the character becomes extremely fuzzy, with my solid foundations being she somehow joined an offshoot of the Green Lantern Corps called the Darkstars, and had a relationship with the Kyle Rayner Green Lantern. But remember how I talked about the unusual JLA team Dick Grayson was part of? Donna Troy also happened to be part of that untraditional group of post "Brightest Day" Leaguers... and lasted just as long in the role as Dick Grayson managed to do so. (However, they both outlasted Mon-El as a member of the team!)
Wally West: A freak lightening bolt created Kid Flash, super-speedster sidekick to Barry Allen's Flash. He was lucky in that he had a more thorough evolution than Dick Grayson. He started off in a lanky kid's version of the Flash costume, which transitioned into his own costume choice. Wally was also a transitory figure in both of the Teen Titans periods. But it was the original "Crisis on Infinite Earths" that pushed Wally... after Barry Allen's sacrifice... into taking over the full Flash identity. I would dare say that Wally was the FIRST Teen Titan, after the Crisis, to be considered a member of a Justice League team. He was an integral part of the Justice League Europe branch for a long period of time. And when Grant Morrison relaunched the JLA for the 90's, Wally was a member of the "Big Seven" best-selling team. However, current DC developments seem to want us to forget Wally's legacy by needlessly resurrecting Barry Allen, but there's no denying his was maybe the most impactful promotion!
What's that, you say? I'm forgetting Aqualad? ... No, I'm not, because he was never included into the Justice League. Not EVEN when he switched identities to Tempest. And you people thought Aquaman suffered long-term degradation periods... But with the New Teen Titans, we received new teen superheroes that would make their own global impacts, and would ALSO be part of a JLA promotion drive!
Koriand'r: I come and go in waves with Starfire's appeal. On the one hand, she has a fine power set, and I can't imagine the New Teen Titans without her as a part of the team. I also can't deny she served as a great romantic interest for Dick Grayson for a stretch of time. And still also, I can't deny she's not... er... "hard to look at". But I also feel that, personality-wise, she can be a flat character if not in the right hands. But that being said, a former slave to the alien Gordanian race did just right by herself on Earth, ingratiating herself nicely into the superhero community. Enough so that around the period that Dick and Donna joined the JLA, Koriand'r was also included in the "Brightest Day" fun! ... Or maybe she took advantage of her past relationship with Dick, and wiggled around in her costume for her current promotion.
Victor Stone: I'm not sure if I saved the "best" for last, but Vic Stone as Cyborg is the ONE former New Teen Titan that managed to lock a prominent position in the "New 52" Justice League. (Albeit with a new origin, and sacrificing a lot of his personality that he carried before the universal transition.) Vic was involved in a lab accident instigated by his Father and Mother. His mother died as a result, and Vic was horribly mutilated, having to be rebuilt from scratch into a half human/half machine hybrid. His abilities include having enough devices built into his body to make any action figure jealous, a VERY hard-to-find "Super Powers" figure of his own right, a starring role in the last "Super Friends" television series, appearances on "Smallville", and from the period I know Vic best... an endearing chip on his shoulder which created a bit of an attitude. I still sometimes feel that his push to prominence in the current Justice League feels a bit "off", but I don't blame that on Victor Stone the man. And while he may argue about how much percentage of actual "man" that is, I wouldn't allow him the self-pity, and say he's become a fantastic superheroic MAN in his own right!
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