Continuing a look back at my first exposure to a number of rock 'n' roll acts and superheroes (or other denizens of print or periodical publication), some of which were passing fancies, and some of which I went on to kinda like. They say you never forget your first time; that may be true, but it's the subsequent visits--the second time, the fourth time, the twentieth time, the hundredth time--that define our relationships with the things we cherish. Ultimately, the first meeting is less important than what comes after that. But every story still needs to begin with that first kiss.
THE TEEN TITANS
Robin the Boy Wonder! Wonder Girl! Kid Flash! Aqualad! I was six years old in 1966, and I I was certainly a fan of ol' Robin from his heroic appearances on my favorite TV show Batman. The others were unfamiliar to me prior to my introduction to DC Comics' junior superhero group The Teen Titans. I didn't even really know Wonder Woman or The Flash yet, and I first encountered Aquaman around the same time as my first issue of Teen Titans. That would have been Teen Titans # 6, cover-dated November-December 1966.
But I for damned sure knew Robin. Batman and Robin! I think I saw a house ad for Teen Titans # 1 before ever noticing the Titans on the spinner rack. I was absolutely fascinated by DC's house ads during this era, colorful come-ons that teased and enticed with glimpses of everything from Batman and Superman to Starman and Black Canary, Dial H For HERO, The Spectre, Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, and Scooter. I don't remember whether or not I ever owned a copy of Teen Titans # 1; I think maybe I did buy it as a back issue in the '70s, but if so, it's long gone now. Either way, though, its cover captivated my young mind, and I wanted it.
In this time frame, my parents frequently allowed me to pluck a comic book of my choice from the rack at Sweetheart Corner, a grocery store in North Syracuse. That's how Teen Titans # 6 came into my possession. Robin was on the cover! Of course.
And I loved it. This issue guest-starred Beast Boy from The Doom Patrol; my only previous exposure to The Doom Patrol was another irresistible house ad, depicting a team-up of the Doomsters and that Scarlet Speedster, The Flash. My next Teen Titans was # 11 (September-October 1967), which guest-starred The Green Arrow's sidekick Speedy (and opened with a scene revealing the Titans' bulletin board, featuring pinned letters from Earth-One's version of President Lyndon Johnson and that other Fab Four, The Beatles).
Seeing Speedy with the Titans prepared me for the team's TV debut in the fall of '67, as The Teen Titans became one of the rotating guest features on the new Saturday morning cartoon series The Superman-Aquaman Hour Of Adventure. This show aired on CBS, but the Boy Wonder was still contractually obligated to appear with his caped crusadin' mentor over on ABC, thus elevating Speedy to full Titandom, at least on Saturday mornings.
I bought Teen Titans comics when I could. Writer Bob Haney's willful abuse of the English language in pursuit of his outta-touch idea of hip teenspeak can be kinda painful to read now, but I was all in as a young'un. The art by Nick Cardy was terrific, and would become even better as the series continued. Cardy may be my all-time favorite comics artist, and I first encountered his work in Aquaman and Teen Titans.
(Even beyond his overall skill as a draftsman and visual storyteller, Cardy drew some of the prettiest girls in comics, including Wonder Girl and early '70s Titans addition Lilith.)
DC's Teen Titans comic book lasted 43 issues, succumbing to cancellation at the end of '72. It was brought back for another ten issues in the late '70s, but the latter series was not my cuppa. In the early '80s, writer Marv Wolfman and artist George Perez managed a popular and critically-acclaimed revival as The New Teen Titans, and that series (which also brought back Beast Boy, renamed Changeling) made the Titans into A-listers from that point forward.
The New Teen Titans was a great book, and it was key to getting me back into comics after I graduated college. The six-year-old superhero fan from 1966 had grown up...but I resisted growing up too much.
1966 was a big year for me and my superheroes. I liked superheroes before actors Adam West and Burt Ward donned capes and masks to bop the bad guys as TV's Batman and Robin, but it was certainly Batman that knocked that interest into overdrive. My previous affection for Superman comic books grew into a full-blown obsession with all sorts of superdoers patrolling the spinner racks and magazine shelves. I discovered Marvel Comics in there somewhere, starting with Sub-Mariner and The Incredible Hulk in Tales To Astonish.
I first encountered The Mighty Thor in the pages of The Avengers # 13, the same time and place where I first met Captain America, Iron Man, Giant-Man, and The Wasp. We were vacationing at my grandparents' house in Missouri, and my sister Denise and cousin Cheryl came back from a walk with that comic book in hand. It was an old comic book, published at the end of '64 (postdated February '65, as comics were wont to do), probably coverless. Okay by me. Any book you ain't read is a new book.
This book was so important to me, and I read it and re-read it many, many times. I have no idea of when I next saw the mighty God of Thunder in a comic book--by the time I got another issue of The Avengers, Thor was no longer an Avenger--but even the one appearance was sufficient to instill wonder and awe in this six-year-old. And if I didn't see Thor in the funny pages, I could see him on TV; Thor joined Captain America, Iron Man, Sub-Mariner, and The Hulk as one of the rotating stars of The Marvel Super-Heroes, a series of (barely) animated short cartoons that aired weekday afternoons, beginning in September of '66. The year of the superhero!
My introduction to T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents was most definitely second-hand. If there were issues of Tower Comics' 25-cent giant T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents on the rack at Sweetheart, I missed 'em, and I didn't get around to seeing any of them (and their sublime Wally Wood artwork) until snagging a couple of back issues in the '70s. No, instead I saw two parodies first. The second of the two was from Marvel Comics, as seen in the humor book Not Brand Echh. I didn't come aboard the Brechh train until its fourth issue, so I missed seeing NBE # 2's cracked-mirror version of Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. facing Dynamo and NoMan of The T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents (that would be Knock Furious, Agent of S.H.E.E.S.H. facing Dynaschmoe and Invisible Man of The Blunder Agents). But I did see it when it was reprinted in Not Brand Echh # 10--"The Worst Of Not Brand Echh"--in the summer of '68. I have all of the Not Brand Echhs in a hardcover collection now.
My first vicarious exposure to T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents was in a DC Comics humor title: the bad guys in H.U.R.R.I.C.A.N.E., as seen in DC's The Inferior Five # 1 in 1967. We covered that in a previous Everlasting First. I wish there were a hardcover Inferior Five collection I could buy now.
The classic TV anthology series The Twilight Zone ended in 1964, so four-year-old me should have had no business watching it. Maybe it was still in reruns a little after that? Not that I would have been any braver to face the show at six or seven years old. I remember that creepy opening, and I remember the show scared the livin' chicklets outta me. Ooh! I particularly remember one episode where a mystic scarab or something caused some poor geezer to crumble into dust before my terrified eyes. Brrr! This never happened on Batman. Robin! ROBIN! Save me, Boy Wonder!
Or, y'know, you could send Wonder Girl to save me. That would be fine, too.
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