Are the Early Wolfman/Perez Titans a ripoff of the Avengers?

[MCMaenza]

Re: Are the Early Wolfman/Perez Titans a ripoff of the Avengers?

 

I can slightly see how one could see the New Teen Titans beginning of the run could resemble the Avengers run at the time.

 

Consider: George was doing wonders over at Marvel on the Avengers. Dick Dillin was doing JLA for a long run until his unexpected death. George was approached to pick up JLA which George has gone on record as saying he wanted a shot at. The catch was DC also wanted him to do art on a new Teen Titans book. He figured the latter wouldn't last long so he jumped over to DC.

 

Both the Titans and the Avengers were set in NYC - thus George was on familiar grounds as far as back drops. That would provide some commonality in the book.

 

Both teams had distinctive landmark headquarters. The Avengers had the mansion. The Titans had their T-Tower. Both buildings were key elements to the storytelling and adventures - almost an extra character in the book if you will.

 

With their new book, the Titans also got a kick up on their enemies. Gone were the days of Mad Mod, Flamesplasher and Mr. Esper. They fought aliens (the Gordonians), a super-skilled hitman (Deathstroke the Terminator - who initially had a lot in common with the Avengers' foe Taskmaster whom was introduced during George's run on the book), a more powerful team of villains (the Fearsome Five) and an otherworld demigod (Trigon). This was all in the first six issues of the book!

 

I think, thematically and visually, the two books were similar - at least until the Titans found their own groove. Clearly though DC wanted the NTT to be more of an X-Men contemporary. George being on JLA was more like the Avengers - but sadly that was a short run.

[Agent X]

Re: Are the Early Wolfman/Perez Titans a ripoff of the Avengers?

 

Look at it from the perspective of a kid in the middle of nowhere with no local comic shop, just the local 7-11 magazine rack. He loses the art of Mr. Perez and gets "filler-programming" for 1 year before seeing the final bits of Perez's input on the series. It was a type of continuity break.

 

HM

Yep, and I was that kid. And I did get a hold of a few of the Baxter Paper books. They were out of context (because I couldnt' get all of them) and just plain less fun as a result. It turned me off of the DC titles I had actually been trying to regularly follow.

[Dominique]

Re: Are the Early Wolfman/Perez Titans a ripoff of the Avengers?

 

While I did like the quality of the Baxter books, I think it was the beginning of comics shift away from the mass market. Before publishers started concentrating their efforts on the comic shop and collectors market, comics tended to be available everywhere (grocery stores, drug stores, book stores, convenience stores, etc.) and had a much wider appeal. I know when I first started collecting comics, I picked mine up at either 7-11 or Circle -K. Then the big shift started. Two books I collected (Titans and LOSH) were shifting to comic shops only, and the new Infinity Inc. book (which had some of the coolest looking adds I had ever seen) was only going to be available in comic shops.

 

First I had to find a comic shop, or subscribe to the book, then I had to get there and back (as a 12-15 year old id getting your parents to take you to a comic shop every couple of weeks was no easy task). They also started to raise the price of several of the books. Then to cap it off , they cut back on the number of retail outlets that sold comics. For me it was the start of what I consider a downward trend for comics in general.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Are the Early Wolfman/Perez Titans a ripoff of the Avengers?

 

Look at it from the perspective of a kid in the middle of nowhere with no local comic shop' date=' just the local 7-11 magazine rack. He loses the art of Mr. Perez and gets "filler-programming" for 1 year before seeing the final bits of Perez's input on the series. It was a type of continuity break. [/quote']

 

Actually worked out to 15 months since the Baxter book got behind. The last three were definitely filler, since they had to be inserted due to the delay.

 

Didn't the first 12, however, include the Judas Contract? The Baxter book's 1 year fast forward had a lot of us scratching our heads because Terra was gone, as I recall. I may be mistaken - maybe Contract was before the switch. But I do recall there were changes in the missing year, so the 12 issues originally planned for "newstand" weren't just "stay the course" filler material.

 

I do agree this was the beginning of the comic shop-dominated industry. However, the direct distribution system realistically saved the medium, as it was considered likely to go under at the time. "No comics" or "comics through comic shops only" is a very different choice from "newstands or only comic shops".

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: Are the Early Wolfman/Perez Titans a ripoff of the Avengers?

 

Yep' date=' and I was that kid. And I did get a hold of a few of the Baxter Paper books. They were out of context (because I couldnt' get all of them) and just plain less fun as a result. It turned me off of the DC titles I had actually been trying to regularly follow.[/quote']

 

Ah. Okay, I can see the problem.That had actually never occured to me. I'd been buying my comics from the local book/comic store for years when the Baxter came along, so I didn't see any of that happening. At the time my budget was a litte tight having to buy both the title and the "Tales of" for a year or so but...

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: Are the Early Wolfman/Perez Titans a ripoff of the Avengers?

 

First I had to find a comic shop, or subscribe to the book, then I had to get there and back (as a 12-15 year old id getting your parents to take you to a comic shop every couple of weeks was no easy task). They also started to raise the price of several of the books. Then to cap it off , they cut back on the number of retail outlets that sold comics. For me it was the start of what I consider a downward trend for comics in general.

 

Yeah. Although the shift to comic only shops was almost a neccessity for the industry.

 

In the normal retail market (7-11, grocery stores ect) any unsold comics (and magazines) were returned for full credit. So the retailer (or their supplier) would order 10 of a comic, sell 1 or 2, and return the rest. Spread that across the nation, and with rising printing costs and other such, the comic companies were taking a huge hit on the returns.* The shift to comic shops (which being a different retail channel, had different rules) stopped the returns. So the risk was on the retailer, and while sale and increase in sales went down, the actual profit of the publishers went up.

 

Now beacuse of the problems mentioned already, the cure in long term was as bad (or worse) than the disease. That is part of the reason I think we see so many trades now, it hit mass market again.

 

 

* I can't rememeber where I saw/heard the numbers - I remember it being failry reputible, but with nothing to back me up, take it with a grain of salt: there were more returns than sales most months.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Are the Early Wolfman/Perez Titans a ripoff of the Avengers?

 

In the normal retail market (7-11' date=' grocery stores ect) any unsold comics (and magazines) were returned for full credit. So the retailer (or their supplier) would order 10 of a comic, sell 1 or 2, and return the rest. Spread that across the nation, and with rising printing costs and other such, the comic companies were taking a huge hit on the returns.* The shift to comic shops (which being a different retail channel, had different rules) stopped the returns. So the risk was on the retailer, and while sale and increase in sales went down, the actual profit of the publishers went up.[/quote']

 

There was a tradeoff here. Retailers didn't ORDER comics. They couldn't say "More JLA and less Millie the Model". They got what they got. And whatever didn't sell went back.

 

Direct orders can't be returned, but the buyer picks how many of each title you want to order.

[Hyper-Man]

Fight!

 

[Greywind]

Re: Are the Early Wolfman/Perez Titans a ripoff of the Avengers?

 

In the normal retail market (7-11' date=' grocery stores ect) any unsold comics (and magazines) were returned for full credit. So the retailer (or their supplier) would order 10 of a comic, sell 1 or 2, and return the rest. Spread that across the nation, and with rising printing costs and other such, the comic companies were taking a huge hit on the returns.* The shift to comic shops (which being a different retail channel, had different rules) stopped the returns. So the risk was on the retailer, and while sale and increase in sales went down, the actual profit of the publishers went up.[/quote']

 

There was a tradeoff here. Retailers didn't ORDER comics. They couldn't say "More JLA and less Millie the Model". They got what they got. And whatever didn't sell went back.

 

Direct orders can't be returned, but the buyer picks how many of each title you want to order.

Direct orders can be returned. Returns are solicited by Diamond. From what I recall the window was narrow and a lot depended on title.

[Greywind]

Fight!

 

Nice. Don't think I've ever seen that one before.

[death tribble]

Fight!

 

This is a wonderful piece. And I had not seen it either.

[Hyper-Man]

Fight!

 

I recently found it while searching unsuccessfully for a Perez version of Wonder Woman wearing the winged sandals of Hermes (that I remember from his reboot of her comic). I had to then go find this thread to post it to.

[Ranxerox]

Fight!

 

Robin goes down quick against Cap, and things go south for the Titans from there.

[Cassandra]

No, the X-Men after Wolverine.

 

Nightwing/Cyclops

Wonder Girl/Rogue

Cyborg/Wolverine

Starfire/Storm

Beast Boy/Beast

Raven/Phoenix

[Hyper-Man]

No, the X-Men after Wolverine.

 

Nightwing/Cyclops

Wonder Girl/Rogue

Cyborg/Wolverine

Starfire/Storm

Beast Boy/Beast

Raven/Phoenix

 

 

Oh, you must be referring to this classic:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not what I was referring to at all but still cool.

[assault]

The Wolfman/Perez Titans were a mixture of the old (sidekick) Titans and ripoffs of the 70s version of the Doom Patrol.

 

Changeling was, of course, Beast Boy.

Cyborg was similar to Robotman.

Raven's soul self had similarities to the Negative Woman's powers.

Starfire is probably closest to Celsius.

 

Gluing together the two B-list teams like this brought together a nice mix of youth and wangst.