The DC Sampler: Truths Revealed
A DC Comics Sampler was published in 1983 which featured a double-page spread of the Titans. George was busy working on CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS with Marv Wolfman at the time. The Sampler page was drawn before many story details were ironed out. An interview with Andy Mangels in Comics Interview #50 [1987] revealed some information about what had been altered.
There was a woman in a light blue and red costume that was intended to be Frances Kane. Although that costume was never used, Fran's eventual Magenta costume had some similarities to the original Perez design.
George explains: " Actually, her name was, at the time, something like... I don't remember now. Originally it was supposed to be Francis Kane. There were a lot of plans for that sampler, which was done just before I ended up leaving the TITANS book, including a black woman as opposed to the Japanese woman who ended up in CRISIS. For all the plans that Marv and I had, once I left, Marv went his way and the super-powered Francis Kane never quite got anywhere."
George also explains why the new Doctor Light was changed from a black woman to an Japanese woman: " Well, because of the Captain Marvel character over at Marvel, it was becoming too much of a cliche; already, they had one major character who was originally a white male superhero and now became a black female super-heroine - and whose power also had something to do with light or energy. When doing the new Dr. Light, we did want to make a female; since we were killing so many females, we needed a new one. I came up with the thing of her becoming Japanese, and Marv liked the idea, he had no problem with that. So that's why Dr. Light became a Japanese."
Looks like the original plans for the female crystal spinner, Kole, were originally quite different. Here's what George had to say in FOCUS ON GEORGE PEREZ in 1984: "...Cole, a new member of the Teen Titans. He isn't even going to appear until issue #9 of the Teen Titans Baxter book." Seems like a few things changed in developing Kole!
