| Bob Haney on that
Ginchy Teen-Talk |
From Comics Feature #19 [1982]
As the Titans' series reached the teens itself, Haney began to get
somewhat carried away with the silliness. "Teentalk," a sort
of post-pubescent version of the Mort Weisinger "baby-talk"
that shows up in all Superbaby stories, began to take over the magazine.
Earlier, this "hep-cat lingo" had shown up every now and then,
to establish the youth of the protagonists, and to make them seem a
little more human (DC side-kicks, with the exception of Snapper Carr,
were almost, as blandly "straight" in the 1960s as their adult
counterparts, and if Haney had stuck with their established speech patterns,
his modern teen team would have seemed like they walked straight out
of FATHER KNOWS BEST).
Still, the preponderance of the "teentalk" In TEEN TITANS
did make it seem like these characters were speaking another language.
In case you've never encountered this dialect, here are a few examples:
"Check, Twinkletoes. . he's really got the cold and clammies!"
"Vikes! I'm like running on a treadmill to nowhere!" "Excuses,
excuses! That's all a girl gets these days! This is the love-in generation
and I'm being left out!" "Wow! Cavernsville... Large style!"
Still, for all that The Titans were showing less and less connection
with the real world, the stories were terrific, provided you could accept
their goofiness. Some of the absolute best Titans stories showed up
during this period. #24's "Skis of Death" features a three-way
conflict between a young Indian entrepreneur trying to run a ski resort,
a more tradition-minded Indian who wants to drive off business and keep
the mountain slopes pure for the sacred rituals, and an unscrupulous
type who wants to gain title to the land by fraud, so he can sell it
to the government as a missile site. The Titans stumble smack Into the
middle of it, and in the process, liven up the story with some of the
best "teentalk" ever to come off the typewriter of Bob Haney.
The issue's two best examples both come from Wonder Girl: "Umm
- he's dreamy! He can wax my slats anytime!!" and "Merciful
Minerva!' That wagon wheel - It'll freak out those shing-aling lovers
- like forever - unless I can do my own thing - like fast!" There
are those who find this sort of dialogue abhorrent, but If you approach
it with the right frame of mind, Its very perversity gives it a strange
sort of appeal. It's impossible to take seriously, but nobody could
ever mean it to be.
To my mind, the very best TEEN TITANS story appeared in this period,
and demonstrates an off-the-wall ludicrousness that should earn it some
sort of place In a comics hall of fame. 'The Dimensional Caper,"
in #16, centers around a high school that exists simultaneously in two
dimensions. In our dimension, it's a normal high school, but in the
other, it's overrun by an army of nasty green aliens intent on conquering
Earth through the dimensional warp afforded by the school. One student,
Chet Walters, unknowingly finds the dimensional warp and discovers the
alien army. When he returns, he tries to warn our world of the coming
invasion, but everyone just thinks he's a kook. His parents try to get
him to see a psychiatrist, and his friends reject him. The only ones
who will even check his story out are (naturally) the Teen Titans, and.
they manage to destroy the warp forever, In a bizarre battle during
which the school, the army, the students, teachers, and Titans keep
popping back and forth across the warp uncontrollably. It's a story
that really has to be seen to be believed.
"TEEN TITANS: Assistants Earn a Promotion"
Teenagers and teenagers-in-training have always provided an audience
for comic books. That's why kid sidekicks were so common at DC, but
it wasn't until 1964 that the company decided to let its young heroes
loose without adult supervision. Writer Bob Haney and editor George
Kashdan started a boys' club after a hint from management. "They
wanted a team book," says Haney, "and this was pretty much
my idea although George came up with some suggestions. 1 said let's
do the junior members and let's put them all together." The feature
was known as "Kid Flash, Aqualad and Robin" when it got started
in The Brave and the Bold #54 (July 1964), but Wonder Girl was recruited
by the time of Teen Titans #1 (January-February 1966).
"My audience was still the twelve-year-old kid in Ohio,"
says Haney, who took some ribbing for the writing style that described
the Teen Titans as "the Cool Quartet" or 'the Fab Foursome'
The attempt to reach the youth culture then embracing performers like
the Beatles and Bob Dylan, impressed some observers as strained, but
Haney went about as far as he could go. "I knew better," says
Haney, who lived in Woodstock and "went on protest marches, got
hit by the cops and all that," but it would take another generation
before super hero comics would deal with youth more realistically.
The Titans were retired in 1973, revived in 1975, and then revived
again in 1980 by writer-editor Marv Wolfman. "Marv did a wonderful
job," says Haney. "He opened it up' [...] "I do not believe
in using current slang," says Wolfman. "It looks condescending,
and readers sense sincerity above anything else." His goal was
to show respect for the characters. "I tried to treat them as I
would have treated Superman or any other character. The fact that they
were teenagers did not mean that everything they did had to reflect
teenage problems." To Wolfman, the youth of his heroes meant not
kid stuff, but strength, passion and ferocious independence.
