Teen Titans
“Watching Teen Titans is like watching an episode of LiveJournal.”
Teen Titans is an early-mid 2000s American anime-"inspired" superhero series created by DC Comics, and yet another Cartoon Network series in which the characters never age. As the title suggests it stars teenage superheroes who are "Titans", even though half the people who watched the show probably didn't even know what a "Titan" is. Based on an island with a huge "T" on it, the Titans battle the forces of the evil, yet smooth-voiced Deathstroke Slade. These outcasts try to balance out such issues as truth, justice, and the last slice of pizza.
The phrase Teen Titans is a contraction of the saying "I am a preteen anime fan that finds real anime, with its titanic-level violence, to be disturbing and unwatchable." The word teen is Latin for under-developed simpleton, whereas the word Titan refers to the moon of Jupiter, which is filled with noxious gases and does not have a solid core. It can be inferred that the shallowness of the surface of Titan is a metaphor for the shallowness of Cartoon Network's dubbing of previously good anime, defiling them with poorly-written English dialogue.
Premise[edit]
The Teen Titans, not to be confused with Team Teen,Remember the Titans, or Clash of the Titans, are a group of teenagers (duh) who had previously been sidekicks to more well-known heroes. Trained to have spandex fetishes at young ages, the Teen Titans let their hormones go wild (with the exception of Cyborg, who was already an adult) and during late nights in their phallically-shaped Titan Tower, they had wild flings in-between crime fighting. The Titans live on an island in the city of Jump, not to be confused with Shonen Jump. Originally there were only four members on the team; later, Cyborg looked on the internet for an exotic pet and bought one on eBay. When it came in the mail, it was green so he thought it had molded and tried to send it back, but then it morphed into a monkey and started flinging feces at him; this became known as Beast Boy (the monkey, not the feces... maybe).
The Teen Titans were once the greatest power in the land besides the Justice League. Due to their pimpitude, they were pursued by villains hoping to make a name for themselves; they ended up with lame names like "Mumbo" or "Deathstroke", and had to take an oath never to say the word "death" again. Between fights with them, the Titans ate, slept, and played video games; therefore, the Titans were bestowed ultimate power, and beat up on the villains even harder. Then the villains got more powerful, and all the Titans' enemies band together to destroy them. Luckily, the Titans froze every single one of their enemies in carbonite during the final battle and delivered them to Canada. Then the Titans were sucked into the desolate universe called Cancellation.
Heroes[edit]
Robin[edit]
The spiky-haired leader of the team who takes everything super-seriously and has no superpowers. He never takes off his mask and thus his eyes always appear mysteriously white; he'll take off his suit for anything, but he'd never ever take off his mask because he thinks it's his source of coolness. He is very interested in fashion, style, working out, wearing tights, and martial arts. He enjoys watching wrestling and Oprah, though he only watches her when he locks the others in the basement after he tells them there's a magic lamp hidden in the boxes. Robin's stepdad is billionaire Bruce Wayne, better known as Batman, who took Robin under his wing after his parents died in an acrobatics accident; at one point Robin fixed Bruce's will and named himself the heir of his entire estate. He has two possible twin brothers/clones; their names are Speedy and Red X. Robin in this series is most likely either Dick Grayson or Jason Todd, as there's no way in hell that he's Tim Drake. His comic counterpart shows him to be somewhat of a badass, but in reality he sucks.
Fangirls go nuts over Robin, because he seems bishonen, and because he's one-half of the show's main romance. Even though it appears he's in love with Starfire, his obsession with Slade may suggest otherwise. Whenever Slade is so much as mentioned, Robin goes into an obsessed, irrational, super-serious rage of "Who is Slade???".
Starfire[edit]
An orange-skinned ditzy alien immigrant girl from Tamaran, a planet with a race that is almost identical to humans, just with superpowers. Starfire (real name Koriand'r) can apparently mimic other beings' languages via lip-to-lip contact; in Japan, she used this to learn Japanese, and ever since, the others have been trying to keep her off the Internet for fear of her turning wapanese. Starfire has a crush on Robin, or just really wants to see what he's hiding under those tights. but doesn't realize that he's saving himself for Slade marriage. She is half of the show's main romance, and the #1 subject of the show's hentai; some argue that Raven is hotter.
In general, Starfire is generally very emotional, usually being happy, but easily depressed or enraged having frequent mood-swings. Despite claims in an episode that Starfire has to be happy to fly, angry to use starbolts, and have courage to use her super strength, we frequently see her doing this stuff without the corresponding emotions. It's also been shown that she's stronger than Cyborg; combined with her other abilities, she would be the strongest member of the team, if it weren't for her overly-emotional personality. Her main enemies are American idioms, the use and non-use of articles, and her smexier-than-thou sister Blackfire, whom the other Titans prefer to her.
Beast Boy[edit]
The green-skinned, and, presumably, youngest member of the team who has the ability to turn into various animals, making him a furry's ultimate dream. He resembles the love child of The Incredible Hulk and a radioactive baboon. A general goofy clown, he enjoys pranking people, playing video games with Cyborg, and attempting to be comic relief. He's almost never gotten a date, the only exception being Terra, who later betrayed him anyway. Add the fact that he's a vegetarian, and you've got one pretty lame superhero, unlike the awesome version of him from the comics; basically, he's the Bud Bundy of the show and Buck. Some fans prefer to pair him with Raven because of their tsundere relationship, while others pair him with Terra, despite Terra backstabbing him.
Cyborg[edit]
The black guy of the team, who is somehow in a team of teenagers despite being in his 20s. As his name suggests, he's a cyborg, due to rebuilding after an accident, and hence, has many mechanical parts. He doesn't really have any actual powers, just technological stuff, like a sonic lazer on his arm. Contrary to popular belief, he's actually the second strongest on the team, behind Starfire. Despite being Beast Boy's best friend and sharing similar interests (video games, trash-talking, watching football games, getting laid), his eating habits are the complete opposite of Beast Boy's, as he greatly prefers waffles over meat. He hates Robin since Robin is a wigger, and that's disrespectful to Cyborg's homies. Cyborg's car of choice is the T-Car, the Titans' super-car that he put his heart and robotic soul into building, which later got stolen and totaled before he recovered and repaired it (albeit with Raven's help). He may be an automobophile since he's possessive of the T-Car, refers to it as a "she", and calls it "baby".
He's in Smallville for some reason, even though it takes place like ten years before the Titans are even formed. But hey, they've already completely destroyed beloved characters such as Lana Lang, so much so that fanboys are begging for them to kill her off, and even Clark Kent couldn't avoid the crap that is his untrue life on The CW, so why not mess with the timestream? He doesn't even have a cybernetic eye! As of 2011, he was never a Titan and one of the founding members of the Justice League.
Raven[edit]
The token angsty, sarcastic goth girl of the team. Her superpowers are necrokinesis and some sort of darkness-controlling magical powers, which she incurs by chanting the nonsensical phrase "Azerath metreon zinthos." She's the daughter of some sort of demon god named Trigon, the show's version of Satan (wouldn't that make Raven the Anti-Christ?) that they used to work around religious references, so that Christian fundamentalists didn't try to get the show banned. She is nothing like the Raven in the comics, and like all the other reinterpreted comic characters in this show she is prepubescent.
Raven comprises the other half of the show's hentai supply. Many nerds believe she is debatably hotter than Starfire, due to her grey thighs, tsundere personality, and cute emo-shy look; however, if you are comparing two cartoon characters to pleasure yourself, I'm afraid your time is ill-spent and I ask you to get off the computer, go outside, and live a little. Current tabloid rumors insist she is involved in a passionate relationship with Beast Boy. When questioned as to why they felt this way, fans of the pairing merely chant, "Opposites attract!" How that one phrase can explain how two individuals with no common interests and opposing personalities can be romantically linked is something only a wizard knows.
Other Titans[edit]
Blue Beetle[edit]
A short-term team member, Blue Beetle featured sporadically throughout the show. His character was unusual for a number of reasons, which included actually having a fleshed out and developed life beyond living in a giant tower and playing video games, as well as actually having a something amounting to a life outside of superheroing as well as a believable arc of an everyday teenager struggling with a powers beyond human comprehension rather than running around beating up random bad guys in high tech jets and cars despite a lack of any obvious income.
Although a staunch ally of the Titans, he frequently caused tension within the team with his twisted lifestyle and troubling deeds, varying from uncanny eccentricities such as having a girlfriend who was neither plastic or imaginary, to indulging in that most preoccupying of wastes in our society; an actual education. Shocking of as his attitude may have seemed, the Titans would often treat him with an undue level of contempt, with Robin even going so far as to deport him back to central America on the charge of being within 200 yards on an acquaintance of a friend of a cousin of a lover of a milkman who had run over a dog who had been sighted at a break in at Chuck-ee Cheese. Fortunately, Robin's plan failed largely on in regards due too his refusal to acknowledge the difference between Panama and Mexico. While it was never explicitly confirmed, many fans speculated they were envious of him as he represented a life that could have been there’s if it weren't for the writer's unwillingness to even think of giving an iota of back story. Or maybe it was down to Beast Boy's demand for more screen time to brag about his inane views on pop culture, which included but wasn't limited to his 100 reason account of why Michael Bay is the greatest artist of all time.
The sole source of comfort for Blue Beetle was Ravager's infatuation with him, because as we all know hot platinum blondes with potential homicidal tendencies have a thing for well balanced albeit somewhat unattractive looking men. His sexual orientation is also a matter of debate. While some fans argue that his premature facial hair indicates him to be straight as Mr. T's tabletop, others have claimed his shoulder length wavy black hair makes him gayer than Fred Phelps. These two claims strongly hint that he may be the most bisexual individual since the death of Ed Wood.
Aqualad[edit]
Michael Phelps when he was clean, sober, and famous for being Aquaman's second banana. Now he is a pot-smokin' (no Jim Carrey pun intended), treehugging WWF hasbeen that makes Beast Boy look like a pimp.
Speedy[edit]
An archer version of Robin who likes to shoot arrows. That's all there is to him, basically; he looks like Robin and shoots arrows.
Villains[edit]
Slade[edit]
The main villain of the show. No, he's not Batman, or Robin's father, or Robin from the future. In the beginning of the first season it was thought that he was straight, until the two-part season finale in which he makes Robin his apprentice. In the second season we figure out that he is not in fact gay but rather bisexual, as he then makes Terra his apprentice. In both cases, his love for androgynous anorexic prepubescent teenagers is evident. This season was the best because at the end Slade actually dies when Terra knocks him into lava; unfortunately, the executives at Cartoon Network felt this was too adult for a children's television show. So later, Slade is dredged up from the earth and revived as a zombie by Trigon, then goes back to being a human after he's served Trigon long enough. He is voiced by the awesome Ron Perlman; if you've watched the Hellboy movies, his voice will sound awfully familiar.
In the unproduced season 6, it would be revealed he was in fact a lonely, divorced old man, explaining his obsession with teenagers and keeping his face covered. The plan was that in the epic season, which would definitively link the show to the greater DCAU, reveal Terra's true fate, explain the contents of Robin's briefcase, and have Beast Boy get a life, there would be a spectacular duel between Slade and Batman over Robin's apprenticeship. In the end, Batman would win custody of his tights-wearing Peter Pan-esque stepson, as Slade would be cast from the roof of his Neverland Ranch after refusing to apologize to Robin for greasing the tightropes that caused his acrobatic parents to fall to their deaths.
Trigon[edit]
Trigon is a big red demon whose sense of style and fashion is a ragged g-string. He was later revealed to be Raven's father, an idea that evoked comparison with Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, albeit without the subtext, religous metaphors about anger and redemption, and lackluster prequels. He wanted to take over the world and turn it into his own vision of pefection, which included him in complete solitude which oddly enough he already had. However, he was defeated by his daughter, as her greyness overpowered his redness; that, and something about him getting slapped with a paternity suit by Red Hulk's mom.
Brother Blood[edit]
Brother Blood is an evil cult leader who brainwashes young children, has long white robes, a British accent (because everyone is eviler with a British accent, it's proven science), and wants to take over the world. The downplaying of his role as a cult leader baffled many fans, who pointed out that G-rated films such as the Hunchback of Notre Dame cover similar territory.
Brotherhood of Evil[edit]
A bunch of bad guys consisting of a former Nazi, a talking robotic skull/trash can, a psychotic Gorilla, and a Russian who, like every other villain in this show, want to take over the world for some undefined reason. Due to timing constraints, plans to include Fred Phelps, Ed Gein, Jack the Ripper, Joel Schumacher, and a puppy-squashing pedophile in the group were scrapped at the last minute.
Mad Mod[edit]
Much like Brother Blood, Mad Mod has a British accent, which obviously means he's evil — fantastically Britishly evil! However, they differ on a number of points, as while Blood wants to rule the world, Mod just wants to stick barely copyrighted images everywhere to make everything British and therefore EVIL! When the producers were asked why he wanted to do this, they said there was a man who lived on the peak of Mount Kilimonjaro in the hollowed-out shell of a giant tortoise who might have a pretty good explanation.
Blackfire[edit]
Starfire's snarky, attractive sister. Sure, she's evil, and has some junk in the trunk, but who cares? She's a hottie hot hottie! Robin, Beast Boy, Cyborg, and even Raven all wanted in on the action with her.
Jinx[edit]
An even bigger emo than Raven who can perform circus tricks and alter probability or something like that. She is pretty much a ripoff of Scarlet Witch, only prepubescent and therefore less attractive.
Anti-heroes[edit]
Red X[edit]
Racer X's illegitimate child with Trixie. He has earned respect from people by being the only straight character in this drug trip. Although the first person to be him was Robin, the next person was completely straight as he used his Red X sticky thingies to totally beat the living crap out of the team. And while beating them he totally hit on Starfire hereby showing him as the only straight character. Jason Todd is involved with him somehow.
Terra[edit]
A former Teen Titan and the only one who liked Starfire's poor cooking and Beast Boy's lame jokes, as well as the only known person with an attraction to green-skinned fools. She is a troubled young girl who has the ability to manipulate the earth, but has trouble controlling her powers and temper, and wears long sleeves to hide the scars on her arms. Despite being blonde, she is very unpopular with RavenxBeast Boy fanfiction writers due to her canon relationship with Beast Boy, as well as her being a traitorous backstabber.
In the comics, Terra is given a backstory where, before becoming a superhero/villain, she was the princess of some third-world obscure European country or something. She just wanted to be happy with Beast Boy, but ultimately ends up betraying him and goes to middle-aged supervillain Slade, helping him in subduing the Titans and conquering the world. She attempted to redeem herself at the last minute, but it was too late, as God smited her by turning her to stone. Yet, even though she betrayed them, the Titans commemorated a statue in her honor in Titans Tower(?). Later on, Terra's stone corpse mysteriously disappears from its original location, and Beast Boy also meets a high school girl who looks and acts a lot like her, leading to speculation of her survival. However, the girl claims she isn't Terra, and after failing to jog her memory, Beast Boy gets cucked out of a girlfriend and decides that his good times with Terra must remain in the past.
Reception[edit]
When it first premiered, Teen Titans was panned by viewers as being a "cheap attempt to capitalize on the bygone fad of anime," while others thought the Titans were mere posers compared to the Justice League. However, as the show went on, it developed a strong fanbase for its surprisingly deep and mature storytelling at times, in-between the cheesy jokes and cutesy "chibi" moments. The show was also popular among horny fanboys, who enjoyed watching fictional girls like Starfire and Raven run around pointlessly in spandex tights; indeed the show led to Starfire and Raven becoming the Betty and Veronica of modern times.
The New Teen Titans[edit]
In the wake of the series' success, a tie-in comic called the New Teen Titans (also known as Teen Titans on Steroids), penned by Marv the Wolfman and George Perez, was commissioned. Upon release, it fell under heavy criticism for its unfaithfulness to the TV series, as though the writers had merely taken the dense and mature source material and crushed it under the pressure to edge-ify it to entertain all the middle school kiddies. The most controversial changes included altering Beast Boy from a mischievous, childish, but ultimately well-meaning kid into a sleazy pervert who in one issue turns into a koala and presses himself against the face of an unwilling woman. Another was the changing of Slade from an armor-clad evil mastermind with a cool name into "Deathstroke", a generic mercenary assassin with a tryhard name. As a result of these changes, many were quick to dismiss Wolfman and Perez's work as lackluster.
A further criticism of the comic was that Perez and Wolfman wrote somewhat questionable material including sixteen-year-old Terra being involved with a middle-aged Deathstroke (of course the British were fine with that sort of thing, but what can you expect from people that prefer humour over humor?) and the seventeen-year-old Starfire being drawn with large breasts and an outfit that just covers her nipples, when the creators themselves were themselves middle-aged. However, creative consultants Jack Michaels and Jeff Lenny felt there was no obviously objectionable material; in fact, they described all the above material as "Mmmmmmmmmmworthy." Other readers took a more sympathetic stance, claiming that Terra was handled much better in the comics, feeling that Wolfman and Perez took the rather cliche, ambivalent "troubled" wippy-weepy figure of the show torn between wanting to fit in and hiding away due to the fear of her own power and turned her into a more one-note, irredeemable, chain-smoking vileness with less soap opera crap.
Where are they now?[edit]
After leaving the Teen Titans, Robin went on to become Nightwing, who then proceeded to have his way with every female in his sight and even those that weren't. Cyborg became a supercomputer for the Super Friends, which disproves any notion that Teen Titans was connected to Justice League Unlimited, then was later retconned to become a founding member of the Justice League. Starfire returned home, only to be grounded for seven years for attacking her sister Blackfire; she then became reincarnated as a magic butterfly who showered the world with rainbows and teddy bears and stuff. Raven started the goth clothing chain Hot Topic, married Birdman, and thus overpopulated New York with half-goth-half-pigeon offspring. Beast Boy, however, was most fortunate and became the editor for the local zoo's magazine; he really enjoyed reading the magazine of "his people" for edits. He soon became a multi-millionaire after getting revenue from all the Teen Titans brand popscicles found in grocery stores, as well as royalties from Cartoon Network's endless spamming of Teen Titans Go! reruns.
Some fans believe the show was killed prematurely and needs to be brought back for a sixth season. Even though viewers were given closure on the RobinxStarfire shipping, the truth around Terra's survival was never resolved.
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