This blog is the culmination of a 3 am conversation and the inability to let something go.
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Masterposts
Characters:
Danny Chase (Phantasm)
Joseph Wilson (Jericho)
Gnarrk (Caveboy)
Tara Markov (Terra)
Lilith Clay (Omen)
Wendy Harris (Proxy)
Bette Kane (Flamebird)
Timeline? What timeline?
Pt.1
Mics.
Comic Reading List
Tags
Wren: #wrens art #wren post
Giraffe: #giraffes art #giraffe post
Rebloged/Summited art: #cottoneyejoe art #[characters name] art
DC Writers Hate Bette Kane, Specifically Secret Origins This Time:
I already sent this rant to Wren (who has not seen it yet because my sleep schedule is about as consistent as the DC Timeline), but we gotta talk about Bette/Betty Kane's absolute character assasination in Secret Origins. (I'm gonna use Bette for this post, they changed the spelling after Crisis).
What's Secret Origins?
So for those of you who don't know: Secret Origins started in the 1960s as literally just a collection of origin stories for various DC characters (volume 1). When Crisis on Infinite Earths occurred and reset the universe for the first time, DC used the series as an opportunity to clarify the post-crisis origin of a ton of characters and teams (volume 2).
Annual #3 for Secret Origins v2 covers the Teen Titans' complete history up to that point in 1989, including the pre-crisis original series, and it stays mostly true to the original (which I read in it's entirety about a month before this).
Key word being mostly. The 70s series was riddled with silver age ridiculousness as well as a ton of executive meddling; the series changed hands between writers and editors multiple times, got canceled abruptly, then got brought back abruptly after 4 years, then canceled again after just 4 more issues. The DC writers decided to use this opportunity to retcon some of the more insane shit that went down and keep things consistent with modern day characters.
Some notable differences include Mal Duncan's whole shtick in the late issues being updated to match his post-crisis incarnation as Herald (so no sparkly disco suit), the absence of pre-crisis Duela Dent (which is a tragedy, she's hilarious), and the team being given a concrete reason for breaking up during both the cancelations (Robin called for the murder of a changeling child the first time, teenage hubris happened the second time).
. . .Also, my entire joke comic about Aqualad leaving for a week and then the team accidentally killing a guy and swearing off their powers and junk gets a MUCH more reasonable explanation. They were framed and had to act as a civilian patrol so they wouldn't get arrested until they could find the real culprit.
Now, most of these are good or at least sensible changes. They were necessary to make the current universe make sense or they fixed really dumb stuff from the OG series. You know what wasn't a good change though? One that had absolutely no reason for existing?
BETTE KANE'S ENTIRE DAMN PERSONALITY!!!
Bette's Character Assasination:
Full disclaimer that I haven't read Bette anywhere else yet. Just 70s Teen Titans and Secret Origins. But I don't have to because they made me fall in love with her in the 3 issues of the original series that she was there! Bette is an intelligent, competent, adventurous young woman who decides to join the Titans west to save people and for the thrill of the game! She's optimistic and fun-loving and extremely charismatic because of it!
This is all despite her being originally introduced as "Robin's girlfriend because we have to give him a girlfriend so people will stop sending us letters asking if Batman and Robin are gay." She was a designated love interest who still managed to be engaging on her own merits, something that I think is incredibly rare and underappreciated.
In Secret Origins though? They flattened her into nothing more than a rabid Robin fangirl! Take a look at some side-by side panels!
Dick has NOTHING to do with her vigilanteism in this incident in the original! It's all about her Aunt Kathy! You know? The other woman who was her mentor and extremely important to her?
(Secret Origins)
(Teen Titans after Beast Boy and Hawk say they don't wanna work together and don't believe Lilith's premonition).
She literally does not care about Robin here! It's all about supporting Lilith (another woman) and returning to her life of heroism with other people like her!
Bette's SINGULAR statement about wanting to work with Robin actually has a lot of undercurrent going on about people comparing Bette to the current Batgirl---Barbara Gordon. She's determined to show that the original Bat-Girl has still got it and can be just as good.
Yes, her crush on Robin is part of it. But I think it's telling that you can't even tell if she still HAS a crush on Robin during this scene or if she just considers it unfinished business. Once again, the writers are choosing to completely ignore Bette's extremely interesting relationship with another woman from 70s TT as well as her own interesting thought processes and motivations in favor of making her a one-note joke about crazy lovesick fan girls.
WHY!?!?! WHY WOULD THEY DO THIS!?!?! LITERALLY WHAT WAS THE POINT???
Listen. I know you erased her history as Bat-Girl here. But that's no excuse!
Because WHY, pray tell, would you LEAVE her relationship with Robin (as mutated as it is here) who she no longer has ANY social ties to (he lives on the opposite coast for Pete's sake)---AND THEN NOT KEEP HER RELATIONSHIP WITH KATHY?!?!?! YOU KNOW? JUST THE MOST IMPORTANT RELATIONSHIP IN HER STORY AT THIS POINT?!?!?
You could have made Aunt Kathy a retired vigilante who Bette was inspired by! You could have made Flamebird a legend that Kathy learned first and told to Bette! You could have given her the tragic mentor fate and killed her off and had Bette doing this for her! Literally anything would satisfy me!
Reading Secret Origins felt a lot like reading fanfiction of the 70s Teen Titans for a LOT of reasons, but the criminal flattening of an interesting female side character is the straw that breaks the camel's back for me. Not only is it fanfic, it's officially BAD fanfic that I hate.
It has some interesting enough Lilith and Jericho moments, so I can't say this was a complete waste of time, but BOY did this one piss me off.
This was the main source of conflict in like. Half the original Teen Titans. Like. Lilith would immediately know Something Was Up and they just took turns on being the Skeptic Of The Day and not listening to her, even though she was literally always right (that's how her powers work dumb dumbs!).
Anyway, I informed my mother of this, and she said I should draw Lilith flipping a table---she's been a good girl and deserves a little table-flipping as a treat! So this one's for you Momma!
The Cotton-Eyed Joes is a crack AU. A large part of the reason it's a crack AU is because a lot of these guys are dead. This means we're clearly working outside the pile of decomposing woodchips that passes for a continuity in the DC Universe.
This leaves us with several questions to resolve. The first one is what I wanna address here: just how old are the Joes? Well. That answer is currently subject to change, but their age order and age gaps remain fairly consistent. Here's the breakdown for how we got there.
Metric 1: Introduction
Who was introduced first? Since everyone was introduced before Flashpoint, there's only one universe reboot resetting their ages for us to worry about, so this is a fairly safe measuring system.
Bette is first, followed by Lilith, then Gnarrk. Crisis on Infinite Earths happens, and then we get Tara and Joey at about the same time, followed by Danny (don't quote me on that). Wendy is last.
Metric 2: Last Known Age
How old were they when they died or disappeared? General Spoiler Warning for this section, since we're discussing character death. This is mostly for the purpose of keeping the comic book aging time consistent, since comics characters obviously don't age as fast as the real world and frequently don't even age as fast as each other (looking at you Raven).
Bette's last appearances were some scattered guest star features in 2011. Since this is still New Earth Continuity, and she's around the founding Titan's age in New Earth, so I'm choosing to assume she was somewhere in her early to mid 20s here.
Lilith's last appearance pre-Flashpoint was when she got killed in 2003. She was still a main Titan at this time (same age as the fab 5), so also early to mid 20s. Lilith is also the only Joe who hasn't dropped off the face off the planet, and was last seen post-Flashpoint in Power Girl Volume 3, where I think she's the same age as PG, which would put her around 30
Gnarrk's last appearance I THINK was in 2019 in Heroes in Crisis where he got offed by Savitar, but he was part of the OG TT here, which would put him in his mid to late 20s.
Joey's last appearance pre-Flashpoint was in 2004 in Teen Titans where I think he was still alive after being dead for a bit? Anyway, here, he's in the second age bracket of Titans---Beast Boy, Raven, Terra, etc. I wanna say this makes him no older than 20 when he goes M.I.A. He more or less disappeared in Flashpoint, save for a cameo where he isn't a vigilante.
Tara's last appearance was the Judas contract where I think she was about 16 (goodness knows I'll get roasted if I'm wrong). A couple of other people going by Terra appeared after that, but they're not the same person.
Danny was about the same age as Jason Todd and got kicked from the team when Jason died, which would have made him 15. He later got killed/merged with the souls of Azarath into the entity Phantasm, and I'm going to assume through the power of Comic Book Time that he was still 15 here.
Wendy---bless your heart, you're easy---is in the same age bracket as the YJ98 crowd, and was last seen in Batgirl v3 in 2011, where she would have been somewhere from 17-19.
Metric 3: Ages Relative to each other
Some of these people have actually coexisted and interacted, and even if they haven't, most of them have teammates in common.
Bette is the same age as Dick Grayson, which makes her one of the youngest of the OG Titans. Lilith and Gnarrk are closer in age to Arsenal, making them some of the oldest OG Titans. If I had to give it a number, I'd say Bette and Gnarrk have a 3 year age gap at the most.
Terra and Joey are around the same age, and were about 15 when Dick was 19ish, I think, putting a 4 year gap between them and Bette while Danny would have been 12 at the same time.
Wendy is the youngest by this metric, making her the same age as Danny or a year younger.
Metric 4: General Character Vibes
This metric could also be called: how old were they when they had all their important stories? By this measurement we get:
Lilith and Gnarrk: Mid to late 20s
Bette: Early 20s
Joey, Tara, and Wendy: Late Teens (16-19)
Danny: Early Teens (13-15)
Summary: Between all these metrics, a pattern emerges Lilith and Gnarrk being the oldest, followed by Bette. Joey and Tara are older than Danny but younger than Bette. You can either make Wendy somewhere around Joey and Tara's age, or you can make her around Danny's age. For the purposes of this AU, we like to use the first option.
Also. Bonus metric for the sillies:
Metric 5: What Decade are they from
If we ignore comic book aging time and just look at which decade they were introduced in, we have 3 60s kids (Lilith, Gnarrk, and Bette), 3 80s kids (Joey, Tara, Danny), and a 90s/early 2000s kid (Wendy). That leaves us with a 20 year age gap between "the adults" and "the kids" and Wendy the baby is 10 years younger than her siblings.
Hi, Giraffe here. Figured, I'd share which comics we'll be reading and working from when we discuss these guys.
Green is high priority---it will get read eventually and is part of my Main Comics Reading List
Orange is Medium Priority---I should probably read it, but I do surprisingly have a life, so I make no promises
Blue is Low Priority---I may or may not read it for funsies, but I don't feel it's required to understand the characters.
This list is subject to change, and will be worked through at the pace of a constipated snail in a hailstorm. If somebody who is more knowledgable about the radioactive pile of sludge pretending to be a DC Timeline would like to provide corrections or suggestions, please do!
When I've completed it, I'll put a ✨️ emoji by it. Also: This is MY list. What Wren reads is up to their discretion <3 <3 <3
Lilith Clay:
✨️Teen Titans Volume 1, #25-52✨️
Teen Titans Volume 2, #1-6, #11-16, #23-24
New Teen Titans Volume 2, #2-10
Tales of the Teen Titans, #49-54
Titans Young/Justice: Graduation Day, #1-3
✨️Secret Origins Annual Volume 2, #3✨️
JLA/Titans, #1-3
Power Girl Special Vol 1, #1
Joseph Wilson:
New Teen Titans Volume 2, #1-49
Tales of the Teen Titans, #44-58
✨️Secret Origins Volume 2, Annual #3✨️
New Teen Titans Annual Volume 2, #1, #3-4
New Titans, #50-84
Bette Kane:
✨️Teen Titans Volume 1, #50-53✨️
✨️Secret Origins Volume 2, Annual #3✨️ (fuck this one for Bette's character assasination)
POV: You start wondering where the hell all these Teen Titans went and foolishly text your enabler friend at 3 a.m.
Anyway, now we have a Titans West crack-ish AU with angst and lore. Lovingly dubbed The Cotton-Eyed Joes (because where did they come from and where did they go?), we have yeeted some forgotten Teen Titans onto a team.
When you and your friend just want to make a crackish Titian's West au with forgotten/unused characters fondly nicknamed The Cotton-Eye Joe's, but then you stumble upon forgotten lore:
Don't worry absolutely nothing bad has ever happened to either of them. Look they're having drinks! :D
