Teen Titans #27

Teen Titans #27 (On Sale: March 12, 1970) has a cover by Nick Cardy. The full-body Titans down the side of the cover appear this issue for the first time in an act of extremely strange timing. We all remember last issue's cover where Wonder Girl says they will, "never wear their costumes again!" and the next issue they become a feature of the cover. I guess it could have been worse had these body-shots premiered last issue.

This issue we have "Nightmare in Space" by Robert Kanigher and Nick Cardy. Now, some people attribute the pencils on this one to George Tuska and Carmine Infantino (GCD even tells you which pages Carmine penciled), but all you have to do is look at the artwork to see that Carmine Infantino and George Tuska had nothing to do with this book. Also, Nick Cardy sure seems to think he drew the whole thing as noted in the checklist in The Art of Nick Cardy. I can see why people would want to take credit for this book though, as the artwork is wonderful throughout.

This story left me very conflicted in 1970 and I'll tell you why. First off, I was a grade A, number one space nerd. I watched every launch and reentry of every Mercury, Gemini and Apollo mission (my mother thinking it was better for me to see history happening than to read about it in school). I belonged to the "Space Club" at school and flew model rockets. I even designed my own model rocket LM (Lunar Module) that I actually got off the ground. My point being, I was very jazzed about all things that were space. But the "space" that I was jazzed about was very different from the "space" of comic books, what with Superman and Green Lantern and Hawkman zipping about all the time, just to name a few. Comic book space was always very different from real space and when they tried to do real space in comic books they usually goofed it up really bad. So where does this story fit into that scenario?

"Nightmare in Space" is maybe the most realistic portrayal of "space" I ever read in a comic book and the whole time I am reading it I am thinking, "Yeah, but if things go really bad they can somehow contact Superman or Green Lantern and they can fly out to save them!" which totally destroys the universe this story attempts to play in. The problem is the universe this story plays in is not the DC Comics universe. It is a hell of a great attempt at a real space story in a DC comic book and when it fails it is because it is a real space story in a DC comic book.

But for a space nerd in 1970, man was this something to read (and I don't often say nice things about Robert Kanigher stories)!

The de-uniformed Teen titans have been training with Mr. Jupiter and their newest member, Mal has done a Dr. Smith and stowawayed on board Jupiter's supposedly unmanned ship to Venus. The Titans and Jupiter have been working round the clock to get a rescue mission going and in a few day's time the Venus Chaser launches with the Titans as crew. On their way to the Moon the Titans lose contact with Mal but continue on their journey.

The mission is complicated. The first objective is to get to the Moon where Dove will stay in the Command Module (CM) while Speedy, Wonder Girl and Hawk take the Lunar Module (LM) down to the moon to check on experimental packages left by Apollo 11 and Kid Flash and Lilith man the Venus Probe Chaser going after Mal. Eventually everyone has to rendezvous above the moon with Dove in the Command Module for the return trip to Earth. The Cardy artwork on this stuff is just spectacular, particularly on the lunar landing.

The first real problem we have is with the lunar landing party. They land fine, but there is no sign of the equipment, or anything for that matter, left by Apollo 11. While Wonder Girl works on a bent landing probe rod, Speedy, and Hawk take a moonwalk scouting for signs of Apollo 11. They find nothing but when they get back to the LM they find Wonder Girl is missing.

Meanwhile on the Venus Probe Chaser they locate Mal's ship and though it is touch and go for a bit, including broken tethers and such, they are able to transfer Mal from the Venus Space Probe, which will go on with it's unmanned mission, to the chaser ship.

Back on the moon these glowing creatures (see the cover for details), show up with Wonder Girl in tow. They are alien creatures who crash landed on the moon and were using the Apollo 11 lunar packages as spare parts to try and repair their damaged ship. Wonder Girl has convinced them to put everything back the way it was and that the next Apollo mission will be there soon and will provide assistance to the aliens.

The Venus Probe Chaser docks with the CM and soon the three on the moon are blasting off in the LM to do the same. All goes well with the docking and the Titans head back for Earth. But at some point they all go mad and begin attacking each other but luckily Kid Flash notices that their is a malfunction in the oxygen mix and corrects their nitrogen intake, ending their hallucinations. This story was reprinted in Showcase Presents: Teen Titans Vol. 2 TPB.

Thirty days after this issue hit the stands, on April 11, 1970, Apollo 13 launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Edited by Dick Giordano.

Teen Titans #26

Teen Titans #26 (On Sale: January 20, 1970) has another great cover by Nick Cardy. I know that as a young man, I spent many a hour staring at Wonder Girls' butt on this one.

"A Penny for a Black Star" is by Robert Kanigher and Nick Cardy and continues from the dramatic events of last issue, where the Titans responsible for the death of Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Arthur Swenson, gave up their costumes, vowed to not use their powers and joined Mr. Jupiter's top-secret project.

Continuing really from the cover, they enter into Mr. Jupiter's training facility, a kind of Titans version of the X-Men Danger Room, a gauntlet of lasers, fire and wind. When they come out on the other side, Mr. Jupiter gives them each a penny and tells them the next part of their training will be in Hell's Corner, the toughest neighborhood in the city, where they are to find jobs, a place to live and one other thing, something they will have to figure out on their own. Lilith says that the answer to the last enigmatic task will be found in Hell's Corner, but she knows know more than that.

Donna wonders what they can do with a penny each and Lilith says that perhaps they can "find... a black star," but once again, more than that she does not know. In Hell's Corner they find a young black girl selling lemonade for a penny and buy some, one to see the girl attacked by Storm and his gang, the Hell's Hawks. Don (Hawk) wants to jump in and pound the gang, but he is held back by Dove and the reminder of what happened the last time they went off one someone. Seeing that they won't fight back, the gang go after the girls, groping at Lilith and Donna. Suddenly the gang is attacked by Mal Duncan, the little girl's older brother and once the gang starts beating up on him the Titans do come to the rescue, without using their super-powers.

The gang runs off and the Titans thank Mal, who tells them that they don't belong there and should leave. But they don't heed his advice and continue on through the neighborhood. Donna and Lilith get jobs at a clothing store and the guys get work and room and board at the neighborhood boys club. where they help the kids with baseball, boxing and painting. That night they learn of a monthly boxing match where the youth of the neighborhood let off steam. A week or so later at the match, Mal is pitted against Storm and knocks him out in the ring. Later when the Titans go to congratulate him they find him being beaten by the gang. The Titans put a quick end to that. Afterward the celebrate and reluctantly Mal goes along, where mainly through the efforts of Lilith, he becomes part of the gang, the Titans realizing that recruiting Mal must be the unknown task they needed to perform.

They bring Mal to Mr. Jupiter where Mal learns that his new friends are actually the Teen Titans. Mal goes through the same danger room gauntlet as the rest of the team and over the next few weeks (months?) they all train (for some reason) for spaceflight. Eventually they are taken to a secret launch site where automated rockets are being prepped for a one-way unmanned trip to Venus. That night Mal sneaks out of the facility, though he meets Lilith on the way, and when the spaceship launches the next morning they find out Mal is on board. With Jupiter's help the Titans vow to take another ship to the moon to rendezvous with Mal and save him.

This was not the best of follow-ups to last issue's story, but I don't really expect much from Robert Kanigher. I'm not sure where Dick Giordano thought he could take the unpowered Titans, but he needed someone like Mike Sekowsky to pull this off and Kanigher just didn't qualify. This was reprinted in Showcase Presents: Teen Titans Vol. 2 TPB.

Edited by Dick Giordano.

Teen Titans #25 (On Sale: November 18, 1969) has a powerful cover by Nick Cardy.

The Teen Titans take a dramatic turn in "The Titans Kill a Saint" by Robert Kanigher and Nick Cardy. In an absolute classic art job by Cardy we begin with the Titans and the Hawk and the Dove watching a surgery take place and blaming themselves. Later in the recovery room they attempt to talk to the patient, Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Arthur Swenson, but as they do so, he dies. In shock and tears the Titans are called to the morgue for a meeting of some sort. When the dejected Titans leave a short time later they run into Lilith, onto whom they try to foist some of the blame for Swenson's death, but she will have none of their nonsense and splits.

The Titans think back to how it all began a few hours earlier at the Canary Cottage Discotheque, where they met a dancer named Lilith, who knew who the Titans were even in their civilian identities and asked to join the team. She said her power is that she just knows things, like she knows the Titans will open the door to death tonight. They blow Lilith off and leave running into a peace rally, where Dr. Swenson is speaking. As the crowd begins to get heated, the Titans head for a back alley to change only to run into the Hawk and the Dove doing the same thing.

Back inside they all do what they can to control the crowd but when a man pulls a gun, Speedy, Wonder Girl, Kid Flash and the Hawk and the Dove all jump him and try to wrest the gun from his hands. It goes off and the single bullet strikes Dr. Swenson in the head. Speedy rushes them all to the hospital, where our story began. We also learn that when they went to the morgue, they were confronted by the Justice League who told them that they had violated their most sacred duty and that something must be done about it. Superman tells them that they must act as their own judge and jury and Batman warns that if they do not reach a decision by the day's end that the JLA will execute punishment on their own.

The Titans wander the streets, finding themselves eventually at the docks, where they are met by a small boat containing Lilith and Mr. Jupiter, the richest man in the world. Jupiter says he has an urgent government mission that he wants the Titans to undertake, but that the mission may change them forever and may even cost them their lives. Lilith leaves them, saying she knows she is a reminder to them of what has happened. The Titans go with Jupiter back to his estate to hear more.

Jupiter explains that he is in charge of a secret training project to prepare teens for the task of handling the world's problems and asks them if they will join. Robin bows out, saying that he has already committed to college. Though he leaves, the rest of the Titans and the Hawk and the Dove accept and are taken to Jupiter's secret headquarters on the 13th floor of his skyscraper complex, a floor run completely by computers.

There the Titans once again meet Lilith and give up their uniforms and fore go their powers to join Jupiter's secret project. This classic story was reprinted in Showcase Presents: Teen Titans Vol. 2 TPB.

Edited by Dick Giordano.