Showcase Presents Teen Titans, Vol. 1, Bob Haney et al

I’m tempted to say that these were the most diabolically bad comics I’ve ever read, but I’ve a feeling that in a different mood, or maybe just in smaller quantities, I might have thought that they were the best! In context they make sense: this is a teenage version of the Batman tv show, with all the corny dialogue and goofy villains that that would make you expect. Out of context it’s appalling stuff: the dialogue is excruciating, the villains idiotic, and the whole thing intensely embarrassing.

Unless you’re in the mood for a comic written by Austin Powers, I’d give this a miss. There’s a change of writers with issue 18, the last in the book. It’s a rather mundane issue, but it’s a relief after the previous 500 pages of hipness and grooviness. The book does have one redeeming feature: the Santa minidress that “Wonder Chick” wears in issue 13, “A Christmas Happening”. In fact, having said that, Nick Cardy’s art throughout is rather lovely.

Showcase Presents Teen Titans, Volume 1, Bob Haney et al, DC, tpb, 528pp.