Wednesday 30 January 2019

Teen Titans #42 (DC/1972)



Teen Titans #42 (DC)

Bob Haney (w) Art Saaf (a)

The superhero's sidekicks formed their own team after a team up of Robin, Kid Flash and Aqualad in Brave & the Bold #54 and with Wonder Girl added became the Teen Titans in Brave & the Bold #60. Over the years some of them have grown up, changed identities or moved on but the core characters have been a part of the fictional tapestry of the DC universe to this day and are more of a family than a team.

  

However this was back in their first incarnation from the sixties. which sees the team of Robin, Kid Flash, Donna (Wonder Girl), Lilith and Gabriel in his incarnation as Herald along with Speedy (Roy Harper) wander off on a jungle adventure at the behest of Donna Troy who has seen visions emanating from a brooch thrown out of her window by Lilith and wants to return the hero to his own land to be free of the curse that left him in this form.

Originally unable to afford the brooch at an auction they are helped by philanthropist "Johnny Carpetbag". More on him later...

And off to the jungle our heroes go, albeit reluctantly on some of them's parts and in strange jungles and on dangerous rivers where Kid Flash nearly ends up as supper for an alligator they eventually reach their goal whereupon they find themselves at the mercy of The Insect King who had fooled Donna all along and was helped in his duplicity by aforesaid Johnny Carpetbagger, a servitor for the evil one!

He has Uses for the Titans as human sacrifices Donna however is left to wonder free in his domain but by accident comes upon the real hero, Modron, imprisoned by the Insect King whom she frees and with his help frees the Titans and stop the rise of evil just in the nick of time.

This was the penultimate issue of the first series and although revived for another run in the 1976/78 it wasn't until Marv Wolfman and George Perez created The New Teen Titans in the early eighties that these characters saw big time sales. That however is a story for another day.

  

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