Hi Anons.Sorry for the wait, real life shit got in the way, but I'm hoping to be around again to do at least up to Judas Contract by the end of this year.Anyway, back to our regular posting of Titans stuff. This week it's gonna be the stuff before Judas Contract.We begin this issue with Wolfman getting rid of the dead weight of the team aka Wally West.https://desuarchive.org/co/thread/149478500/https://desuarchive.org/co/thread/149495814/https://desuarchive.org/co/thread/149542385/https://desuarchive.org/co/thread/149563797/https://desuarchive.org/co/thread/149590800/https://desuarchive.org/co/thread/150067377/https://desuarchive.org/co/thread/150389446/ https://desuarchive.org/co/thread/150445955/
>>151619993
>>151619993you owe us NOTHING anon. Just being back is more than enough. I'm just here for the deathstroke memes anyways.
>>151620015Honestly, I will say this. Although Wally West within the context of Wolfman's shit was... well bad, I do kinda like the general idea of the superhero questioning why he was even doing this being part of the team. But it was clear that Wolfman himself had no idea where to take the character past a certain point
>>151620033Cheers anon, still feel a bit like shit for taking a break this long, but really appreciate it.On Deathstroke, hoo boy, if we get to the titan Hunt and Deathstroke shit, I can't wait for the inevitable jokes of Slade being "the coolest guy"
Anyway, on jokes, within the context of this stuff, I dunno if it was editorial miscommunication, but this issue continues to see Wolfman sell that Terra is totally evil and irredeemable guys!
But yeah, I really kinda hate that few adaptations of the Titans really sell that they are "at war" so to speak with HIVE. A lot of stuff very much downplays the importance of HIVE within TItans (which fair enough, it does require set up) but it sorta sells a huge part of Titans which sets it apart from the JLA. The whole vibe of conspiracies etc.
On this page, and sequence this gives me the perfect opportunity to go on autistic ramble, so please excuse for doing just that.See, one of the big things that I think a lot of people miss about what makes these sequence good is not only when it came out (1984 aka the year that Orwell warned everyone about) but also, the trend it set that guys like Ostrander and Kelly would take the ball and run with. That being the mix of real world espionage shit with superheroes.
A key part about Tera's infiltration is yeah, it very much uses the same techniques and procedures used by real life spies. Although as far as I'm aware the technology was a bit more advanced (seeing as this would be a superhero setting, why wouldn't it be), it followed the same basic methodology and this is sorta what elevated Titans and then Suicide Squad, a perfect mixture of the mundane aspects of our world and the elevated world of superheroes.
We also get our first glimpse of the real Terra and a glimpse into her relationship with Deathstroke. In the words of Perez, this appearance was meant to make us think:"Wow, good god. This girl is a slut!"
A controverisal opinion? I kinda... like Terra being portrayed as someone who is sexually forward and promiscuous, mainly because that's an actual coping mechanism with sexual assault victims, that they try to take control of their own sexuality.
But yeah, this page kinda hits on something that is a problem with Deathstroke and Terra's relationship even within the Judas Contract and Wolfman/Perez's subsequent framing of the two as a fucked up Bonnie and Clyde. Even within this thing, Slade is using his age and emotional maturity to manipulate Terra. As an absolute mess that Terra is, you can't really go "Hey, the girl is a slut and just as bad as Deathstroke" when Deathstroke is egging her on and manipulating her to serve his own purposes
Anyway, I'll try and just post pages without my blather for a moment.
End of the first issue, hope it was a good return.Gonna take a quick five minute break then I'm back
And back. Here is a major guest star issue for the Titans
Honestly, not that much to say about this particular issue in contrast to the last one. It's a fun one and is genuinely a fun way to add to Nightwing's character of exploring the fact he lied not only to his public but his team about Vigilante.
I read a detailed article saying the authentic way to read this book is to include the letter's page because it helps illustrate the context of when this series came out
>>151620559Could you link? Would if I could, but sadly the digital copies don't come with the letter page.
>>151620537Wolfman's Nightwing run was pretty garbage but I did like the callbacks to Adrian via the motivation for the new Vigilante. Really I feel like they could've kept Dorian as a really personal Nightwing villain.
>>151620577Dubs of truth. Yeah, I fully agree. Nightwing's history with the Chase family is honestly one ripe for potential to explore. The difficult part would it would mean DC would have to acknowledge Nightwing's history with the titans in his Batman adajcent solos.
>>151620574>Though this piece will not cover the ins and outs of every issue of the series, it will cover enough that I recommend people to visit this link and read at least some of the series first if you fear spoilers. In spite of a version of the character appearing recently in the Peacemaker series on HBO max, 0 efforts have been made to make the series readable legally, save for a single trade paperback released some years ago collecting the first 15 or so issues, therefore you may pirate to your heart’s content (not that you need any reason to). Another reason why I believe piracy is the de-facto way to read Vigilante is because the scans I have linked to are the only place where the original fan letter pages can be read. These fan solicitations do more to make the case for this middle class fascist rot more so than I ever could, because in the 1980s most readers of vigilante were middle class men. According to a readership survey published just a year after Vigilante began, the average comic book reader was men under 30, college educated, with a mean income of $60,000 a year in today’s dollars. This demographic was at the time commonly referred to as the Yuppies.https://netscapeblack.substack.com/p/vigilante-dreamIt's by the LEGO Gwen Stacy guy on comic twitter
>>151620609>Danny was implied to be Adrian's nephew>he dies while Titan-ing and also Dick was really mean to him onceAnother reason for Dorian to hate Dick.
>>151620626Oh Vigilante? Yeah, I can feel that. I love that series so much. I feel Wolfman and Kupperberg have such different takes on the character. Wolfman views it as a good man gradually falling apart where as I think that Kupperbeg sees the rot at the core of Chase.Not sure who the Lego Gwen guy is. I'm not a twitter guy. It's a place where discussions go to die.
>>151620644Oh absolutely I have a whole pitch written down, where Dorian's relationship/dynamic with Dick and how Dick still feels guilt for what happened to Adrian and Danny both
Vigilante done. Now we move into the next stage.
The fucking up of Brother Blood will never not piss me off. It's a bit like fucking up Doctor Doom. The ability of subsequent writers to not be able to understand what was being laid down for them is genuinely incredible.
Seriously, how hard is it to fuck up "this guy is essentially Jim Jones meets Doctor Doom"? Because that very much is what Brother Blood is.
>>151620779There goes the resident sex pest again
Hey anons. Storyteller here PC craped out. I'll be back up in 20 or so.
>>151620626Controversial opinion, but as much as I love the NTT that is very much Wolfman's bread and butter and its what makes the original run of the Titans so good. Wolfman had his ear to the ground in terms of culture and the characters in NTT are deliberate reactions to what's going on. Vigilante is very much a reaction to where culture was going at the time.>>151620832Makes sense why he and Slade got along later.
>>151621133
Last issue for this go. Next storytime will have my autism on full display
And done for the day. Hope you enjoyed. Next time, I'll be a lot more autistic. Anyway, later anons!
>>151621525Thanks OP
Bump
>>151620091>>151620076did you miss a page or was page 7 just an advertisement
>>151619993Bless you
>>151620696I know that Wolfman's Vigilante is sort of apocryphal now since it's Pre-Crisis, but I still don't understand why it only has one trade. Hell, Kupperberg's Vigilante doesn't have any trades and the ending's one of DC's finest moments.
>>151625111What do you mean it's was 100% canon through the rest of the post-crisis era.Wolfman used characters like Pat Trayce in his post-crisis Deathstroke run, and created a new brother for Adrian in his Nightwing run.In the Rebirth era, Priest used Pat in his Deathstroke run.
Thanks
Bumping for OP
>>151625111Vigilante is widely considered an old shame for multiple reasons >>The suicide ending pissed a LOT of people off as top brass editorial wasn't told about it until the issue came out and fans fucking hated it>>Even though it predates Punisher getting an ongoing, the title is considered a Dollar Tree rip off of Punisher at best and at worst a convoluted mess with Adrian not even being vigilante for a decent stretch of issues and numerous copycats and a general disdain (especially under Kupperburg) for the concept to the point that some fans to this day think Kupperburg killed Adrian off purely to make sure no one could ever see the character again.
>>151628501The problem with Vigilante is that it is WAY too high concept for it's own good, let alone way too freaking serialized. Punisher was a huge big titted hit for ages, to the point of carrying three titles, because with rare exceptions, the Punisher franchise focused on one off tales where you could dip in and out of the book due to it having a level of negative continuity that meant you didn't have to obsessively buy all three books or even follow the greater Marvel Universe for the most part. If Punisher was Vigilante, then you'd have insane number of running storylines, extended periods where you had Americop, the Axe wielding priest from the Ennis run, and Rick Jones all running around in Punisher's costume and multiple stories where Punisher living a double life, running for a position in local politics as a civilian with no one knowing he was Punisher, and constantly swearing he was going to give up being Punisher while fighting SamCap, who has Uncle Ruckus's ghost living in his sunglasses telling him to kill all the white Jews and rape all of the white women targeting the replacement Punishers for murder. Oh and JJJ is now suddenly working for SHIELD as a field agent, as a reference to how Harvey Bullock spent most of the late 80s as a Checkmate agent minus the gimp suit until Batman the Animated Series came along and he got put back onto the GCPD for synergy.
>>151620036Are you using scans from a Judas Contract trade? Because I swear that this page had creator credits on it.
>>151629641Not OP, but yes he is. All reprints of #39-44 until the HC collection of Judas Contract used an edited version of those issues that removed the creator credits from the issues and stuck in that block graphic "chapter X" at the start of each issue.
>>151619993Nice
>>151620644Would Danny had been Dorian's son then?
