Teen Titans: Year One is a limited series based around the original Teen Titans team. It was released in 2008 and ran for six issues that were later combined into one volume. The series is a part of DC Comics' Year One line of comics.
Teen Titans: Year One features an updated interpretation on how Robin, Kid Flash, Aqualad, Speedy, and Wonder Girl formed the Teen Titans.
This comic provides examples of:
- Abusive Parents: All the mentors are being mind controlled to be cruel to their wards but Batman's is the closest to resembling conventional abuse. Even after being freed, he's essentially emotionally abusive, dismissing Dick initiating affection to berate him for not solving the issue sooner then bluntly ordering him to return with him back to Gotham just after he commiserates with his new friends.
- Adaptation Expansion: The six-issue miniseries is adapted from what was originally a single-issue story that concluded the original Teen Titans comic, albeit without the Framing Device of Mal Duncan and Bumblebee reading about the adventure before being faced with the fact that the Titans are disbanding for now.
- Adaptational Modesty: Jack and Jill of the band The Flips dress more conservatively than they did in Showcase issue 59, where Jill wore a leotard that left her arms and legs bare while Jack wore swimming trunks and had no shirt.
- Adaptational Ugliness:
- Speedy is not unattractive at all but the comic makes him a gangly looking teenager, instead of the more mature-looking and muscular mainstream version.
- The otherwise attractive Aqualad also gains pale skin, dark bags under his eyes and buck teeth. The intent is less monster man and more how an awkward adolescent would see themselves.
- Blush Stickers: Wonder Girl has permanent pink dots high on her cheeks, which only appear in this series.
- Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: At the start of the fourth issue, Wally West practices in the mirror on what he'll say when asked what it's like to be a Teen Titan, answering that it's a thrill, an honor and kind of a "thronor".
- Nervous Wreck: Though Aqualad is a hero, he is still anxious enough to begin screaming at a fish or a squirrel darting nearby.
- Origins Episode: The first half of the miniseries consists of an updated retelling of how the Teen Titans was founded, in fact being a remake of the final issue of the very first Teen Titans comic that had the same plot of the young heroes coming together to stop a malevolent entity called the Antithesis from making their mentors commit crimes.
- Not Himself: The story arc is about all the young heroes' adult mentors acting uncharacteristically callous and criminal, leaving them to investigate why.
- Rise of Zitboy: Wally freaks out about having a pimple in the fourth issue.
- Setting Update: From the 1960s of their original comics to the contemporary 2000s. This is noticeable in the clothing and technology.
- Singing in the Shower: Aqualad is shown to sing in the shower in the final issue.
- Ungrateful Bastard: Once freed from mind control, instead of thanking Robin for helping him free himself, Batman just says Dick should have figured out what happened sooner.
- Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Aqualad visibly vomits at one point in the fourth issue.
- What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: This is a frequent point of contention between Aqualad and Kid Flash, both of whom think the other's powers aren't up to snuff.Kid Flash: "Go talk to a fish!"Aqualad: "Oh, like running fast is really all that!"
- You Don't Look Like You: Aqualad is usually a human looking boy, however this series puts an emphasis on his fish-looking aspects and he gives him a bluish skin tone.
