Teen Titans (2003)

God Red X was such an iconic part of this show despite his few appearances.

I'm confused about how Cyborg is supposed to work. Early on, when his energy cell runs out, he just goes into a sort of coma/shutdown until his battery is recharged, but in the time travel episode, he seems to be fine without his energy cells. And it's also not really clear why he suddenly can't repair himself in the bad future. But then he can suddenly repair himself anyway... What?

It also seems a bit too silly that Starfire's necklace has just been lying in the same spot for 20 years when Cyborg has apparently been living there as well.

Edited by Redmess on Apr 3rd 2024 at 1:25:06 PM

What? The time travel episode made a point that Cyborg was running on fumes stuck in a place and time with no way to recharge.

And in the bad future episode, it's also clear that Cyborg' real problem was a lack of motivation. Realizing his friends were in serious trouble and needed his help forced him to figure out a solution to the energy problem.

That was the whole point of the bad future episode. Most of the Titans just lost all motivation to do anything but wait to die. Except Robin -> Nightwing who threw himself even more into superhero stuff not unlike Batman — which wasn't that much better.

fixed

Edited by M84 on Apr 3rd 2024 at 8:48:06 PM

You mean Cyborg.

Honestly the time travel episode is the only Teen Titans episode I outright dislike. Cyborg's fate (his technology becomes obsolete and he can't leave the tower as a result) has nothing to do with Starfire leaving the team and could theoretically still happening no matter how much Power of Friendship he has on his side. Robin gets too much shilling and looks like a college aged pretty boy even though you would think that decades of vigilantism would have taken a toll on his body. On the flipside, Beast Boy looks at least 15 years older than he should be (20 years after the show would mean that he's in his early to mid 30s) and his future is unnecessarily harsh and pathetic.

Like I said, all of them were hit hard by Starfire going missing, along with whatever else happened in those years.

And while Nightwing is physically unscathed, him throwing himself into the vigilante life like that isn't portrayed as entirely positive either.

Cyborg being able to upgrade himself to leave the tower also shows that his tech was never really obsolete. Or at least that he was always able to improve himself. He just lacked the confidence.

That's actually one of the running character arcs Cyborg has in this show. His uncertainty over whether he's man or machine and overcoming the limitations of both.

Edited by M84 on Apr 3rd 2024 at 8:52:28 PM

But if he has no way to recharge, how is he even alive, then? Or at least functioning? Earlier episodes clearly show that without power, Cyborg just passes out/shuts down.

People do go bald in their 30s, but I agree BB's fate is particularly harsh. Also, they still call him BB, despite him being an adult. I also find it hard to believe he would have to lock himself into a cage to protect himself. Someone who can transform into any animal hardly needs a cage to defend himself against some rando punks.

I guess this is the basic problem with It's a Wonderful Plot: it often goes too far in making the character the center of everything, and the single force of good that everything else depends on.

I also agree that Robin gets way too much shilling. I don't see how "becomes a vigilante" is considered a bad outcome when Batman is doing just that. Why does he get to succeed as a superhero where all the others fail? That just seems to reinforce the idea that Robin doesn't really need the Titans at all, which is also reinforced by how he fights Time Travel Guy to a standstill all on his own.

I do like Starfire a lot in this episode though. She's shaping up to be the best character on the team so far.

Cyborg in that episode basically had to shut down almost all of his functions to conserve power. That's why he doesn't use his energy blasts for that final battle. He's only able to last as long as he does because of the primitive generator they are able to build for him.

As for BB, it's also clear that his actual problem isn't that he needs protection. It's that he lacked confidence too. It's a lack of motivation that was the problem for Cyborg, BB, and Raven.

With Robin / Nightwing, the problem is that the motivation is all he's got. He's like Batman at his worst, failing to find a healthy balance in life and throwing himself all-in on the vigilantism.

Like Batman, Robin / Nightwing can do a lot solo. But working solo like that takes a personal toll on him.

Edited by M84 on Apr 4th 2024 at 5:10:27 PM

Funny, when Robin showed up, for a moment I thought he was going to be Batman.

Actually, that would have been way better, with the implication that Batman has died in the bad future and Robin had to take up the mantle.

Meanwhile, I was expecting Nightwing since that's what happened in the Teen Titans comics. The comics covered Dick going from Robin to Nightwing.

So if Nightwing is the canon outcome anyway, what would be the good outcome for Robin?

I guess still Nightwing but an emotionally adjusted version who understands the importance of human connection instead of insisting on working alone and pushing people away.

I get that was what they were going for, but it didn't really come across that well in the episode. I think a two-parter may have worked better for that (and I thought that was what they were going for until they suddenly wrapped it all up).

There's definitely some Robin shilling there (and more generally in the show) which I don't usually love, but in this instance it generally worked for me. I'd have liked a bit more range, but I do like that not everyone reacts the same way to loss and failure.

I might be inclined to fiddle around the reactions somewhat. Raven's made perfect sense, but frankly, I might move Robin into 'retired with a normal family' on the basis that his whole thing about being a superhero came from the death of his family and trying to prevent that from happening again, having failed as a superhero, he decides he's being unreasonable and goes back to 'normal' life.

Cyborg, I'd have basically heads down in temporal/medical research, focused on trying to undo/repair what had been done. After all, he survived his injuries, why shouldn't Starfire?

Beast Boy...frankly, I might put him in the Nightwing role, though you can still do the bald thing and make him look uncool as he doesn't have anyone to try to look cool for, but have him still be the vigilante, as it's literally all he's known his entire life, also lets you get in some 'being a hero is what you do, not what you look like,' aesop as a BB who's been a serious solo hero for a long time might indeed be a real beast in combat.

Edited by ECD on Apr 4th 2024 at 9:04:39 AM

Ha-hah yeah Starfire gets a great amount of character depth in this episode yeah...

Hah, ah you should probably start liking Beast Boy, Raven, and Cyborg though because the show stops paying attention to Starfire shortly after this point. IIRC her only big episode after this one was the Blackfire episode where she forces Star to marry an alien... goo monster. Then Trouble In Tokyo is largely about her and Robin's relationship.

Raven gets a big Trigon story arc for most of one season, Cyborg gets the coolest scene in the entire show fighting HIVE, and the final season's latter half is just one big Let's Get Dangerous! for Beast Boy.

Though I do remember Starfire appearing in the team origin episode.

Edited by FOFD on Apr 4th 2024 at 12:21:36 PM

Aww, that's too bad. I'm glad they will start doing more character work on the others, though, that has been a bit lacking in the first season.

Starfire's the only Titan who doesn't get an arc villain of her own. Blackfire only shows up in one other episode after her debut.

• Robin has Slade / Deathstroke.

• Cyborg has Brother Blood.

• Raven has her father Trigon.

• Beast Boy has the Brotherhood of Evil.

Is Bother Blood the robot guy from season 1?

Beast Boy gets an entire Brotherhood? Wow, that's kind of a compliment, in a way.

• No. Fixit is just a one-shot villain whose role is to remind Cyborg how important his humanity is. Also, he's not a robot. Fixit is actually a cyborg just like Cyborg. He's just one who thought humanity was overrated, but seeing Cyborg's memories reminded him of his own humanity.

• The Brotherhood of Evil meanwhile were a team of bad guys from the comics who opposed the Doom Patrol. Beast Boy was one of the Doom Patrol's members. So the Brotherhood weren't just Beast Boy's rogues.

Edited by M84 on Apr 6th 2024 at 3:15:52 AM

You’d really think someone would have brought up How Long is Forever during season 4 when everyone was going on about Raven’s destiny.

Starfire doesn’t get a season arc but it’s not true that she doesn’t get any more focus. Every Titan gets at least one or two focus episodes in each season. In an interview the creators said the reason she didn’t get an arc was that they thought she had the best standalone episodes - personally I think that’s an excuse and they couldn’t come up with a good arc idea. That said, I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. I like Cyborg’s season arc but it definitely comes off as weaker and more obligatory than the others.

Edited by CheapMarzipan on Apr 5th 2024 at 7:14:10 AM

Beast Boy doesn't exactly get a season arc. He sort of gets two half-arcs. Season 2 is Terra's arc that he has a big part in and 5 is The Brotherhood of evil, again he has a big part but is sharing it with the whole expanded roster of the Titans

Where is Teen Tower supposed to be, anyway? In Terra's episode, it seems to be right next to the barren desert in one shot, but right next to the bay in another, and both have the city in the background, and they can't both be true, right? Or is this some weird Springfield geography going on?

I don’t think it’s ever said/shown (and I don’t think the creators particularly cared about geographical consistency) but I think Jump City is generally accepted by the fanbase to be in the West Coast, in California, which I think mostly matches up with what we see.

Edited by CheapMarzipan on Apr 23rd 2024 at 5:26:16 AM

Then again the big cities of DC tend to move all around the map.

Titans Tower is located in San Francisco in the comics, so people generally assume Jump City is just a renamed San Fran.

Especially since iirc it has its own version of the Golden Gate.

So does that fit with how Titans Tower seems to be both next to the bridge and next to a desert?