Silver Age – Comics Archeology

Teen Titans #6 (1966)
by Bob Haney & Bill Molno
cover by Nick Cardy

The Doom Patrol has its last team-up of the Silver Age, with the recently formed Teen Titans.

This is probably the first time I cover the original Teen Titans, but we’ve seen most of them already. The exception is Wonder Girl, but her deal is SO complicated that I’ll talk about her once I get to the Wonder Woman retrospective (which MIGHT be next year… no promises).

We begin with Beast Boy STILL not being accepted into the Doom Patrol.

While I agree it’s absolutely ridiculous they don’t want him to join… they work with Mento, it’s not like the team has any standards… but pestering them is not a great strategy.

Something tells me Bob Haney doesn’t have the best opinion of Elasti-Girl.

*sighs in 1966*

It was admittedly a stupid prank, but maybe ATTEMPTED MURDER was a bit much!

This gets Beast Boy so depressed that he wanders off the headquarters…

…and into a TV studio, of all places.

It’s a long-standing tradition at both DC and Marvel to have solo heroes having trouble contacting superhero teams, and most of them eventually get SOME kind of official channel.
But having a whole TV channel they have to watch constantly sounds like the worst idea.

The original Titans try so hard to be “hip and cool” it’s absolutely hilarious: I get why the others might want to get their own motorbikes, but WHY WOULD KID FLASH DO THAT???

As you might have guessed Beast Boy wants to join the Teen Titans, so he gives both a power demonstration and a summary of his origin story.

It should be noted that Beast Boy doesn’t have any problem revealing his identity to the Titans.

However Beast Boy runs into the same problem that prevents him from joining the Doom Patrol: parental permission!
That WAS a minor plot point in the Doom Patrol book, but we’ve seen before that Bob Haney has a thing for superheroes to need official validation from authority figures.

I do have to mention ONE thing about Wonder Girl… this far back this is supposed to be a younger version of Wonder Woman.
That’s because “Wonder Girl” originates on the Wonder Woman book as her equivalent to Superboy: she wasn’t supposed to be a separate character!
But apparently Bob Haney didn’t know that and SOMEHOW nobody caught it, so the series will eventually have to jump over backwards to figure out how to turn her into a different person.

Beast Boy runs away after being rejected from another team, and ABSOLUTELY OUT OF NOWHERE he runs into a lion tamer.

Who is just hanging around in the countryside trying to tame his lion.
Because Bob Haney.

Beast Boy works with the lion tamer for TWO WHOLE WEEKS (!!!) and we learn that he’s quite the girl magnet.

Which is actually something that sticks to the character in multiple incarnations.

You’d never get this from more modern versions of Beast Boy? Even in the 80s I’d imagine he’d be freeing the circus animals.

Has there EVER been a circus in a comic book series that is not run by a supervillain with hypnotic powers?

However “Vorna” is no Ringmaster: he can’t hypnotize the crowd, so he hypnotizes Beast Boy who hypnotizes the crowd? UH?

A quick word on how to go into a Bob Haney story expecting logic.
Don’t.

Having Kid Flash on the bike ONCE was ridiculous. This is insulting!

This makes me wonder: in the DC Universe, are superheroes routinely called during Black Friday?

Wonder Girl’s solution to de-hypnotize the crowd is… something.

Holy random deductions, Batman!!!

And now, ladies and gentlemen, is when the story turns absolutely Bob Haney.
Yes.
NOW.

How the heck is the circus getting away with this??? Even if they don’t figure out he’s hypnotizing them, the audience still WENT HOME WITHOUT MONEY!!! Why would people keep coming back???

When THIS is not the craziest panel of the issue, you know it’s a Bob Haney story.

I’m sure this is not the first time the rest of the team proposed to get in a closet with Wonder Girl.

Okay the Silver Age is not always clear about just how strong Wonder Girl and Aqualad are, but they SHOULD be able to get out of this steel vault on their own right?
Not to mention Kid Flash CAN PHASE THROUGH MATTER!!!

In fact he does it NEXT PAGE, but first we need to throw the thing into water to give Aqualad SOMETHING to do.

With the Titans now revealing their identities, the hypnotist orders Beast Boy to fight them… even though he previously said his hypnosis can’t force people to do anything.
Also notice that Beast Boy turns into a combination of several animals, something he’s not normally able to do.

Have I mentioned how much Bob Haney this story is?

Okay, I’m calling it now: this guy is the worst comic book hypnotist EVER.

Surprisingly enough the Teen Titans are quite accepting of Beast Boy…

…but the question on whether he should join the team is given by shattering the fourth wall.
Because Bob Haney.

Historical significance: 5 / Bob
Needless to say, it’s going to take DECADES but Beast Boy will be intimately associated with the Teen Titans. Not thanks to this story, though.