PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, psychological* The final season of TEEN TITANS provides an overarching plotline concerning Beast Boy's first superhero team The Doom Patrol, though said group wasn't mentioned in any previous TV-episodes. In comic books, DC debuted both TEEN TITANS and DOOM PATROL within a few years of one another, and though they were largely independent, Beast Boy of PATROL guest-starred in one issue of TITANS-- which later resulted in the shapeshifter becoming a New Teen Titan in the 1980s. The 1980s comic also concluded a hanging plot-thread left over since PATROL's cancellation in the 1960s, and this storyline resulted in the Patrol's old foes, the Brotherhood of Evil, becoming members of the New Titans' regular rogues' gallery. 
POOR Only one episode this time is a waste of time. The Titans pursue their recurring villain Doctor Light into a subterranean domain where prehistoric life has persisted. It's too complicated to go into the comics-histories of the two quasi-heroic locals, Gnarrk and Kole, but as far as I've concerned, both were boring in the comics and the TITANS writers aren't able to make them any less so. I suppose the eating contest between Gnarrk and Cyborg is moderately amusing.
FAIR GO! -- This episode, whose title is a patent reference to the catchphrase "Teen Titans Go," is the only fair-mythicity episode which isn't tied into the overarching "Brotherhood of Evil" plotline. The episode is a very condensed version of the origin of the 1980s Titans, in which Starfire escapes her captors, the extraterrestrial marauders called Gordanians. Various contrivances cause Robin, Raven, Cyborg and Beast Boy to oppose the Gordanians' attempts to recapture Starfire. The story naturally emphasizes action more than character explication. But some strong moments include Beast Boy's first meeting with Robin, acting the fanboy to the Teen Wonder. Starfire appears as the product of a ruthless warlord culture, so the episode's not able to explain how she transitioned to the "puppies and kittens" Starfire of the later episodes. HOMECOMING PTS 1-2, TRUST, FOR REAL, SNOWBLIND, HIDE AND SEEK, LIGHTSPEED, CALLING ALL TITANS, and TITANS TOGETHER-- All of these episodes are organized around the resurgence of the Brotherhood of Evil. This villain-team's core members are The Brain, the intelligent gorilla Monsieur Mallah, General Immortus, and the rubber-limbed Madame Rouge, though by the last episodes they've managed to enlist nearly all of the Titans' recurring enemies in their project to "destroy all Titans." HOMECOMING chronicles Beast Boy's first encounter with the Patrol since he resigned from their ranks, which include Robotman, Negative Man, Elasti-Girl and Mento, the latter serving as the team's leader. All four are under-characterized, probably because the writers knew that they weren't to make more than token appearances. Beast Boy's reasons for leaving that group aren't articulated, but it's likely that he rebelled against Mento's severe and unforgiving attitude. In fact, all four Patrollers are bereft of any humor or fellow-feeling, and the HOMECOMING script treats them as if they were ultra-military types, focused only upon beating the enemy. This is more than a little ironic, since in the original comics from the 1960s, PATROL was distinguished by its display of rollicking humor, while the TITANS comic was usually only funny by virtue of its writer seeking to emulate the speech patterns of 1960s teenagers. TRUST follows Robin as he seeks to prevent Madame Rouge from abducting Hotspot. This episode feels much like filler, given that Hotspot had only a minor appearance in WINNER TAKE ALL and certainly didn't do anything to earn himself a big fandom. FOR REAL-- Control Freak breaks out of jail and invades Titans Tower to challenge his old foes. Instead of his usual foes, the villain finds that the Titans East have taken up residence in the Tower while the other heroes are on missions. There are a few funny moments where Control Freak debates with other cyber-chatters as to whether he should even bother battling such rank unknowns. Of course, he does, and he even goes the "average villain" route by setting up physical challenges for the Easterners-- who naturally kick his butt just as hard as the Western branch did. SNOWBLIND-- This story, only tangentially related to the Brotherhood arc, involves the Titans going to Russia to fight a marauding monster. While searching for the creature, Starfire is separated from her group but finds shelter in a quarantined facility occupied by Red Star, a soldier given unstable powers in a government experiment. There's an involved comics in-joke here, in that although Red Star did appear in the 1980s TITANS series, he was derived from a sixties character, who was the first DC character to be named-- Starfire. HIDE AND SEEK-- Raven gets her only solo comedy episode, as she's charged with protecting three grade-schoolers from being captured by the Brotherhood. The humor's very predictable, made palatable only by the characterization of Raven. LIGHTSPEED-- In this odd segue, loner-hero Kid Flash-- a frequent Titan in the comics but seen here for the first time-- makes life miserable for the "Hive Five." But even without the Kid's interference, the Five's leader Jinx finds herself constantly undercut by her lazy-ass comrades (now upped to six with the inclusion of Billy Numerous and two newbies, See-mour and Kid Wycked). Moreover, when Jinx tries to curry favor with the Brotherhood, she finds that they're something less than accomodating. CALLING ALL TITANS just sets up the action for TITANS TOGETHER, when the principal Titans invade the Brotherhood's sanctuary and free all the prisoners the villains have captured. There are various character bits that enhance TOGETHER's mythicity, but the main appeal is kinetic, as the animators unleash what may be the largest multi-character fight-scene in the history of world cartoons. This episode seems to have been conceived as a possible conclusion for the series, though one more episode was produced to give the series a more wistful send-off.
GOOD REVVED UP-- In the 1960s TITANS comic, the writer introduced a villain with the improbable name of "Ding Dong Daddy," who executed crimes with the help of specially rigged vehicles. This was a rare (for the time) shout-out to a cartoon character outside the boundaries of four-color comic books: the artistic persona of Earl "Big Daddy" Roth, a caricaturist renowned for weird monsters driving fast cars. REVVED UP introduces the new Ding Dong as a guy who somehow gets hold of a secret treasure owned by the Teen Wonder himself. When Robin and the other Titans try to reacquire the mysterious item, Ding Dong compels them to participate in a car-race-- and Cyborg, who dearly loves his T-car, is more than happy to oblige. A bunch of other villains show up to try winning Robin's mysterious prize, including Red X, the mystery thief who took over Robin's phony criminal identity-- though in some ways Red X shows some of Robin's own sense of personal honor. Ding Dong is aided by a mobile pit crew, whose monstrous servicemen look like the ghouls of "Big Daddy," and that alone gives extra heft to the episode's mythicity. THINGS CHANGE-- Every other TEEN TITANS episode, no matter how good or bad in terms of symbolic discourse, is structured as formula entertainment. This observation isn't meant to have any negative connotations. It simply means that the raconteurs structured their narratives to respond to the expectations of the audience, rather than obliging the audience to follow where the storyteller wants to go. But in THINGS CHANGE, the production team concluded their series with the superhero equivalent of FALL OUT, the final episode of the 1960s teleseries THE PRISONER. Like FALL OUT, CHANGE is full of uncertainties, of questions without answers. The five Titans stride into town looking for their favorite haunts-- a pizza place, a video store-- but those touchstones have been closed down. From a construction site a metamorphic monster pops out and attacks them. While four of the heroes pursue the creature and eventually defeat it-- though they never know what it was or why it attacked-- Beast Boy is astounded to see, amid a crowd of onlookers, a dead-ringer for the deceased Terra. No other Titan sees her, nor do they join Beast Boy when he investigates the place where they enshrined Terra's body, converted into pure stone during her battle with Slade. Not only does the changeling find the statue missing, he's attacked by a being that resembles Slade, who keeps telling him to leave the young girl alone. When Beast Boy defeats Slade, Slade turns out to be a robot, but there are no clues as to who programmed the mechanical man for this exigency. As for the girl, she denies any identity with Terra but rather significantly never gives her "real" name. While she's fairly kind toward the confused young superhero, she flatly disavows any connection with the world he lives in, and the story ends with Beast Boy, committed to the life of a hero, rushing off to join his friends in their next mission and reconciling himself to his loss. Many fans didn't like this mysterioso conclusion, but I was glad to see the producers bow out on this atypical note of loss and heartache.
POOR Only one episode this time is a waste of time. The Titans pursue their recurring villain Doctor Light into a subterranean domain where prehistoric life has persisted. It's too complicated to go into the comics-histories of the two quasi-heroic locals, Gnarrk and Kole, but as far as I've concerned, both were boring in the comics and the TITANS writers aren't able to make them any less so. I suppose the eating contest between Gnarrk and Cyborg is moderately amusing.
FAIR GO! -- This episode, whose title is a patent reference to the catchphrase "Teen Titans Go," is the only fair-mythicity episode which isn't tied into the overarching "Brotherhood of Evil" plotline. The episode is a very condensed version of the origin of the 1980s Titans, in which Starfire escapes her captors, the extraterrestrial marauders called Gordanians. Various contrivances cause Robin, Raven, Cyborg and Beast Boy to oppose the Gordanians' attempts to recapture Starfire. The story naturally emphasizes action more than character explication. But some strong moments include Beast Boy's first meeting with Robin, acting the fanboy to the Teen Wonder. Starfire appears as the product of a ruthless warlord culture, so the episode's not able to explain how she transitioned to the "puppies and kittens" Starfire of the later episodes. HOMECOMING PTS 1-2, TRUST, FOR REAL, SNOWBLIND, HIDE AND SEEK, LIGHTSPEED, CALLING ALL TITANS, and TITANS TOGETHER-- All of these episodes are organized around the resurgence of the Brotherhood of Evil. This villain-team's core members are The Brain, the intelligent gorilla Monsieur Mallah, General Immortus, and the rubber-limbed Madame Rouge, though by the last episodes they've managed to enlist nearly all of the Titans' recurring enemies in their project to "destroy all Titans." HOMECOMING chronicles Beast Boy's first encounter with the Patrol since he resigned from their ranks, which include Robotman, Negative Man, Elasti-Girl and Mento, the latter serving as the team's leader. All four are under-characterized, probably because the writers knew that they weren't to make more than token appearances. Beast Boy's reasons for leaving that group aren't articulated, but it's likely that he rebelled against Mento's severe and unforgiving attitude. In fact, all four Patrollers are bereft of any humor or fellow-feeling, and the HOMECOMING script treats them as if they were ultra-military types, focused only upon beating the enemy. This is more than a little ironic, since in the original comics from the 1960s, PATROL was distinguished by its display of rollicking humor, while the TITANS comic was usually only funny by virtue of its writer seeking to emulate the speech patterns of 1960s teenagers. TRUST follows Robin as he seeks to prevent Madame Rouge from abducting Hotspot. This episode feels much like filler, given that Hotspot had only a minor appearance in WINNER TAKE ALL and certainly didn't do anything to earn himself a big fandom. FOR REAL-- Control Freak breaks out of jail and invades Titans Tower to challenge his old foes. Instead of his usual foes, the villain finds that the Titans East have taken up residence in the Tower while the other heroes are on missions. There are a few funny moments where Control Freak debates with other cyber-chatters as to whether he should even bother battling such rank unknowns. Of course, he does, and he even goes the "average villain" route by setting up physical challenges for the Easterners-- who naturally kick his butt just as hard as the Western branch did. SNOWBLIND-- This story, only tangentially related to the Brotherhood arc, involves the Titans going to Russia to fight a marauding monster. While searching for the creature, Starfire is separated from her group but finds shelter in a quarantined facility occupied by Red Star, a soldier given unstable powers in a government experiment. There's an involved comics in-joke here, in that although Red Star did appear in the 1980s TITANS series, he was derived from a sixties character, who was the first DC character to be named-- Starfire. HIDE AND SEEK-- Raven gets her only solo comedy episode, as she's charged with protecting three grade-schoolers from being captured by the Brotherhood. The humor's very predictable, made palatable only by the characterization of Raven. LIGHTSPEED-- In this odd segue, loner-hero Kid Flash-- a frequent Titan in the comics but seen here for the first time-- makes life miserable for the "Hive Five." But even without the Kid's interference, the Five's leader Jinx finds herself constantly undercut by her lazy-ass comrades (now upped to six with the inclusion of Billy Numerous and two newbies, See-mour and Kid Wycked). Moreover, when Jinx tries to curry favor with the Brotherhood, she finds that they're something less than accomodating. CALLING ALL TITANS just sets up the action for TITANS TOGETHER, when the principal Titans invade the Brotherhood's sanctuary and free all the prisoners the villains have captured. There are various character bits that enhance TOGETHER's mythicity, but the main appeal is kinetic, as the animators unleash what may be the largest multi-character fight-scene in the history of world cartoons. This episode seems to have been conceived as a possible conclusion for the series, though one more episode was produced to give the series a more wistful send-off.
GOOD REVVED UP-- In the 1960s TITANS comic, the writer introduced a villain with the improbable name of "Ding Dong Daddy," who executed crimes with the help of specially rigged vehicles. This was a rare (for the time) shout-out to a cartoon character outside the boundaries of four-color comic books: the artistic persona of Earl "Big Daddy" Roth, a caricaturist renowned for weird monsters driving fast cars. REVVED UP introduces the new Ding Dong as a guy who somehow gets hold of a secret treasure owned by the Teen Wonder himself. When Robin and the other Titans try to reacquire the mysterious item, Ding Dong compels them to participate in a car-race-- and Cyborg, who dearly loves his T-car, is more than happy to oblige. A bunch of other villains show up to try winning Robin's mysterious prize, including Red X, the mystery thief who took over Robin's phony criminal identity-- though in some ways Red X shows some of Robin's own sense of personal honor. Ding Dong is aided by a mobile pit crew, whose monstrous servicemen look like the ghouls of "Big Daddy," and that alone gives extra heft to the episode's mythicity. THINGS CHANGE-- Every other TEEN TITANS episode, no matter how good or bad in terms of symbolic discourse, is structured as formula entertainment. This observation isn't meant to have any negative connotations. It simply means that the raconteurs structured their narratives to respond to the expectations of the audience, rather than obliging the audience to follow where the storyteller wants to go. But in THINGS CHANGE, the production team concluded their series with the superhero equivalent of FALL OUT, the final episode of the 1960s teleseries THE PRISONER. Like FALL OUT, CHANGE is full of uncertainties, of questions without answers. The five Titans stride into town looking for their favorite haunts-- a pizza place, a video store-- but those touchstones have been closed down. From a construction site a metamorphic monster pops out and attacks them. While four of the heroes pursue the creature and eventually defeat it-- though they never know what it was or why it attacked-- Beast Boy is astounded to see, amid a crowd of onlookers, a dead-ringer for the deceased Terra. No other Titan sees her, nor do they join Beast Boy when he investigates the place where they enshrined Terra's body, converted into pure stone during her battle with Slade. Not only does the changeling find the statue missing, he's attacked by a being that resembles Slade, who keeps telling him to leave the young girl alone. When Beast Boy defeats Slade, Slade turns out to be a robot, but there are no clues as to who programmed the mechanical man for this exigency. As for the girl, she denies any identity with Terra but rather significantly never gives her "real" name. While she's fairly kind toward the confused young superhero, she flatly disavows any connection with the world he lives in, and the story ends with Beast Boy, committed to the life of a hero, rushing off to join his friends in their next mission and reconciling himself to his loss. Many fans didn't like this mysterioso conclusion, but I was glad to see the producers bow out on this atypical note of loss and heartache.
No comments:
Post a Comment