365 Days of DC House Ads, Day 231: You make me feel like I'm livin' a teenage dream

House ad for Teen Titans (1976 series) #44 (November 1976); printed in Super-Team Family #7 (October-November 1976)
Ad designed and lettered by Gaspar Saladino



The first Teen Titans series ceased publication with issue #43 in 1973, but was revived in 1976 with this issue, #44—thus deftly saving DC from having to apply for a brand-new second-class Postal Service application. But really, what brought back the heroes who could fight for their country but who still couldn't vote or drink a beer? Let's allow that epitome of exposition, the Comic Book Text Page, explain it, much like Clarissa, all for you!


The first issue of the only-partly-new, slightly-somewhat different Teen Titans begins with Titan hanger-on Mal Duncan giving them the what-for! What for? Well, let's look and find out!


Panels from Teen Titans #44, script by Paul Levitz and Bob Rozakis, pencils by Pablo Marcos, inks by Bob Smith, colors by Jerry Serpe, letters by Ben Oda
Their first enemy—the villain you don't want to turn your back on...Dr. Light! Oh man oh man, please don't tell us all about his M.O., Robin! Please!


There's no better way to indicate the beginning of an exciting new team...by ending that exciting new team in the first issue.


Luckily, Mal finds a super-suit hidden away in Robin's personal filing cabinets. Think you branded that office equipment boldly enough with your own logo, Robin?


And everything works out, thanks to...—yay!—teamwork. Or, to be more precise, Mal putting on a super-suit. Yay, super-suits!


This "New" Teen Titans certainly wasn't the big-blast revival DC had been looking for with the Titans (that wouldn't come until 1980 and Wolfman and Perez's The New Teen Titans), lasting only 10 more issues. Showcase's '77 revival was only slightly more successful with 11 issues until the DC Implosion crashed its publication, but the '76 continuation of Green Lantern lasted through the late 1980s.

But all in all, they were just biding time until this girl got there.


Panel from The New Teen Titans #8 (June 1981), co-plot and script by Marv Wolfman, co-plot and breakdowns by George Peréz, finishes by Romeo Tanghal, colors by Adrienne Roy, letters by Ben Oda