The Teen Titans are a superhero team appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics, frequently in eponymous monthly series. As the group's name indicates, the members are teenage superheroes, many of whom have acted as sidekicks to DC's premier superheroes in the Justice League. The original team later becomes known as the Titans when the members age out of their teenage years, while the Teen Titans name is continued by subsequent generations of young heroes. Created by Bob Haney and Bruno Premiani and first appearing in 1964 in The Brave and the Bold #54, the team was formed by Kid Flash (Wally West), Robin (Dick Grayson), and Aqualad (Garth) before adopting the name Teen Titans in issue 60 with the addition of Wonder Girl (Donna Troy) to their ranks.[1]
Over the decades, DC has cancelled and relaunched Teen Titans many times, and a variety of characters have been featured heroes in its pages. Significant early additions to the initial quartet of Titans were Speedy (Roy Harper), Aquagirl (Tula), Bumblebee (Karen Beecher), Hawk (Hank Hall), Dove (Don Hall), Harlequin (Duela Dent), and three non-costumed heroes: boxer Mal Duncan, psychic Lilith, and caveman Gnarrk. The series would not become a genuine hit until its 1980s revival as The New Teen Titans under writer Marv Wolfman and artist George Pérez.[2][3] This run depicted the original Titans now as young adults and introduced new characters Cyborg (Victor Stone), Starfire (Koriand'r), and Raven (Rachel Roth), as well as the former Doom Patrol member Beast Boy (Garfield Logan) under his new alias of Changeling, who would all become enduring fan favorites. A high point for the series both critically and commercially was its "The Judas Contract" storyline, in which the Teen Titans are betrayed by their teammate Terra (Tara Markov).
The 1990s featured a Teen Titans team composed entirely of new members before the previous members returned in the series Titans, which ran from the late 1990s to the early 2000s. Subsequent stories in the 2000s introduced a radically different Teen Titans team made up of newer DC Comics sidekicks such as Robin III (Tim Drake), Wonder Girl II (Cassie Sandsmark), and Impulse / Kid Flash II (Bart Allen), as well as Superboy (Conner Kent), some of whom had previously featured in the similar title Young Justice. Later prominent additions from this era included Miss Martian (M'gann M'orzz), Ravager (Rose Wilson), Supergirl (Kara Zor-El), Kid Devil, Blue Beetle III (Jaime Reyes), and Solstice (Kiran Singh). Concurrently, DC also published Titans, which featured some of the original and 1980s members now as adults, led by Dick Grayson in his adult persona of Nightwing. Important storylines for the 2000s era of Teen Titans included "Titans Tomorrow" and the company-wide crossover Infinite Crisis.
In the 2010s, The New 52 reboot in 2011 added new characters Bunker (Miguel Jose Barragan) and Skitter (Celine Patterson) to the 2000s roster, although the volume proved commercially and critically disappointing for DC, leading to the return of the original Titans in 2016's DC Rebirth era, alongside a new cast of Teen Titans led by Robin V (Damian Wayne) alongside Aqualad II (Jackson Hyde) and Kid Flash III (Wallace "Ace" West), later joined by Red Arrow (Emiko Queen). Later storylines saw the elder Titans establish a Teen Titans Academy for young heroes and serving as the DC Universe's main heroes during Dark Crisis when the Justice League were declared dead.
The Teen Titans have been adapted to other media numerous times, such as in the animated television series Teen Titans and Teen Titans Go!, and the live-action television series Titans. Within DC Comics, the Teen Titans have been an influential group of characters taking prominent roles in all of the publisher's major company-wide crossover stories. Many villains who face the Titans have since taken on a larger role within the publisher's fictional universe, such as the assassin Deathstroke, the demon Trigon, and the evil organization H.I.V.E..
