1985: The Official Teen Titans Index

The Official Teen Titans Index (1985) #1-5 by Murray R. Ward et al.

What’s this then? Those don’t look like Eclipse comics, and this is a blog about Eclipse.

And Eclipse isn’t mentioned anywhere, but it’s not exactly a well-kept secret that the generically named Independent Comics Group is just Eclipse under a different name.

I wasn’t going to cover any of these books in this blog series, but since I sort of had to do Naive Inter-Dimensional Commando Koalas (which is the only comic book Eclipse published under the Independent Comics Group name), it might be fun to have a look at at least one of the other things Independent Comics Group published.

And all those other series are overviews of various DC Comics super-hero series. This is the first one, and is about a team called The Teen Titans/The New Teen Titans.

And it’s official; it’s approved by The Staff of DC Comics.

So first we get the histories of the characters that were part of that team.

Strangely enough, the newer members get a synopsis that’s a lot shorter than the ones from the 60s.

And after that, we get to the meat of the series: Every singled goddamned Teen Titans issue, replete with a synopsis, a list of minor characters and villains, a list of the creators involved, and a cover. I was surprised that this book was printed in colour, but I guess the covers wouldn’t have been as nice otherwise.

I love the nerdiness of this. If I were twelve and a fan of this series, I would have been all agog, reading about the issues I would have had and the ones I didn’t have, but would have lusted after.

Perhaps I haven’t changed that much, eh?

There’s not much to the comments, though, which is mostly about various… goofs.

On the inside back cover, we get the rationale for the series…

… and we’re told that Ward already has similar series dealing with the Justice League, The Flash, Green Lantern, Doom Patrol and Metal men virtually completed.

Ward hopes to do everything DC ever published in this manner.

I wonder whether he has a blog… Nope, can’t find anything. But I did a search for phrases from this book, and I found this, so somebody seems to have repurposed the text.

Anyway, since I have no interest in these characters, I didn’t really read much in these issues. I did find some of the older covers pretty neat.

*gasp* Not his glove! It cannot be!

In the final issue, we get a huge list of errors and additions, which is kinda odd, since the series was published on a monthly basis, and there can’t have been much time to get feedback. But I guess it’s the normal phenomenon of not spotting errors before you have the printed artefact in your hands…

Ward hoped to continue the series as DC published new issues, but it didn’t happen.

Eclipse published 22 of these indices before calling it quits. Most of them in 1985 and 86. Wikipedia says

Due to poor sales, some series were cancelled before completion (the All-Star and Legion indices), and a planned Legends index[1] was never released.

I got these five Teen Titans issues very cheaply from ebay, so I guess they haven’t become more sought-after in later years, either.