George Perez: Teen Titans Poster, Amazing Heroes, Newsletter covers

There have been many great Teen Titans illustrations by George Perez, but not all of them appeared on the monthly comic.  For the second issue of Amazing Heroes in 1981, Perez provided this cover featuring the Titans.  This was published somewhere around issues #9-12 of the New Teen Titans.  The new characters (Cyborg, Raven, Starfire) take the foreground while the original team members discuss things in the background.  Talking about the time Starfire walked around Central Park without her shirt on?

Note the headline on the upper right: New Comics Company Signs Kirby, Grell!  That would be the announcement of Pacific Comics, which published Captain Victory, Starslayer, the Rocketeer, and many more great series.

A few years later, Perez contributed another Titans cover for the 50th issue of Amazing Heroes.  This issue would have been published around the time that The Judas Contract arc was wrapping up, with Jericho being featured front and center. 

The other interesting thing here is that George’s style has matured in his work on Teen Titans.  His character faces are more detailed and expressive than in his early work.  His storytelling grew as well in the interior pages of the Titans.

Of course, if you were a real Titans fanatic like me, you owned this poster that DC Comics made in the early 1980s.  I had it on the wall of my room, to the bewilderment of my parents, who probably would have rather seen the Farah Fawcett poster instead.  But you can see here all the bits of Titan mythology from the first 35 issues or so: Trigon, Brother Blood, Deathstroke, Blackfire, the alien races that would form the backdrop of the Omega Men, and Terra, sitting on top of Titans Tower.

I threw away this poster in a fit of poster cleanup (along with the Legion poster by Keith Giffen, the Revenge of the Sith poster, etc).  Sigh.  Does anyone still have it intact after all these years?

If you were a Titans fan during this era, you were probably enamored with Koriand'r, the bronzed babe known as Starfire, who learned English in her first appearance by kissing Dick Grayson.  From that moment they were fated to fall in love, which lasted for many years in the Titans series.  Of course, it didn’t last, and in the current era of DC Comics, this relationship is all but forgotten.  But for true Titans fans this romance lingers, as you can see from this cover to the George Perez newsletter in 2001. 

Wow, in looking back over these covers, I get all misty eyed over the Wolfman/Perez Teen Titans.  Geoff Johns and Mike McKone came close to this magic in their relaunch, but no one has yet surpassed the New Teen Titans saga from the 1980s.  Nuff Said!