SDCC Coverage sponsored by Mad Cave
Gabriel Neeb
They were assembled like heroes called together by a common destiny. This is some of the best creators who have worked on a comic book story involving a teenage sidekick who gathers in San Diego Comics Room 10.
On the panel, “The Making of the Legend: DC Teen Heroes and Beyond,” moderator TJ Shelvin (Upper Deck Publishing) features Barbara Kesel (editor, New Titan), Todd Nauck (artist, Young Justice), Mark Waid (world’s best: Teen Titans), Joey Ridge (editor, Batgirl), Phil Zimenez (artist), Time #1) an investigation into the best stories and features of DC Comics’ teen superheroes.
The moderator forms a panel around ambiguous questions, allowing the panelists to talk about topics he has raised. The first one is, “What do sidekicks and teenage heroes mean to you?”
Sheridan began the discussion by focusing on the 1989 Batman story “A Lonely Place” and introducing the character and future Robin, Tim Drake. Sheridan saw how to identify herself in a way she had never seen in the comics at that time. For Jimenez, one of the big things he saw was that teenagers were trying to do good things in the world, and that all the heroes he cared about are good people. Illidge focused on his experience reading Marv Wolfman and George Perez’s ingenious run at Newtan, seeing the amazing characters mature and growing. Wade wanted to be Robin. Well, when he was a kid, the other kids wanted to be Batman, but you can’t really become Batman because Batman is a billionaire. But if you play your cards correctly, you can become an orphan. The audience laughed at one of them.
The moderators then asked what mindset each creator had inspired teenage heroes. Wade wanted to work for Wally West (Kid Flash) because Wally had “become better fans.” Illidge was there for the static birth of the milestone character. He also oversaw the introduction of Batgirl’s Cassandra Kaine version of the “No Man’s Land” story in 2000.
Jimenez’s first comic was the new Teen Titan #12, where Wonder Girl (Donna Troy) fights against the gods of Olympus. For Zimenez, Donna was a lot of things he responded to. And she was the most girl character in the best way.
This led to a very intense debate about Donna Troy, especially his relationship with Dick Grayson (First Robin and Nightwing), as it was one of the few male-female relationships that didn’t help set up all the parties, especially romantic subplots. Jimenez also took this time to mention that he has a story focused on Donna in the new Titans year released next week.
Other panelists praised Donna Troy, especially Illidge, who cited the new Teen Titans #38 as one of the best single issues ever released.
The panel had to be the point to note that this is not a Donatroy panel.
Nauck used this topic to discuss his time on young justice and how he got there. First of all, it was originally planned to be called Justice League Junior. Todd Desago was planning to write it until Peter David took over. An interesting story is that Nauck became a sensational Spider-Man artist, but he refused because young justice meant he could attract impulses, Flash’s companion of the time (late 1990s). Many people around Nauk tried to point him towards Spider-Man, but Todd was a huge fan of impulse, and young justice won.
Sheridan’s experience is written for Titans Academy. There, Sidekicks have come at an interesting time in the history of DC and Time Warner (or whatever they called themselves back then, seriously, they give new names with horrifying regularity). He was aiming for a “Degrasi with Cape” story, but in particular, he had to incorporate the character Red X into the story.
DC had no permission to use Red X from the teenage Titans cartoon until DC got permission.
One interesting topic that occurred was that while DC currently had three flashes, three batgirls and two blue beetles, it seemed to have only one Robin at the time. Waid specifically spoke about this about his theory of this trend: “Robin” is a position of honor and must earn it by one character surviving training with Batman.
This handed the panel over to the audience’s questions. One was when it was okay to age the characters. answer? “In a shared universe, never!” This issue was also addressed by Nauck. Titans Academy featured character bunkers and flirted with adults. This was stopped by the editor as the bunker was a teenager and they held that they were not allowed to flirt with teenage adults. With the exception of the series, the bunkers were adults. The editorial still thought that although that might be true, they considered the bunker as a teenager.
During this time, Iridge pointed out that DC operates over a 10-year cycle. Every ten years, fans get a new Batgirl or a new child’s flash. He also suggested that we are all looking for the true history of Waid’s recent DC Universe (of which 2#2 was just released).
Another question is, what influenced the aging of teenage heroes? “When first generation fans became professionals,” and those pros tried to make the characters more than they did.
The panel ended with each member recommending their favorite teen heroes and sidekick stories.
Sheridan: The Lonely Place of Death
Jimenez: Titans Annual #1
Iridge: First Year of Static (Collection Coming soon)
Wait: Silver Age Teen Titan
Nauck: Impulse since the 1990s
Kesel: New Teen Titan
Keep an eye out for more coverage from SDCC ’25.
Tags: SDCC ’25
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SDCC Coverage sponsored by Mad Cave
