WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for Teen Titans #29 by Adam Glass, Bernard Chang, Marcelo Maiolo and Andworld Design, on sale Wednesday, April 17.
Robin has been keeping secrets from the Teen Titans, and with the title's crossover with Deathstroke, those secrets are finally coming to the surface. Damian Wayne's secret prison for supervillains added its newest inmate with Slade Wilson, but the World's Deadliest Assassin was able to escape and began toying with the teenage superheroes.
Kid Flash wasn't thrilled to find out Robin's been playing Judge and Jury with their enemies, but once new teammates like Djinn, Crush and Roundhouse learn the news, it could possibly tear the Teen Titans apart. Something else that may cause tension within the team are a couple of blossoming romances. Robin and Djinn obviously have a special connection, and almost shared a kiss. But with this week's Teen Titans #29, writer Adam Glass and artist Bernard Chang deliver a surprising kiss between teammates, which has the potential to set up an explosive love triangle.
Glass sat down with CBR to discuss Issue #29's developments, the kiss and new love triangle, Teen Titans' involvement with DC's Year of the Villain and Crush's father, the Main Man Lobo.
CBR: I like how you and Priest have juggled the plots in this crossover. We've had action, personal character moments with each main cast member and the question of will Robin take Deathstroke up on his offer to kill him. Can you discuss what that juggling act is like when crafting this story?
Adam Glass: I grew up loving George Perez’s original take on the Teen Titans and Deathstroke, but one of the things I was trying to do on the book was set up a new generation of Teen Titans. With Deathstroke I always wanted to include him, but at first I thought it was too early in my run. I didn’t want to do it originally, to be honest with you.
So I talked to our editor, Alex Antone, and as we started to think more of what the story would be, I started to wrap my head around what it would be. Then Mr. Priest and I sat down at the DC offices and we talked about how the story should work and also storytelling as a whole. Then cut to New York Comic Con and we had a signing together and talked some more and it turned into us feeding off each other’s energies.
I run TV shows for a living and work in writers rooms, so I’m used to that collaboration. Plus, he thinks in a way that I don’t, and I can’t write all of that Deathstroke IKON suit stuff, so he can go places that I can’t and it helps us complement each other. Another quick story about that is in the first part of the crossover, I started to wonder how would the Teen Titans get the drop on Deathstroke? And I was sitting up in the green room of New York Comic Con and Marv Wolfman came in, who I’ve become friends with over the years, and I had this idea and ran it by him. I said what if Slade, who has done everything to cover his tracks and is ten moves ahead of everyone else, has this one thing from his past that he can’t let go of? Marv asked what would that be, and I said for me, I’ve followed my barber around for 12 years. What if Slade kept the same barber from back in his military days? And Marv just loved it.
And when I pitched it to Priest, who I think has a very high standard of storytelling, he said he loved that idea. Now that may not totally answer your question [laughs], but that gives you an idea of how it all works.
The biggest development from Teen Titans #29 is Crush expressing her feelings for Djinn. You've done a great job of fleshing out these new characters, and their kiss seems like the next logical step. Why did you decide the crossover with Deathstroke was the right time for Crush to take things to the next level with Djinn?
It originally wasn’t going to happen there. I had a two-year plan for the book, and I always wanted to build their relationship. There came a point where we wondered, “What is this issue about?” When I’d talk with our editors, Alex and Andrea Shea, and Priest about the story and the character arcs, it became clear this was the perfect place because Djinn and Crush’s kiss helped center the story for me.
I try to ground things. Some people may wonder why would they be talking about their personal lives when there’s this prison and Deathstroke and everything going on, but when you’re scared, that’s what you try to do – you try to act normal. Superheroes are always in high stress situations, even when they’re down. So they try to normalize things as much as possible. So it felt emotionally right at this point, when Robin and Djinn are spending a lot of time together and Djinn is feeling Robin. They almost kiss at one point.
I have two teenagers, a 15 and an 18 year old, who were 14 and 17 when I first started writing the series. And I see them interact with their friends and they don’t have the hang-ups that we had growing up. Whether it’s gay or straight, they’re pretty much open and not so quick to label everything, and I think it’s a beautiful thing. I tried to make that a part of this story. There’s a moment in the story where Roundhouse says, “You never told us you were gay,” and Crush responds, “Well you never asked.”
And for someone like Djinn, she has lived long enough, even though most of it was in a prison, where she has seen enough things where she knows all those things are stupid and love is love. I don’t think she’d label herself as gay or straight or anything. She would just say, “I love who I love.”
Bernard Chang, who I think is kicking ass on this book and did a great job with, is it’s a really innocent scene. I wanted it to be an innocent moment between two teenagers, and Bernard did a wonderful job capturing that.
It felt like we were going to get a similar romantic moment between Kid Flash and Red Arrow. Am I reading that right, or was that a setup for Kid Flash's eventual decision on whose side he's really on?
[Laughs] Again, and I always joke about this in the day and age we live in, if you ask my generation where they met their significant other, the answer will be college or work. These are the people you’re spending time with. And with Kid Flash and Red Arrow, especially, opposites attract. I think she was being verbal in the moment and meaning what she said, which is, “We need you Kid Flash.” And he asks, “We or the team?” and she emphasizes the “we.”
Definitely playing with everyone’s emotions and relationships, especially teenagers, they’re together all the time. I watch my kids and they’ve all kissed and made out, and watching my daughter, who is a senior in high school, the bonds you make at that age are the foundation of not only who you’ll be, but they stick with you forever. It’s been really cool to watch, and the same goes for these guys.
If I were still doing this book 25 years from now, my guess is a lot of them would still be friends and some of them wouldn’t be talking anymore.
We've seen that Robin's secret prison wasn't enough to keep Slade from escaping, yet he willingly chose to stay. Is he just toying with Robin at this point, or does Slade really have a death wish?
I think it’s a mixture of both. Slade is a guy who does all the calculations and says this can go five ways. And every one of those ways can go positive for me. I think when you’re that smart you start to challenge yourself. He’s seen every which way this can play out and I think he has a plan for every one of them. This is a chess match and he’s already played it three times.
Upcoming solicits reveal a major death by the end of the crossover, and Crush will finally meet her father, Lobo. What state will the Teen Titans be in when Terminus Agenda concludes?
Well, you have to remember, and I don’t think this gives anything away for the end of Issue #29, but the bad guys have broken out. The rest of the team is going to learn the secret that Robin has kept this prison downstairs, and it’s going to have a lasting effect. Who thinks it’s right, who thinks it’s wrong? Who is pissed about being lied to, and some, surprisingly, might think this is the right thing to do? So it’s really going to leave the team fractured and split up.
And then the question they have to ask themselves is do we continue this way? Or does this team break up? Also, indirectly because it’s not Kid Flash’s fault, but all the new members will say, “Wait, all the old members already knew about this, but none of us knew?” So you have that going on as well. Roundhouse is going to be really disappointed in Kid Flash. I think the team is really going to be on the brink of breaking up over this.
There’s no easy way out of this. Robin has really painted them into a corner, and there’s no easy solution to how to fix this problem.
We've started to see the marketing and buildup for Year of the Villain. How will Year of the Villain impact Teen Titans going forward?
Oh yeah, and I don’t think I’m giving anything away, cause I noticed some stuff came out recently with the Main Man himself, Lobo, is our villain. He’s an interesting one, obviously, because he has a tie to Crush. Did he know about her, did he not know about her? Does he want her or does he want to kill her? He’s the last Czarnian and he’s on record as killing anyone else that’s come about.
It’s a real interesting father/daughter thing, and just like how Trigon/Raven affected the Titans, this will do the same to this Teen Titans and have repercussions throughout the book.
Will we get to meet Crush’s mother sometime soon?
You know, I think the question is does Lobo have the answers to that? And even if he does have the answers, is he telling us the truth? I know who it is and I know we want to work to that. The only question is how quickly can we work to it.
I used to joke that it took us 30 years to find out Wolverine’s origin, but we live in a different day and age. People will say I already did Crush’s origin, but I only did it up to a point. We did her origin to where her Earth parents died and then she left them, and then there are the lost years. There is a lot more to her origin story left to explore, which I’m really excited about.
I really like Crush, I really like Djinn and I really like Roundhouse. We’re finding out more about Roundhouse, how his sister died and the accident that gave him his powers. We’re learning more about Djinn and her origin and brother. Will he show up?
One of the things I tried to do was go back to what Marv [Wolfman] and George [Perez] did when they introduced Raven, Cyborg and Starfire. Let’s create three new characters and pair them up with three characters that were always part of the Titans. There’s always a Robin, there’s always an Arrow and there’s always a Flash. Let’s use that formula and do it for a new generation and do a familiar, but new take on it. What I’m trying to do is make you care about these characters just as much as you care about the existing ones.