Following the event of the Dark Crisis in Infinite Earth, the hierarchy of power in the DC Universe has changed. The stalwart guardians of Earth, the Justice League, allowed another group of heroes to take centerstage: the Titans.
Long considered a training ground for the Justice League, the formerly Teen Titans have now grown into their role as the planet's premier protectors - and not everyone is happy about it.
This November, writer Tom Taylor, with the help of artist Ivan Reis, takes some of his Elseworlds sensibilities and thrusts the Titans, and specifically Beast Boy, to the forefront of the DCU in Titans: Beast World.
Threads from the recent Knight Terrors crossover as well as Taylor's own runs on Titans and Suicide Squad begin to boil over as the heroes are faced with threats from all angles. Newsarama chatted with Taylor about the timing of this event, what it means for the DCU moving forward and what it’s like shepherding a story at this scale.
Newsarama: Tom, What made this the right time for the Titans to have a big crossover? This is really the first time that they get to play on this kind of stage...
Tom Taylor: Yeah, it is. It's the first Titans event. We've been having discussions for a very long time about the Titans stepping up to become the premier superhero team of the DC universe.
I love fan-service. I don't believe it's a bad hyphenated word. I believe in giving the fans what they want, and with the amount of people watching the Titans TV show, who've grown up with the Teen Titans cartoon, followed by Teen Titans Go, there are so many people that love these characters and haven't seen them step up to lead the DC universe before.
Obviously the next step is, "Okay, we need an event. Tom, do you have an idea?" Yes, yes, I do. Let's go.
DC has always been about its legacy characters and the Titans have been a big part of that. Is there something special about the fact that they're still the Titans, that they're not the new Justice League?
Yeah, absolutely. This is who they always were. The Justice League are a group of superheroes coming together who possibly know each other or don't. The Titans are a group of friends who consider each other family, who are stepping up to protect the world and I think that's more important.
Yes, Nightwing could have led a new Justice League, but I think the Titans being the ones to step up and take the place of the Justice League was important. You think of the original books and it's this group of, I guess, sidekicks who are no longer sidekicks. They're now front kicks.
Similarly, Beast Boy is right at the center of this. What makes this the right time for such a Beast Boy centric story?
When it comes to writing big stories like this, I know that things only matter if the characters matter to the reader - and Beast Boy does. That's all it comes down to. He's the heart of the Titans. So if you take out the heart or you do something quite harsh to the heart in this instance, it affects everybody else.
Stories and events only matter if they affect people. It doesn't matter how big the thing in the sky is that's coming that they have to punch or how many magical artifacts they have to get unless it matters to people. Unless you hurt people, it doesn't matter. And so when it came to this, Beast Boy is the one. Beast Boy is the only one who can save the world. That's integral. It's not all about the pain and all of that. It is that Beast Boy has to step up and do something no one thought he was capable of.
His action in the first issue - turning into a whale to increase his brain capacity so that he can better formulate and enact his plan - is such a clever use of his powers and not something that we always expect to see from him.
That's exactly it. He's not turning into a snake or something. He's going beyond and he's challenging Batman and Mr. Terrific's ideas of him. They're established as the smartest people in the room and Gar's like, 'Actually, I've got an idea.' And Gar is right.
What about some of the other characters that are going to be around this storyline, like Amanda Waller and Doctor Hate, how do they play into this?
So for Waller and for Doctor Hate, this is a very big story. Not just a big story for now, but a very big story for everything we have planned for the DCU. We've been talking about Waller's progression and where we want her to be just moving those pieces around the board for well over a year, particularly myself and Josh Williamson because he was doing Dark Crisis and then Knight Terrors. He brought Doctor Hate into Knight Terrors to help us set this up.
I can't say too much, but the power that Amanda Waller wields is quite frightening. You'll see by Beast World #6, exactly where she ends up.
We also have the Beast World Tours issues where you're collaborating with all these other artists and writers. Can you tell us a little bit about what that process has been like?
One of the first things I did, so I didn't have to be across every single aspect of this, was that I wrote a bible for the whole series: these are the rules, this is how the transformations work. Then we handed that to the writers. We were really fortunate to get, in most instances, the actual writers of those cities. If we're in Metropolis, Josh Williamson is writing the story. If we're in Gotham, Chip Zdarsky is writing the story. That makes things a lot easier. They already understand where everything is in continuity.
One of the most hilarious things about this is watching the difference between the people who treat this as a joke and the people who treated this as an opportunity to really horrify some people. You've got Harley Quinn turned into a gym bunny, I'm not even sure who made that decision. Then Si Spurrier is like, "Yeah, I'm going to turn Godfall into a Hornet." That is terrifying. They're going to let an incredibly fast person fly and have a stinger. That is scary stuff. We're just going, "Here is the sandbox, play in it." It's been great to watch.
We've also got Nicole Maines coming on and bringing back Dreamer who is going to have a big role to play as well alongside Amanda Waller. So it's really exciting just growing this universe and especially just hanging out with my friends and going, "What's your idea? Oh, awesome."
Has there been pushback from editorial about some of your ideas since this is the main DCU?
Yeah, at the end of the day, I am taking my alternate universe sensibilities, my Elseworlds sensibilities and bringing it into the DCU. I'm playing in that same sort of way, but there are only so many toys I'm allowed to break because it is in continuity. I did tell Chip Zdarsky that Batman had to be a wolf for the rest of time now. He gets a wolf, and I'm sorry if that costs him his job and anybody else at the company, but Batman is a wolf now for the next 20 years. Just deal with it.
You heard it on Newsarama first. Moving on to your artists, Ivan Reis does some great work in this first issue. What was that collaboration process like?
Ivan Reis, he is so good, and it's ridiculous being able to work with artists of this caliber. You've got Ivan and Danny Mickey on inks and Brad Anderson colors. We are a team that came together for Batman - One Bad Day: Ra's Al Ghul and we just loved working with each other.
There aren't a lot of artists in the world who are capable of drawing that scale, that scope, that terror, but he just nailed it. And then we're really fortunate to get Lucas Meyer coming in and helping us out on this. He's leveled up in the most ridiculous way. We've got an incredible art team on this.
You've taken on a sort of classic '80s Titans tone to the story. Even the flavor of this event has a little bit of a throwback feel. It's serious, but the concept is a little bit more Silver Age. Has there been a conscious effort to dig into the back issues and recapture some of that feeling?
It's the sort of thing that if you saw it on a Silver Age cover, it would be like, "Oh my God, Batman is a wolf. Alfred's sitting there with a pooper scoop behind him."
Yeah, it is taking a concept that is a little bit ridiculous on the surface and then just running with it. Remembering that it can be silly and some writers have gone silly, but it can also be horrific and sad, and some writers have gone that way as well.
This first issue really starts with a bang with the Necrostar providing a huge threat to Earth but Doctor Hate also appears which makes the Amanda Waller aspect of this story even more interesting.
The mystery of who that is a lot of fun, and nobody has guessed it yet, which I'm loving. There have been lots of theories online. Everybody is wrong.
Is it a character that we've already seen and not a completely new character?
It is not a new character. It's somebody that people know. I will say that. Whether that's someone from Titan's past or what, you'll just have to find out.
It's Wildebeest, I knew it.
Tom Taylor: Yes.
Titans: Beast World is published by DC on November 28.
Get to know the Titans in their earlier incarnation... These are the best Teen Titans stories of all time.
