#dc terra

I hope there’s a mini run or rewrite of New Teen Titans at some point that’s mostly loyal to the source material while getting rid of some of the… products of its era.

Things like the normalization of the shit Beast Boy said (not that they should completely sanitize it, because sanitizing is imo almost as bad, but maybe make it properly a character flaw). Or, more generally, removing the Marv-isms that made every male character have the same problems when it came to relationships. It pains me sometimes to read Dick and Kory from that era, because you can see even the narrative thought they were the amazing couple of all time, and they could have been — they should have been, given how modern comics treat the explosiveness of their first love in retrospect — but Dick was lowkey such an asshole at times.

And his worst offenses weren’t even like “this is a flaw of my character” offenses. They were “the writer views this as an acceptable way for a man to treat a woman in a relationship, complete with machismo and disregard for feelings”, which is not only contrary to how Dick’s character is otherwise depicted throughout media but also just. Like. Obviously bad. And again, that doesn’t mean making him some perfect special boi. But a lot of the narrative-backed OOC mistreatment of Koriand’r, which wasn’t an intentional flaw but literally just what Wolfman thought was fine, could be removed. If it could just be closer to how they were depicted in the Convergence event, that’d be dope.

I’m saying this because I tried to re-read some issues I was reminded of, and like 78% of it is great. But because so much of the comic is romance focused, either with Victor or Garfield or Dick, and because it always has these Marv-isms that just lowkey make me hate the character, it’s hard to get through.

Oh yeah also rewrite the whole blaming Tara for getting groomed. That was ass.

Baby and her guard dog/father figure/absolutely-not-toxic-grooming-situationship-crush-thingie 👍

Dick and Yara looks so cool

Look at my baby Steph just hanging like Spidey

Oho look who it is againnnn.

I like obsessing over very specific characters.

Oh and I changed her eyes from brown to blue.

Kory insists Slade is at fault for Tara's increasing instability at H.I.V.E., and Slade says she's wrong. Insists that Tara was crazy before she met him, that since she saught him out she can't be his victim. These are all such common defenses made by groomers that its wild that Wolfman and Perez both insisted that they intended Tara to come off as the one in the wrong. We also see Tara saying "i thought he really loved me" before her final breakdown when Joey is in Slade's body.

And who emphasizes that Slade is at fault for the path Tara went down? Kory. Vic calls Tara Slade's girlfriend. Raven insists that Donna's questioning of why Tara wants so desperately to kill them is pointless because Tara is evil. Gar is too wrapped up in his feelings for Tara and trying to understand why she kissed him if she hated him.

But Kory? Kory goes after Slade and forces him to confront what he has done to Tara. She puts emphasis on the fact that Tara is a young girl. What makes this such a good character detail is that it makes sense for Kory as she is a survivor of assault as well. There's more than enough evidence that Kory experienced sexual abuse in her time as a slave (obviously, she was a teen girl, she was experimented on, even if there weren't panels of her talking about how every part of her was invaded it wouldn't be a big leap to assume she had been sexually abused). Kory doesn't blame Tara for her manipulation of the team, she doesn't blame Tara for having sex with Slade. She puts the blame where it belongs, on Slade Wilson. She relates to Tara as a survivor even if this was written to make Kory seem naive about Tara.

Posted this on my TikTok o0oBamo0o please support me there if you want!