By Art Baltazar & Franco with Geoff Johns & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2892-7 (TPB), 978-1-4012-4528-3 (Digital edition)
DC’s Cartoon Network imprint was a potent and fun-filled bastion of children’s comics in America and consolidated the link between TV and 2D jollies and thrills with stunning interpretations of television landmarks like Ben 10, Scooby Doo, Powerpuff Girls, Dexter’s Laboratory and others. The comics line also generated truly exceptional material based on screen iterations of their proprietary characters such as Teen Titans Go!, Legion of Super Heroes, Batman: Brave and the Bold and Krypto the Super Dog as well as original material like Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam!, which were merely indistinguishable in tone and content.
Arguably the imprint’s finest release was a series ostensibly aimed at early readers but which quickly became a firm favourite of older fans – and a multi-award winner too. Superbly mirroring the magical wonderland inside a child’s head where everything is happily mixed up together, Tiny Titans became a sublime nostalgia-weaponised antidote to continuity cops and slavish fan-boy quibbling by reducing the vast cast of successive Teen Titans animated series, the greater boutique of mainstream comic books and, eventually, DC’s entire Universe to little kids and their parents/guardians in the wholesome kindergarten environment of Sidekick City Elementary School – a scenario spring-loaded with in-jokes, sight-gags and beloved yet gently mocked paraphernalia of generations of strip readers and telly-watchers…
Art Baltazar and co-creator Franco (Aureliani) mastered a witty, bemusingly charming style of storytelling that just happily rolls along, with assorted characters getting by, trying to make sense of the great big world and just coincidentally having “Adventures in Awesomeness”. The method generally involves stringing together smaller incidents and moments into an overall themed portmanteau tale and it works astoundingly well. Rounding up issues #19-25 and spanning cover-dates October 2009 – April 2010 of the magically madcap, infinitely addictive all-ages mini-masterpiece, this fourth volume begins on a romantic note by looking at the kids ‘Deep in Like’.
After a handy and as-standard identifying roll-call page, ‘Imagine Me and You…’ finds scary blob Plasmus and tiny winged Bumblebee brightening up each other’s drab day, before a similar cupid moment affects The Brain and best-est pal M’sieu Mallah, even as diligent overachiever Robin (accompanied by faithful Bat-hound Ace) finds his earnest attempts to finish his homework disturbed by a succession of pesky young ladies including Starfire, Batgirl & Duella all caught up in a ‘Like Triangle’. ‘Dates’ then sees Bumblebee & Plasmus inadvertently causing chaos during an afternoon movie monster mash – and even in the ‘Intermission’ – after which a sly sight gag for us oldies highlights the company’s many Wonder Girls in ‘Jump Rope’.
DC’s hallowed anthropoid obsession is highlighted in ‘New Recruits’ when Beast Boy chairs a meeting of the Titans Ape Club before regular feature The Kroc Files depicts ultimate butler Alfred, roguish reptilian star Kroc and Plasmus each demonstrating ‘How to Enjoy a Lollipop’ in their own signature manner. The issue closes with a word puzzle whilst the next promises to disclose The Hole Truth about Raven: beginning with a daybreak disaster at ‘Home with the Trigons’. Raven’s dad is an antlered, crimson transdimensional devil-lord as well as a teacher at Sidekick Elementary, so when he oversleeps, his sorceress scion gets him to work on time by simply opening a few wormholes. Of course, leaving those dimensional doors around is just asking for trouble…
Meanwhile, it’s washday at Wayne Manor, but Alfred won’t let Robin, Beast Boy or Aqualad go down ‘To the Batcave’. Sadly, even the dapper domestic can’t withstand united pester-power and eventually gives in… and learns to regret it. Following a perplexing maze game-page, the All Pet Club Issue! launches as Starfire and mean sister Blackfire write home for their beloved critters Silky & Poopu, so they can go to the oh-so-secret social event, whilst can-do kid Cyborg actually builds himself a brace of chrome companions in ‘Pet-Tronics’…
With ‘Club Hoppin’, the entire school gathers with their accommodatingly and uniquely compatible pets to interview potential new members – specifically tongue-tied-&-thunderstruck Captain Marvel Junior and his fuzzy pal Hoppy, the Marvel Bunny. With so many members, the club must find roomier quarters, leading to a painful tryst for Beast Boy and Terra in ‘Meanwhile, on the Moon…’
There’s a brilliant vacuum-packed bonus pin-up of the Tiny Titans in space by Franco before ‘Hot Dogs, Titans, & Stretchy Guys!’ presents the kids back on solid ground and wrapped up with the DCU’s many flexible fellows as ‘Offspring into Action’ introduces Plastic Man’s excitably boisterous bonny boy. Then, ‘Just Playing and Bouncing’ sees Bumblebee spend some time with the diminutive Atoms Family but lose control of their Teeny-Weeny, Super Duper Bouncy Ball and accidentally get Plastic Man, Offspring, Elongated Man and Elastic Lad all wound up, before helplessly watching it bowl over Principal Slade and Coach Lobo in ‘Coffee Dog Latte’.
Thankfully, Robin has exactly the right gimmick in his utility belt to set things straight, but can’t stay long as he’s en route to his Bird Scouts meeting where potential new members Hot Spot and Flamebird are trying out for Hawk, Dove, Raven & Talon. Distressingly, when shiny Golden Eagle turns up, the girls all want to make him the new leader…
The semi-regular ‘Epilogue’ page often supplies one more punch-line to cap each themed issue and this one leads directly into a convoluted and confounding Elastic Four pin-up/cover which in turn precedes a spookily uproarious tale of Bats, Bunnies, and Penguins in the Batcave! Oh My!...
It all begins in ‘Ice to Meet Ya!’ when Wayne Manor’s extraordinarily if not excessively large penguin population get into a turf war with the house rabbits, displacing the Batcave’s regular inhabitants in ‘Driving Me Batty’. The conflict escalates in ‘All in the Batman Family’ before Robin gets a rather stern admonition from his senior partner to put things right… or else.
Happily, ever-so-cute & capable Batgirl is willing to lend a hand. Unfortunately, so too are the kids she’s baby-sitting (Tim & Jason: you’ll either get that or you won’t, bat-fans) and impishly infuriating Batmite. With even Batcow helping out, things soon start calming down, but ‘Meanwhile, at the Titans’ Treehouse…’ not all of the fugitive Bat-bats have heard the good news…
Once your ribs have stopped hurting you can then enjoy a Tiny Titans Aw Yeah Pin-up from Franco before ‘The All Small Issue!’ opens with assorted big kids accidentally drinking ‘Milk! Milk!’ from the Atoms’ fridge and shrinking away to nearly nothing. Good thing the Atomic nippers think to call their dad, who’s with fellow professional dwindlers Ant, Molecule and substitute Atoms Adam & Ryan (another in-continuity howler targeting old fogey fans) for a Team Nucleus meeting…
That compressive cow-juice causes more trouble in the ‘Epilogue’ before a Blue Beetle puzzle clears the mind in advance of an outrageous ending as ‘Superboy Returns!’ in a fairly cosmic crossover – and requiring some additional scripting by Geoff Johns.
When Conner Kent shows up, all the girls are really impressed and distracted, whilst – across town – Speedy is trading a lot of junk he shouldn’t be touching to Mr. Johns’ Sidekick City Pawn Shop and Bubblegum Emporium in ‘Brightest Day in the Afternoon!’ When Starfire & Stargirl then buy the seven different coloured “mood rings” from the shop, they and BFFs Duella, Batgirl, Wonder Girl, Terra and Shelly, are turned into Green, Red, Yellow, Orange, Blue, Violet and Indigo Lanterns! Soon, the Tiny Titans are up in the air again and annoying The Guardians of the Universe and their super-serious Green Lantern Corps.
It all ends well, though, in an Emerald ‘Epilogue’ and a lavish pin-up of a posse of pistachio-painted interplanetary peacekeepers…
Despite being ostensibly aimed at super-juniors and TV kids, these wonderful, wacky yarns – which marvellously marry the heart and spirit of such classic strips as Peanuts, The Perishers or Calvin and Hobbes with something uniquely mired and marinated in pure comic-bookery – are deliciously hilarious tales no self-respecting or self-indulging joy-lover should miss: accessible, entertaining, and wickedly intoxicating. Go mellow out with some kids’ stuff, now, okay? Why should they have all the fun?
© 2009, 2010 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.
Today in 1948 cartoon gadfly Garry Trudeau (Doonesbury) was born, followed in 1950 by scripter and gamed developer Bill Kunkel (Doorway to Nightmare, Vigilante, Marvel Team-Up, Richie Rich). In 1942, Italian artist Giove Toppi died. He was the first cartoonist to draw Mickey Mouse in comics.