Where are you getting the April 1967 date from? 

#5 cover date Oct 1966  (on sale July 1966)
#6 cover date Dec 1966   (on sale Sept 1966)


EDIT: I see you have labeled your #6 review with an "April 1967" tag.

 #8 is dated April 1967, perhaps you copied/pasted "April" from a draft of #8 into your review of #6 by accident?  

Teen Titans #7 (February 1967)



"The Mad Mod Merchant of Menace"

Script: Bob Haney
Pencils: Nick Cardy
Inks: Nick Cardy
Colors: ?
Letters: Joe Letterese

grade: D-

The first appearance of the Mad Mod. After all these years, I'm still not entirely sure why that character has a reputation of any kind in the DCU. I suppose it's true that he was the original Titans' first (and, I believe, only) recurring villain (though he only comes back once), but I suspect his allure is due more to some sense that he encapsulates the "hip" pandering to youth for which this volume is so notorious. And yet, while this volume throws more slang at us than it ever has before (there were times I honestly didn't understand what was being said):



the Titans don't use any of it themselves. It all goes back to this implicit directive that's been in place since the first issue that the Teen Titans should be squeaky clean, always modelling absolute allegience to their government and the establishment. They're allowed to enjoy teen culture to some extent, but they opt not to speak the lingo, and the only two adults we've ever met who spoke that lingo (Ding Dong Daddy and The Mad Mod) were both villains, looking to abuse the kids whose trust they had earned -- kids who spoke the lingo.

As for obeying their government, for the fifth time in seven issues, The Titans are summoned by yet another dude in a suit representing yet another branch of the government (seriously, they don't even have ONE government contact; they are the Fed's town bicycle) and (please note) this time they aren't even asked to accept the assignment:




Then we get this strange panel that (I guess) is trying to instill patriotism in teens:



It's an odd enough panel in and of itself, but when you consider that Kennedy had now been dead for three years and wasn't the current president, I think that makes this a little weirder still -- especially with the dude in the suit smiling behind them. This panel might have made more sense in the Peace Corps issue, as that was Kennedy's legacy, but this is the Treasury Department.


And, back to the whole issue of teaching teens to be respectful of the establishment, it's interesting that even the hip-talking rock celebrity they partner up with drops his cool facade fast when he learns that Uncle Sam suspected him of being less than wholesome:



Golly gee!


So I'm not sure The Mad Mod really reflects the vibe of this title at all -- maybe the three appearances prior to TT #1 when the Titans were still a voice for Teen counterculture, arguing with their mentors and working to convince adults that they'd given teens a bad rap while speaking the lingo, dancing to the music, and driving "gear" vespas -- but not in this volume.

As for The Mod himself, I'll give him this much: he's the first Teen Titans villain whose motives and m.o. actually make any sense:



That's actually really clever.

I have this feeling that The Mod was originally intended as a villain for the Batman TV show. His vibe (the mod scene) and his style of crime (clever and actually requiring some detective work) both fit better in that context than in this one. Where's the teen in trouble in this issue? The conflict presented by The Mad Mod doesn't fit this title's standard format at all.

Worse yet, while his crimes were really well thought-out, pretty much everything else in this issue is utterly nonsensical, especially the ways in which Haney keeps finding to make an ordinary smuggler an actual challenge for four super-powered teens:



wait...what?




huh?




okay, just stop now. Why do you have a robot shark???


Cardy, meanwhile, is experimenting with his art once again. Three issues back, he was playing with more expressive inking:




two issues back, he was experimenting with perspective:



and now he's playing with panel arrangements, utilizing jagged angular panels that look like so much shattered glass across the pages.



It's jarring and unpleasant from my perspective, but it's at least fun to watch him evolving his craft.



So, all in all, a weaker issue for both Haney and Cardy, and (despite what many may assume about him) The Mad Mod is actually an odd fit for this series that doesn't entirely work here. Are we done with the teens in trouble bit, or are we just taking a break from it in order to give space to a good villain idea that didn't make the cut for the Batman TV show?



Department of Aquatic Desperation:

It started off so well. Mad Mod dumps Kid Flash in the river, so Aqualad has to save him. Hey, that actually makes sense! That's not desperate at all!

until...



giant...mechanical...shark.

You know, just in case a super powered hero who operates in the water should show up and see them dumping the guy. Seriously, did the Mad Mod just lug this thing around in a van every time they tried to dump a body in the river???



Department of Being Worried About Wonder Girl:

The hormones get turned down a bit this issue, WG relegating her attraction to a celebrity rather than every male within twenty feet:








Important Details:

- 1st appearance of The Mad Mod

- As with issues #4 and 5 (and, presumably 6) this story is still set back in 1964, with Wally referencing their recent heroics at the Olympic Games. I sincerely doubt Haney was giving much thought to timelines when he dropped the reference, though. It's just that adventure that happened a few issues back, right?



Minor Details:

- Haney makes another effort to humanize the Titans a bit (see issue #5), but it's forced, awkward, and brief:



I think I just described each of their first times with Wonder Girl (ba-dum-chic! -- adolescent sexual harassment is funny, folks)


- The letter column lays out the entire dilemma surrounding Wonder Girl's existence with surprising honesty:




- It's a little creepy how readily the US. Dept. of Treasury guy explains that they've been repeatedly (illegally) searching Holly's luggage without telling him. I could see a modern, Post-Alan Moore Teen Titans story set during this era where it becomes obvious that the only reason these federal departments keep calling upon the Teen Titans is to have them perform illegal searches and espionage for them, believing the teens are too trusting of adult figures of authority to question it or report them.




Plot synopsis: The Titans are summoned by the U.S. Dept. of Treasury to travel with teen sensation Holley Hip in order to secretly determine whether he is a key player in an international smuggling ring. It turns out that his costume designer, The Mad Mod, is the smuggler, using Holly without his even knowing by building the smuggled goods into the outfits themselves. After a series of ridiculous and forgettable run-ins in which these super-powered teens are helpless to stop an ordinary smuggler, Holly whacks him over the head with a guitar and it's over.

The Mad Mod AND Brother Power the Geek? Too much!!

I LOVED the Mad Mod... he seemed just right for the Titans to me. I agree the salute panel was crazily weird... I remember looking back and online ot see if this was a 'secret farm' or sometihng I hadn't realized existed.

That's a trombone. You're lucky that a certain other member here didn't notice that.

Well, I'm a bit of an armchair expert on 1960s social history, so allow me to translate: Ginchy is a '60s American slang term meaning groovy or very cool (I have a feeling it came from the West Coast surf or hot rodding culture of the early '60s, but don't quote me on that). "Luv a duck!" is fairly obviously an exclamation and is actually cockney rhyming slang for f**k. Gear is a '60s slang term for something that's very good and is, I believe, of Liverpudlian origin -- it was popularised internationally by The Beatles and other Mersey Beat groups.

Actually, the British Invasion of beat groups in the early-to-mid '60s brought a lot of English slang like fab, gear, smashing, grotty and luv a duck into the everyday vocabulary of young American teens.

For the record, if you were to ever receive a Christmas card from me it would almost certainly read: "Have a cool yule and a gear new year!" But then, every day is 1968 for me.




First off, I apologise for being an English man telling an American about his own social history, but I don't think that this panel is really that weird at all in the context of the times.

Although John F. Kennedy had already been dead 3 years when this comic came out, he had, in that time, become semi-cannonised by the tragic circumstances of his death. Remember, when this comic came out, Kennedy was still thought of by the public at large as having been a good and just president, who was brutally killed in cold blood by Lee Harvey Oswald alone...a lone nut. Conspiracy theories about a huge government cover up may well have been floated on the fringes of the liberal or counter-culture press by 1966, but this was still three years before New Orleans D.A. Jim Garrison very publicly shot holes through the Warren Commissions' official report into the president's assassination. It was only after that investigation and the media coverage it received that the conspiracy theorists really started going nuts on trying to fathom the circumstances of JFK's murder.

This comic was also a good few years before the murky, mucky details of Kennedy's private life had surfaced to sully his legacy.

So, in late 1966, JFK was still widely regarded as America's tragically murdered president...your saintly fallen leader...the assassinated king of Camelot. In particular, the young, hip, liberal middle-classes would have viewed him in this way. So, a group of swingin' kids like the Teen Titans would definitely have placed Kennedy on a pedestal in a way that they simply wouldn't have done with Lyndon B. Johnson, who was mired in the Vietnam War, along with bloody Civil Rights clashess and inner city riots domestically.

The Titans saluting JFK's image in this way might be a bit over-the-top in a comic booky way, but there's little doubt that the majority of teens who were reading the comic would've regarded JFK in a similarly reverential way.