Next up: The Best of DC Blue Ribbon Digest, and the Tales of the New Teen Titans limited series isn't far off either. Even if we don't feel Wolfman and Perez have hit their stride yet, DC certainly feels the demand is explosive.

You are no doubt right that "meets deadlines" ranks high on an editor's criteria for assigning labor to artists. With "no drama" close behind." Harlan Ellison once commented that Don Heck gave mediocre results, "but he has it in on Tuesday."

"He's getting better" sounds like a reason to give an artist work; every team needs young guys coming through the pipeline. When the top book is used as a training opportunity, that says to me that nobody else was available; quite a few guys were across the street at DC by this time that I'm sure Marvel would have rather had on their roster.

The Best of DC #18 (November 1981)



"Reunion"

Script: Marv Wolfman
Pencils: Carmine Infantino
Inks: Romeo Tanghal
Colors: Adrienne Roy
Letters: Ben Oda

Grade: D-

Wow. this cover has absolutely nothing to do with what is inside.

I'll admit I'm completely unfamiliar with the DC Blue Ribbon Digests. I've never seen one in person and had never even heard of them until beginning this thread, so I'm not entirely clear who the target demographic is. One might assume the New Teen Titans getting their very own issue after only one year of publication would suggest they are a hot commodity and folks want more of them, but that isn't really what this issue offers at all. We've got reprints of four Silver Age Teen Titans stories, and one ten page lead story with two of the four new members missing and replaced by Silver Age members Speedy and Aqualad. Despite what the cover promises, this is effectively a Silver Age Teen Titans book with Starfire and Cyborg along for the ride (and Cyborg is mostly hanging out in the background).

Why take a hot new team, advertise them on the cover, end then deliver something so different, antiquated, and presumably not in demand?

So while the final panel of the lead story reads like this has all been a solicitation for the New Teen Titans:



I'm not buying it. This is not the membership found in those pages, this isn't the art found in those pages, and the characterizations don't even feel right:



So I'd really like to know more about the origins of this particular issue, and perhaps more about the scope of the series as a whole.

Another curious thing about the lead story here is its blatant anti-drug message:



This has never been touched upon in thirteen issues, but Wolfman sells it here like it's of the deepest concern to our heroes. In another year, we'll see the New Teen Titans Drug Awareness giveaways, but we aren't there yet. Did someone ask Wolfman to make this an anti-drug PSA, was it originally intended for some special giveaway that never materialized, or did Wolfman just decide that if he was bringing back the classic lineup, this was the most interesting thing Speedy could bring to the table?

For what it's worth, I really do respect Speedy's convictions here:



As for why Gar and Speedy felt the need to involve the Titans in this adventure, I can't say it really adds up. The team-up feels positively forced. Were classic fans demanding a reunion or something? If so, why not explore it in the pages of the actual Titans book instead of devoting so much time to past Doom Patrol history? I thought Kahn hated the classic Teen Titans, so I'm more than a little surprised by this issue.


Minor Details:

- Raven has decided to enroll at Manhattan University after having checked it out five months earlier.

- First meeting of the classic team and the new team (if you consider this the new team with two of the four new members missing)

- Why remove Raven from this story? If you're following continuity (not that this issue makes any reference to continuity), Gar is recovering from near-death right now, so I can accept that as an excuse for his absence, but why eliminate Raven from this tale? For the first half of last year, she seemed to be Wolfman and Perez's favorite member of the team with all the attention they were giving her. Was there some sort of satanic/anti-Christian concern for the audience that might be reading this book?

- Speedy and Aqualad decline to join the new team (Good!).



Come to think of it, why aren't they just a little offended that no one invited them to join previously?


- Absolutely no reference made to the Rozakis Teen Titans revival of the 1970s.

- Seriously, who selected these reprints? The Citadel of Fear two parter is adequate, but the butchered and non-sensical Joshua/Jericho storyline isn't fit to be printed anywhere unless you are interested in exploring the history behind the publishing of that disaster of a story, and Skis of Death is as laughably bad as the title suggests. It literally looks like someone lazily grabbed four sequential issues from the classic team and printed them. Heck, why not go back two issues earlier and also reprint the backup story from the second part of Citadel of Fear in order to get the two stories Wolfman wrote during the Silver Age Titans run AND Donna's origin story? This is just sloppy.



I really really don't understand this issue at all.

DC had two basic lines of digest-size reprints: Best of DC Blue Ribbon Digest and DC Special Blue Ribbon Digest. Best of was what the title says, reprints of some classic stories. Special mixed reprints with a few framing sequences and new stories. They were following the lead of Archie, with some digest books to sell on supermarket checkout impulse stands, alongside the soap opera digests, Dell puzzle digests, and the old Reader's Digest. Before there were trade paperbacks, these and the Treasury Editions (and 100 pg and 80 pg giant) were the trade collections of the Bronze Age. The reprint material was paid for, so they could seel their superheroes to moms and dads, when the kids whined about wanting something and they would be a decent price, with color comics, like when they were kids.

I loved them and had a bunch (since have obtained digital copies of all of them), as they were great samplers of classic comics and also featured entire storylines, such as the first JLA/JSA crossover, the meetings of those two groups and the 7 Soldiers of Victory, Mike Grell's Warlord, with the Deimos key storyline and so on. Adventure Comics finished its life as a digest, with a mixture of new and old material. They reprinted Sugar n Spike in digest format, as well as Binky.

Now, that Titans one? Well, I didn't think much of the story and Carmine's art just looked horrible, with the reproduction. The stories would seem to reflect Wolfman's interest or involvement, so maybe he chose them.

Wolfman started the anti-drug stuff before the PSA comic. It was in the air, with Nancy Reagan and other sources, but, it was a way to give some depth to Speedy, for these kinds of reunions. it would lead into the "Runaways" storyline, which would ultimately lead to the birth of the new Vigilante.

I suspect this was Wolfman's baby and Jenette trusted him to handle it on his own, given the response the Titans were getting. Also, in general, she was giving a relatively free hand to people and it was really starting to pay off, in this period. Also, putting it in a digest, rather than a regular comic, meant you could miss it and not be affected by its absence; and, you didn't have a side story inserted into the main book.

It was a long time before I saw this one in the wild. Digests could be rather haphazard, depending on your local news vendor distributors. I saw the Superman and Batman ones pretty regularly, as well as the JLA and Christmas ones. However, The titans were a bit of an exception. I also never saw the Doom Patrol one or I would have jumped on it. I did get the Legion one.

Here are some of the Blue Ribbon Digest issues...



and some of the Best of....

That is one gorgeous cover.

What were the dimensions of these things? Same as an Archie digest?

Pretty much.  Archies got thicker, as the years went on; but, these were fairly standard, for the time.  Harvey had some of the same size, marvel did some, some comic strips appeared in them (Heathcliffe).