Titans of Myth
1400 BCE - The Titans of Myth, the original Pre-Hellenic Gods of Ancient Greece, have their power usurped by their children, Zeus & the Gods of Olympus. They retreat from Earth, and find a new home on a distant planet they claim as New Cronos, becoming the sole gods of its residents.
25 years ago - Titan of the Sun, Thia, gives birth to Lilith, a half-human child. Knowing of the Titans penchant for consuming their children, the child's midwife brings her to Earth, where she is found in a burning house and brought to an orphanage.
7 years ago - The Titans of Myth begin hunting all their lost children, abducting Lilith Clay to New Cronos. The Teen Titans West are assisting in finding new Cronos by Donna Troy, who has a romance with the Titan Hyperion, taking on new power, allowing her to free Lilith from the Titans and return to Earth, where she takes the name Troia.
1 year ago - Hyperion, the Titan of the Light, seeks out Donna Troy in Hades, looking to reclaim her power. He is challenged by Diana Prince, Artemis & Nubia, but cheats and prevents them from trying to restore their sister. Donna's memories are wiped as she becomes the newest Titan of Myth. The Titans venture to New Cronos to save her, where they undo the magic binding her. They defeat the Titans of Myth and usurp their title, becoming the Titans of the New Age. New Cronos itself begins collapsing, and Donna reaches out to Diana through space, letting her be born again through Diana's mirror on Themyscera, restored to the people that love her and saving the Titans
From our vantage point in the future, looking back at George Perez and his amazing run on Wonder Woman where he gleefully incorporated tons of content from Greek myth, it seems natural that, as part of the team responsible for the seminal New Teen Titans series, he might notice that the team is named after a huge part of that same lore. I'm not going to sit here and say that I understood every bit of the Titans of Myth's appearances in Titans comics; at times it just seemed opaquely EPIC to the point where I just had to accept it and move on, but it does create a really great framework for certain parts of our history of the Titans, including our major team crossover!
The Titans of Myth's Comic HistoryThe first appearance of the Titans of Myth within the run of the New Teen Titans was in issue #11 from 1981, when the Titan Hyperion awoke and quickly swept Donna up in the war between the Titans of Myth and the Olympian Gods. I've read these comics, and I really couldn't tell you the specifics of what happens, other than it's a giant whirlwind of a story that involves the brainwashing of Donna, the Amazons all riding into battle in Valkyrie armor and a LOT of columns. It all ends with a tenuous peace, with the Titans of Myth retreating, and Donna realizing she's been brainwashed.
The Titans of Myth get referenced a few more times, specifically when they are explaining the origins of Lilith, where she is established as the daughter of Thia, and then again in the 1985 storyline Who Is Wonder Girl?, when Donna's origin had to be redesigned post-crisis, making her one of the "Titan Seeds", a concept I have never fully understood. Later, in 2005's DC Special: The Return of Donna Troy, we learn that Donna was actually brought back by the Titans of Myth, but brainwashed again to believe she is one of them, requiring that a whole team of heroes go to space to save her, one of the many plotlines playing out during the 2006 Infinite Crisis crossover. |
Our Titans of Myth StoryIf it hasn't been made totally clear, I haven't always fully understood the role the Titans of Myth played in the regular comic continuity of the Teen Titans. They are tied to Donna Troy's story, which is historically one of the messiest parts of Titans lore, and when they show up everything seems to explode into a cosmic scale where I don't know if I'm MEANT to fully get it. Maybe it's just me.
We do, however, have several story elements that suddenly work WAY better when we incorporate them, so to begin we just wanted to make it very clear who they were, showing the fall of the Titans at the hands of Zeus and the Olympic Gods right out of classic mythology, just adding that they fled to an alien planet. From there, we've used the Titans of Myth as the source of Lilith Clay's powers. We left out all the Titan Seed stuff, as it's always seemed like the definition of working to hard to get a simple story result, and instead just made Donna bond with them on her mission to save Lilith, leading to them stealing her soul from Hades after her death. This, of course, leads to one of our favorite crossovers in the project. It wouldn't work for just any team to have everyone who was ever a member join up on one giant mission, but the Teen Titans are basically built for it, and a mission to save Donna just felt perfect. We've included this text in that event: "They defeat the Titans of Myth and usurp their title, becoming the Titans of the New Age." I actually don't know fully what that would even MEAN... the Titans could just now have an official place within the Olympian Mythology... but it just felt like the sort of bombastic, larger than life event the Titans of Myth always bring about. |