The New Teen Titans v1 No. 21 Cover by George Pérez

From its launch in 1980, The New Teen Titans was a hit for DC Comics – arguably bringing some Marvel-style storytelling and energy to a team of young characters. And as a popular book, it was prime real estate to introduce new series, especially if it was Titans writer Marv Wolfman’s new project. The Night Force was nothing like Titans, but I thought it was good and still have my copies today.

It debuted as an insert in The New Teen Titans No. 21, and per DC’s then-current way of marketing launches like this, the main art area was shrunk like a picture-in-picture television screen, and the promo for the new book ran down the left side. Regular readers of any DC book that did this weren’t fans of the treatment because some pretty darn good main cover art had its impact reduced.

In this case, it was the debut of new Titans villain Brother Blood. But thankfully, a scan of the original cover art is available, making it possible to take it into the lab for some corrective surgery. So here we go with some new packaging and colour to see what might have been.

As published.

Original art scan from Heritage Auctions.

Before and After. The cover art needed to be modified to allow the Titans logo to be placed at the top. The background was slid down, and the pillars were extended upwards to finish the composition. The word balloons were removed so they could be repositioned during final layout, and the missing art was drawn in matching Pérez’s style.

The new colour is an homage to the original with some modelling added throughout.

Re-created trade dress added.