April 4, 2017: With DC's direct-to-DVD animated movie Teen Titans: The Judas Contract being released today, we figured it was a good time to look back again at the classic Teen Titans tale on which the film is based. This story originally ran this past February.
The Judas Contract animated film won't necessarily be a direct adaptation of the comic book source material, as it also serves as a sequel to 2016's DTV Justice League vs. Teen Titans. Even so, it's worth looking back at that source material and remembering what made it such an integral part of the DC Universe in the mid-'80s -- one that cemented the enduring rivalry between the Titans and Deathstroke and featured one of the all-time great DC Comics plot twists. Here are five ways in which The Judas Contract changed DC Comics.
Warning: This article contains some spoilers for the original comic!
One of the coolest things about The Judas Contract, which came from writer Marv Wolfman and artist George Pérez, was that it really wasn't a self-contained storyline. Sure, the main conflict unfolded in a few issues of New Teen Titans, but it was really the culmination of plot points that had been in play since nearly the beginning of the series. George Perez revealed that the introduction of Terra in New Titans #27 was always meant to culminate in her betrayal of the team a couple years down the road.
New Teen Titans wasn't the first superhero comic to focus on serialized storytelling, but The Judas Contract did highlight an important shift for DC and the industry as a whole. It reflected the fact that comic book readers were becoming older and savvier. It wasn't enough for publishers to keep offering straightforward, done-in-one stories that put the toys back in the box exactly as they were before. They needed to craft books with stories that built on what came before, and with casts that grew and evolved over time. That New Teen Titans recognized this need is a major reason why the series, along with Uncanny X-Men, was such a sales juggernaut in the '80s.
Deathstroke has been a mainstay in New Teen Titans from the series' second issue. These days he's pretty much universally regarded as the best Teen Titans villain (sorry, Trigon). And you can thank The Judas Contract for really cementing that status.
The Judas Contract might be most notable for establishing Slade Wilson's dark personal history, all of it relayed to an incredulous Dick Grayson by Slade's bitter ex-wife, Adeline. The story also showcased Slade at his most bad-ass, as the villain managed to systematically take down nearly every member of the Titans through simple, Batman-worthy cunning and preparation. The Judas Contract also introduced readers to Slade's son and future Titans member Jericho, promising more Wilson family drama to come.
Basically, if you've come to love Deathstroke thanks to games like Arkham Origins or modern comics like Identity Crisis, you can thank The Judas Contract for making that possible. And so can Joe Manganiello, who is set to play the villain on the big screen opposite Ben Affleck in The Batman.
Game-changing plot twists are nothing new in today's superhero comics. Just in the past year we've learned that Captain America is actually a Hydra mole and that Doctor Manhattan created DC's New 52 universe. But outside of the occasional shocker like The Death of Gwen Stacy, it was pretty rare for superhero books to rock the boat in the way "The Judas Contract" did. Here, readers learned that Terra, the team's bubbly, happy-go-lucky new recruit, was actually a bloodthirsty and psychologically damaged spy working for Deathstroke. And in a time when there was no Internet to spoil comic book twists ahead of time, that reveal hit like a bombshell.
Granted, not everyone was entirely happy with this shocking twist. There's definitely something creepy about the idea that the teenage Terra was romantically involved with the grizzled, middle-aged Slade Wilson. Many fans prefer the way the character was handled in the Teen Titans animated series. But regardless, it was a huge shock for Titans readers and a sign that Wolfman and Perez weren't content to play it safe with their heroes.
Over the decades, Batman readers have watched Dick Grayson evolve from boy sidekick to full-fledged adult hero. He even took over the mantle of Batman for a time. But when The Judas Contract hit, they had only ever known Dick as Robin. As the story opened, Dick had recently retired the mantle and taken on a less public role among the Titans. But as he grappled with Terra's betrayal and Deathstroke's attack on the team, Dick suddenly found himself taking on the identity of Nightwing for the first time. And the rest is history.
This was a truly crucial development for DC. It showed a willingness to allow characters to grow and change rather than remain forever stagnant. And while so many character changes at Marvel and DC are ultimately undone (be they deaths or new costumed identities), Dick has never backpedaled to his Robin days. He became one of the first sidekicks to graduate and become his own man.
The Judas Contract was easily the darkest Teen Titans story at the time, and it still serves as one of the darker moments for the team. It's not easy to move past the revelation that one of your close allies is secretly a sadistic super-criminal who's sleeping with the enemy. That twist heralded a darker tonal shift for the DC Universe, one that continued to play out for many years to come.
Without The Judas Contract, it's debatable whether DC would have gone forward with other controversial storylines like The Death of Superman. Terra's betrayal and subsequent death paved the way for similarly shocking developments like Batman's back being broken or Hal Jordan going insane and destroying the Green Lantern Corps. You can even see the DNA of The Judas Contract in more recent stories like Identity Crisis (which also happened to feature sordid sexual revelations about a Teen Titans villain and Deathstroke laying waste to an entire team of superheroes).
That darkening of the DCU had its benefits and drawbacks. At times DC's heroes have become too dark and bleak for their own good, which is why we're seeing DC course-correct with the current DC Rebirth relaunch. But The Judas Contract also proved that superhero comics could offer mature, complicated storylines and helped counter the perception that they were targeted purely at younger readers.
Jesse is a mild-mannered writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter, or Kicksplode on MyIGN.
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire