Super-Vixens: Lilith

When the Teen Titans began in 1966, it was a comic geared towards kids with a supposed “hip” slant to it, but with scripts that seemed decidedly UN-Hip (Mad Mod, anyone?) and it wasn’t until Dick Giordano came aboard and re-tooled it with the likes of Neal Adams and Marv Wolfman did it actually come across as a cool, timely strip.

 Stories were introduced that more accurately reflected the times of the late-sixties with Race Riots, Love and Peace, and College Protest Marches, and along with these tales we were introduced new characters that reflected the times as well…

Among these new characters was the gorgeous if not slightly aloof red-haired temptress named Lilith- though she was Clairvoyant Telepath, she was less like a super-heroine than that Annie Golden character in HAIR, and when she wasn’t helping out the Teen Titans with their various dilemmas, she was rocking out in the Go-Go dancing cage and/or rocking out the coolest and sexiest dresses and outfits!

 And by outfits, I mean CLOTHES outfits…A funny thing about Lilith is that she (along with fellow new character Mal Duncan) never ever did get a costume proper and spent the entire series in civilian clothing. Each episode I would wonder just when the heck she was going to get a costume, but before I realized it, I was used to and quite happy to see her in her swinging’ sixties dresses, and didn’t WANT her to wear a costume!

When Marv Wolfman and George Perez revamped the Titans in the 1984 series “The NEW Teen Titans”, I was disappointed to not see Lilith among the ranks (but satisfied myself with the knowledge that at LEAST Donna Troy would be there, and even MORE comforting was the exclusion of those characters from the mid- seventies East/West Teen Titans whom I’ve NEVER liked). And though I’ve read that they DID eventually bring Lilith back in some capacity, by that point I’d stopped collecting the New Titans, and missed out on it completely. Ah well, chances are I woulda been disappointed anyway- nothing can compare to the vibrant sixties era Lilith, a true product of her times!

Super-Vixens: Wonder Girl

I’ve always kind of had a thing for Wonder Girl ever since seeing her in the old 25¢ “Teen Titans” comics with her in that famous red jumpsuit of hers. Back then I didn’t know too much about her, but something about her made me think (for a long time in my childhood) that she was Italian! I remember asking my friend Jas (who was a DC collector) what her “alter-ego’ name was, and he replied “Ummm… Donna Troy”.

Donna Troy! To this day it still sounds like hearing the name of that cute girl in your 5th grade class for the first time!

The Titans would get a lot more famous in the 80’s when they revamped the title with new characters, and while I did enjoy that run quite a bit, in the end, it was the 1970’s stories that I remembered and wanted, and I spent a pretty penny acquiring those back issues!

First Appearance: Hard To pinpoint.

You see, the Donna Troy Wonder Girl character was created by mistake. Some writer was creating a team comprised of DC hero sidekicks, and looking at a current issue of Wonder Woman, saw a “wonder girl”, and cast her in the group that was to become TEEN TITANS. What he didn’t realize was that the “wonder girl” in the WW comic was none other than Wonder Woman herself at a younger age, teamed up with her “older self" in one of those wacky early DC parallels.

In Teen Titans #22 they sought to establish the girl in the Titans strip as an individual character not to be confused with the "Young Wonder Woman", and gave her the name of DONNA TROY.

They created an origin for her as well (it was revealed that she was an orphaned girl rescued by Wonder Woman, adopted by the Amazons and given the same powers as Wonder Woman.) To celebrate giving her a proper origin, they went even further to separate her from the Wonder Woman strip by discarding the Wonder Woman-ish tights she had been wearing and giving her the red jumpsuit costume (wonderfully rendered by NICK CARDY) that I will always consider THE Wonder-Girl outfit!

Favorite Artists:

•Nick Cardy, the master! Teen Titans #22-43 (sporadically)

and

•George Perez, the only guy who properly drew Donna in a Bikini! (New Teen Titans run)