New Teen Titans vs The Dark Phoenix Saga

Teen Titans is widely regarded as DC’s answer to Chris Claremont’s X-Men. But when the new TT debuted, X-Men was basically the Phoenix/Dark Phoenix Saga, and thus we can narrow our focus quite a bit and see how that story is the specific link between UXM/TT. 1/9

The New Teen Titans debuted the same month that the final chapter of the Dark Phoenix Saga was published. As such it is interesting to consider how that particular character arc might be read parallel to key character elements in each of the Titans. 2/9

The cosmic being (and the cosmic storytelling avenues thereby created) of Phoenix are clearly manifest in Starfire, a character whose design, powers, and physical appearance all parallel Jean Grey’s quite directly – perhaps even obviously. 3/9

At the same time, Dark Phoenix is the story of a young woman’s struggle with a darkness within of world-destroying potential consequence and the anguish of the constant vigilance required to contain it – this is, of course, Raven’s story as well. 4/9

One of Claremont’s overarching approaches was to take a lower-tier superhero in Jean Grey and elevate them to a new position of centrality, exploring the emotional consequences of that kind of metaphorical glow-up. The same can be said of Titan’s Robin. 5/9

Beast-Boy brings in a Phoenix-like exploration of a being with untapped power, slowly coming to realize the extent of their abilities. Like Jean, Garfield also navigates past allegiances to another team and the competing loyalties that arise from that. 6/9

Cyborg represents a being who grapples constantly with a sense of detachment from his own humanity and subsequently with the individual human relationships in his life. This too, of course, is a theme of Jean Grey’s Phoenix transformation. 7/9

Donna, like Jean, navigates the transition from sheltered girl to cosmopolitan woman. We see aspects of this same journey in the development of Starfire and Raven as well but also in Wally trying to define himself outside of superherodom. 8/9

And finally, of course, the dynamic pairing of Byrne/Claremont and the cinematic style they employed very much manifests in the Pérez/Wolfman duo as well. Titans is its own thing, of course, but it’s fair to say it has a lot of Phoenix/Dark Phoenix in its DNA. 9/9