Female Agency in “The Judas Contract”

Though her initial publication lasted less than 2 years, Terra is among the most important characters of the Teen Titans mythos and demarcates a turning point in superhero comics history, closing the Bronze Age and starting the Modern. The Judas Contract! 1/18 #TeenTitans

Created by Marv Wolfman and George Perez in New Teen Titans #26, Terra is Tara Markov, half-sister to the superhero Geo-Force and illegitimate daughter of the king of Markovia. She is a metahuman with the power to manipulate the earth and seismic activity. 2/18

Wolfman and Perez’s Titans run had always been seen as a reaction to Claremont’s X-Men revitalization. And as we’ve seen some of those comparisons are fair. Terra’s purpose was largely to trade on those comparisons and then kill them by creating a Kitty Pryde analog. 3/18

Wolfman states “I decided if some fans thought we were an X-Men clone, then why not play with them a bit? …. The X-Men had just introduced a new member to their group, a young 14-year-old cute-as-a-button girl with incredible powers. I’d do the same.” 4/18

Initially a misunderstood villain, Terra quickly reforms in her second appearance and is welcomed onto the team. Her backstory is designed to generate pathos. She is alone, searching for a missing family, that had already rejected her. In the Titans she finds a home. 5/18

Wolfman: “Comic book convention would demand that readers ignore all the evidence and assume she was a good girl. After all, the X-Men’s Kitty Pryde was a heroine, so even the lying, cheating, conniving Tara Markov had to have a heart of gold. Right?” 6/18

Unlike Kitty, Tara remains rough-around-the-edges. She is outspoken and rude. She’s brash and sometimes violent. She’s moody. She often tells subtle lies or hides secrets. However, the Titans (and the readers) assume she’s simply a troubled teen. She just needed more love! 7/18

This manifests in both the arrival of her brother Geo-Force (a member of the Outsiders) and her burgeoning romance with Changeling. However Gar and Tara’s relationship is troubled. She can be abusive and manipulative. However, her feelings for him appear genuine. 8/18

However, New Teen Titans #34 reveals Terra has secretly been working with Titans’ arch nemesis Deathstroke, The Terminator all along. For a year, Deathstroke had been employing Terra to spy on the Titans and learn their secrets. 9/18

Worse, they appear to be having a sexual affair. The two frequently appear together partially dressed, with her smoking a presumed post-coital cigarette. She wears heavier makeup, jewelry, and feminine gowns with Slade, contrasting her tomboyish garb with the Titans. 10/18

For several issues, the reader is allowed to follow Terra’s ruse. All the while her relationship with Changeling appears to deepen. In Tales of the Teen Titans #42, Gar and Tara share their first kiss. This gives the readers hope that Gar’s love will help to redeem her. 11/18

Instead, Terra immediately reports back to Slade, possibly sleeps with him (she again appears in a sexy nightgown, smoking a cigarette). By the following issue, she has attacked the Titans in the open and helped Deathstroke capture them. 12/18

Terra’s relationship with Deathstroke is the darkest take on the Kitty/Colossus relationship in X-Men. It is unquestionably problematic. She is 16 and he is a 50-something man. The reader is left in the uncomfortable position of HOPING she is being manipulated. 13/18

Some later adaptations show Slade as a villain clearing abusing a power dynamic to sexually manipulate a young girl. Others try to remove the sexual element and imply he was abusing her desire for a surrogate father. In either case, this presents Terra as pure victim. 14/18

However, the alternative is to recognize that possessing sexual agency as a teen girl is Terra’s greatest crime. Other than underaged smoking, Terra doesn’t really “break laws” after she joins the Titans. The problem is that she is sleeping with someone they don’t like. 15/18

Brad Meltzer writes of the betrayal he felt reading as a 14-year-old: “I trusted her! I was there for her! And unlike any other comic creation I’d ever read…. I loved her! And now, she was reaching down my throat and ripping my heart out for her own enjoyment!” 16/18

Ultimately, Terra’s refusal to conform to Bronze Age teen girl norms results in her death. Changeling offers her a last chance at redemption and she opts to die rather than live as something she is not. She refuses to be what the Titans (and the readers) want her to be. 17/18

And thus, the Titans end the Bronze Age of comics. Terra’s death represents an awakening to the flaws of superhero fantasy as it existed. Two years before Watchmen or Dark Knight, the Titans learned that some problems can’t be punched away. Sometimes loss is inevitable. 18/18