The Titans

Raven

Terra

Proxy

## **History**

### **The Brat Pack**

Who were the "Brat Pack"? That's the nickname given to Titans of the first generation who had the sponsoring of an already established mentor. What would become the Titans started with Kid Flash hanging out with Robin and Batgirl during the "super friends" era in 2003. After the JLA was founded. In 2007, Robin and Batgirl were a bit miffed that they couldn't join due to their age, so Bruce Wayne pocketed up some money to build a "clubhouse"/training center for them. Originally, this included Superman's cousin Kara Zor-El (aka: Karen Kent, aka: Supergirl), Green Arrow's adopted son Roy Harper (aka: Speedy) and younger sister Thea Queen (Arrowette), Icon's protege Raquel Ervin (aka: Rocket), and Wonder Woman's sister Donna Troy (aka: Wonder Girl); but the term was also later applied to Aquaman's two proteges Aqualad and Aquagirl (Garth & Tula). Bruce Wayne and Oliver Queen believed in the Titans program, but did not have the time to fully develop it so they agreed to allow a new group of sidekicks to start their own program, trying to pick up the pieces of the last group. Right off the bat, the *Brat Pack* was born as Karen, Jason, Helena, Roy, Raquel, and Donna were the first ones to move into the Tower.

After tryouts, they had three new members: Rose Wilson, Blue Beetle, and Booster Gold. There were a few other wannabes that gave it a shot, but even the *Brat Pack* didn't feel comfortable with letting this sort join something which could actually get them killed. It was shortly after this that a noticeable clique formed within the ranks and Blue Beetle was the one who first coined the term "Brat Pack" after he noticed the trend of when something went wrong he and Booster got scolded harsher than the others or it was assumed they had been responsible (which may have been true most of the time, but not always). While Rose never let scolding bother her, Booster and Beetle decided to get their own mentor... and so in their off-time, they began schmoozing up different Justice Leaguers. Booster really wanted to be a Green Lantern while Beetle hoped Batman was interested in having some more proteges. In the end, they moved to Hub City and shadowed the Question and while he may have taught them some valuable lessons, they were a bit disappointed to find out he had no interest in coming to their defense when it was disciplinary hearing time.

The clique was pretty much restricted to that sense. Beetle and Booster were not shunned by any means and got up to just as much mischief (or more) than the others. Some of the notable antics that the Gen-2 Titans were known for included Roy and Jason breaking into the Hall of Justice to street race the back-up Arrow Rod and Batmobile through National City, the boys sneaking into the girls' locker room and Karen retaliating by X-Ray visioning her male classmates and telling gal pals in the Titans who was the "least impressive," a Red Kryptonite influenced Karen making out with Donna while on a late night talk show, Beetle and Booster doing a bunch of commercial advertisements, Booster selling space on his uniform, Rose had a number of arrests for underage drinking or public indecency, and Helena and Raquel had habit of flipping off paparazzi or news cameras in addition to having quite the potty mouth on live TV on many occasions they were part of many group activities like some wild parties that the Titans hosted in the Tower, some racy social media photos.

Right off the bat, they decided to hold try outs. The last group of Titans had limited their ranks to six, but only because they sort of assumed the Justice League needed to place new members into the program. As befitting their personalities, the *Brat Pack* did not ask the League for permission and just set out to do their own thing. Eventually, as the ranks grew to include the Aqua-kids, Birds, and so forth, the Titans bonded more as a whole, but the *Brat Pack* term stuck around as a shorthand reference to those with mentors.

When the Birds joined up, they reined in the team at first, but even their magical souls gave way to teenage hormones and they had a number of scandals, usually involving the two expressing their eternal hatred for one another at inappropriate times. Thea had a notorious drug problem in her personal life and it threatened her dual identity many times when Arrowette was photographed swiping drugs off dealers she had just caught or getting high in a back alley while in costume. And of course, the Atlanteans were no exception to scandal. Tula and Garth were both photographed skinny-dipping (though they both claimed they were bathing in the Atlantean fashion) and they were known for making derogatory remarks toward "surfacers" and having controversial (some say barbaric) political opinions.

As a whole, the Titans of this generation were media superstars and were adored by teenagers and young adults while lawmakers called them bad role models and comedians made them the butt of jokes. Reacting to this, the Justice League decided that the Titans needed more chaperones and so the practice started of a Justice Leaguer pulling Tower duty started, in addition to the already established regular chaperone Red Tornado (whose behavior was also seemingly affected by the Titans who taught the digital lifeform some interesting new personality quirks that the League did not find amusing).

### **Team Titans**

Eventually, Cyborg decided that the Justice League wasn't the right fit for him and he went back to spending most of his time at Titans Tower and so the Justice League decided to appoint Victor Stone as headmaster of the Titans program. At first, Vic just wanted to be one of the Titans himself, but he realized that these kids needed a leader. Clashing with his authority, Jason spent less time at the Tower and more time in Gotham, causing him to take on his private investigation without assistance... and ultimately he paid the price.

With the death of Jason Todd, the *Brat Pack* dissolved within months. Only Rachel and Garfield remained from the original members of the clique to finish out the program. But Jason didn't stay dead and though he is different and changed, the *Brat Pack* followed Jason's example and sprung back to life. The *Brat Pack* and Team Titans as a whole have a seasonally held tradition of getting together for a wild party. These parties used to be held on the rooftop of Titans Tower, but Victor Stone put an end to that, so now they meet at Ted or Karen's penthouse, crash the Fortress of Solitude, or even once had a week long camping trip in a remote part of the wilderness areas of Themyscira. Recently, they have taken to recapturing the recklessness of their youth with these parties and favor the idea of holding them somewhere they shouldn't. Rumor is their next party might be in the Watchtower itself.

### **Young Justice**

In 2016, when the Justice League was reorganized under ARGUS. and the U.N., Titans Tower was reopened with Cyborg as headmaster and his "Team" as the new generation of Titans. With other members joining afterwards.

While Gotham was under siege, former Titan Victor Stone (aka: Cyborg) saw a need for a team of heroes that would handle any crisis that occurred in cities without a dedicated protector or who could investigate other matters of concern without violating the U.S. government ban on the JLA acting in international affairs. So he set up shop inside an old secret training and meeting facility that the ‘super friends’ used to use, in the quiet East Coast town of Happy Harbor. This secret team was never given a name, but Cyborg liked to call it ‘Young Justice’ on account of its members being teenagers.

The team's first recruits were Kid Flash (Bart Allen), Wonder Girl (Cassandra Sandsmark) and Aqualad (Jackson Hyde). With the Justice League of America and the Titans disbanded (in the aftermath of Jason Todd's death), the sidekicks didn't have a place to go for further training, so Cyborg took them in.

Their first mission was to investigate a fire in Cadmus Labs, where they eventually found and rescued Superboy. Accidentally freeing Bizarro too. Superboy was assigned to the team, and given his mental instability due to him being a clone, Miss Martian was assigned as his psychic handler and given a position on the team too.

After Gotham City was under control again, Batman sent Robin (Tim Drake) and Batgirl (Cassandra Cain) to join the team; and eventually a new Speedy (Mia Dearden) joined too, after Green Arrow decided he didn't have time to train a new sidekick because he was too busy mourning the first Speedy, Roy Harper (and avenging him).

Among their missions, the Team was the first to discover the criminal organization known as The Light. After the Justice League was reestablished under the U.N and ARGUS supervision, Titans Tower was reopened and the Team was reorganized as the Third Generation of Titans, with Cyborg as the headmaster and other members of the Justice League acting as teachers from time to time.

### **Titans Academy**

After the Fall of 2016, Titans Tower became more like a proper school, with Cyborg remaining as the headmaster and Red Tornado, Raven, Beast Boy, Proxy, and Paragon returning to the Tower as resident mentors for the next generation, and other members of the Justice League teaching classes here and there to further the young heroes' skill sets.

The roles of each student varies with the Titan. Cyborg gives them different grades according to their capability.

* Freshmen do Tower training only.
* Sophomores are allowed to go into the field with a mentor, but the field work is usually just elaborate training or street level patrols.
* Junior Titans can go into the field with each other on patrols but for critical missions should be accompanied by at least one mentor.
* Senior Titans are expected to help train the Freshmen and Sophomores and are usually tasked with leading Juniors on patrol. A senior can also go on patrol solo or with a partner.

The curriculum changes frequently. Typically, there's a mix of full-time and part-time students. So... for the full-timers there's the basics like math, life science, physical science, social science, history, and the like during weekday daytime hours. For the part-timers, there's evening, weekend, and summer classes with a more heroic slant: hand-to-hand combat, parkour, training with gadgets, driving, piloting, etc. Of course, there is a lit of precedence for defying the rules. Discipline is levies for offenses but no one is ever kicked out of the program (as that's just grounds for making a villain).

The basics are usually taught by mentors while the others are typically taught by the Justice League and those typically rotate instructors. So, one weekend, Batman might teach a forensics class and the next weekend, it'll be Elastic Man. The Justice League members usually teach more hands-on stuff. Things that can be taught piece-meal, in a contained session or over the course of a few sessions. So Batman might teach how to run a DNA test, the way he would do it. Next time that's taught, it may be Flash teaching the class and he'll teach they way he does it. That way Batman doesn't have to commit himself to teaching a course on forensics every Saturday morning for nine months.