The Quarter Bin: Teen Titans Go! #34, Oct. 2006

I'm a huge fan of DC's "kids line" of super-hero books! They've been consistently putting out well-produced comic books based on their animated television shows since the Batman Adventures. Where the rest of the DC Universe fights a grim and sometimes-losing struggle against continuity control and poor editorial edicts, the "kids" line seems to put out one great book after another. Stories are often self-contained to an issue or so, and aren't smothered by what is going on in all the other books in the "real" DC Universe. Often, too, the stories are more upbeat and humorous.

Teen Titans Go! was based on the hugely popular Cartoon Network Teen Titans, a fun, manga-influenced series which in itself was based on DC's influential New Teen Titans comics of the 1980s. The series followed the exploits of Robin, Cyborg, Starfire, Raven, and Beast Boy (Changeling) as they fight crime in their city and as they go through the daily struggles of growing up and making friends, and discovering their capabilities and limitations. The cartoon dealt with these situations in a fun, upbeat way that could entertain both children and adults. As a treat, the series would bring in guest-star super-teens and villains from the comics like Aqualad and Speedy.

Unlike their regular Teen Titans comics of the past few years, DC carried this style over to Teen Titans Go! The regular comic was seemingly an unending parade of tragedy and disaster, surprisingly many times darker and depressing than other DC books. The body count in Titans comics is statistically higher than others- watch out, kids!

This issue of Teen Titans Go features a fun criss-crossing, world-wide charity race between super-fast Kid Flash and tornado twins from Guatemala named Mas y Menos as they encounter villains and groupies along the way. Kid Flash is confident, a bit full of himself, but is the fastest kid alive. Mas and Menos (Plus and Minus) are Spanish-speaking brothers who derive their speed powers by literally keeping in touch with each other.

Right before the race! Beast Boy lending his support and Cyborg asking for some food, while Speedy and Aqualad give Mas y Menos a pep talk.

Starfire starting the race in her fractured English!

Fashionable super-teen Argent (nicely borrowed from Dan Jurgens' 1990s run of Teen Titans), one of the many distractions, usually female, that Kid Flash feels confident to stray from the race to help.