Marvel and DC Present Featuring The Uncanny X-Men and the New Teen Titans #1 (1982)
Written by Chris Claremont
Pencilled by Walter Simonson
Inked by Terry Austin
Colour by Glynis Wein
Spoilers (from forty-one years ago)
If you’ve been following my columns for a while, you’d know that I never actually read the New Teen Titans during their initial run. There was something about them that turned child me off, and I thought they looked boring. That’s changed, and I’ve been slowly working my way through DC’s recent republishing of these books in trade form, and I’ve loved most of it.
Now, the X-Men were a completely different matter for me, as that was my favourite title for a good long run (starting as John Romita Jr. took over art chores from Paul Smith). I truly believe the X-Men helped shape the way I see the world, and I think that Chris Claremont and the characters he shepherded helped raise me.
All of that is to say this – I never read the 1982 inter-company crossover featuring the X-Men and the New Teen Titans. Not only have I never read it, I remember spurning it at a convention when I was still pretty young (I was only seven when it came out). I think little me knew it was a gimmick book, and was out of continuity and therefore not worth my time.
But we all grow up and realize how often we’re wrong when we’re young. I recently came across a perfect copy of this book for a very good price, and thought it was time to finally read it. I’ve been a fan of Walter Simonson’s art since his Thor run, and look forward to seeing how his art depicted these characters (especially given how definitive their respective title’s artists’ work was at that time).
This should be fun (but also, I’m aware of what it’s like reading 80s Claremont in the 2020s)…
Let’s track who turned up in the title:
The X-Men
- Charles Xavier
- Wolverine (Logan)
- Colossus (Piotr Rasputin)
- Nightcrawler (Kurt Wagner)
- Kitty Pryde
- Cyclops (Scott Summers)
- Storm (Ororo Munroe)
The New Teen Titans
- Raven
- Starfire (Koriand’r)
- Changeling (Garfield Logan)
- Kid Flash (Wally West)
- Wonder Girl (Donna Troy)
- Cyborg (Vic Stone)
- Robin (Dick Grayson)
Villains
- Darkseid
- Parademons
- Deathstroke The Terminator (Slade Wilson)
- Ravok the Ravager
- Dark Phoenix
Guest Stars
- Metron
Supporting Characters
- John Grey
- Elaine Grey
Let’s take a look at what happened in these books, with some commentary as we go:
- Metron and what is clearly Darkseid talk at the edge of the Source Wall (just called the Wall), and Metrol, putting on a strange hat, tries to pierce the wall. He disappears, and his chair floats away; Darkseid laughs thinking about how he’s going to take over. At Charles Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, some X-Men (Wolverine, Colossus, and Nightcrawler) work out in the Danger Room, with Professor Xavier watching them. Their workout finished, Kitty Pryde comes to get them for dinner, and we see that Cyclops and Storm are also part of this story. Later, Xavier falls asleep at his workstation, and a blue-gloved hand touches his head, and pulls from his mind the image of Jean Grey, who is deceased at this stage in X-Men history. At the same time, the other X-Men each dream of Jean; Kitty wakes up and sees someone monstrous standing over her. Her yell gathers the X-Men, and when Scott hears a knock at the door, he sees an image of Jean as the Phoenix, asking for his help. Elsewhere in New York, the Teen Titan Raven dreams of being attacked by a celestial bird, and wakes up screaming. Starfire goes to her, and as she describes the bird, Changeling tries to shift into its shape, causing Kory to attack him. She recognizes the Phoenix, and sounds the Titans’ alert. Kid Flash, Wonder Girl, and Cyborg all respond, and we slowly realize that both of these teams exist in the same universe, which is an interesting approach to this crossover. Once the Titans are together, they realize that Robin is missing. We see him fighting a Parademon (he doesn’t know what that is) at STAR Labs. He’s attacked by Deathstroke (this is the era when he was still mostly called the Terminator), who knocks him out. The X-Men have gone to see Jean’s parents, and learn that they also had a vision of her. Xavier contacts them to say that he’s discovered that strange things have happened at five different places associated with Jean’s time as the Phoenix. The Titans find Robin, and once they’re together, Kory explains that when she was enslaved in space, she heard talk of the Phoenix and how she destroyed the planet D’Bari and destroyed a Shi’ar cruiser. They decide to go see the X-Men, whom they’ve never met, to find out what they know, since they know they used to have a Phoenix on their team. Deathstroke gets into it with the lead Parademon, Ravok the Ravager; Darkseid gives them both missions. Starfire busts into the Xavier School, surprising Charles who is sleeping. He knocks her out, but Cyborg’s white-sound generator causes him pain. As the Titans talk and wonder if they came in too aggressively, they are attacked by Parademons. They are quickly overwhelmed and taken away in a boom tube. Gar is the only one who escaped, and he turns himself into a Parademon and follows. Deathstroke is in New Mexico, overseeing the construction of a device for Darkseid when the X-Men attack. They smash the machine, and do well against the Parademons at first but get overwhelmed. Slade takes the X-Men through a boom tube. Darkseid is on a platform near the Wall. Ravok brings the Titans to him, thinking they are the X-Men. Slade arrives with the X-Men, and Darkseid points out Gar’s ruse, getting him captured too. Darkseid kills Ravok. Soon, the heroes are all strapped to a massive device, and when it’s turned on, the energy of the X-Men manifests Dark Phoenix. Darkseid explains that his plan is to have Dark Phoenix help him create Apokolips Pits on Earth, making the planet into a new Apokolips before he goes on to attack New Genesis. Darkseid and Dark Phoenix boom tube away with the Parademons, and immediately the heroes are freed. The two teams meet, and try to figure out a way home, since they are stuck. Cyborg detects something coming their way, and they catch Metron’s chair, which doesn’t seem too useful to them. Kitty and Gar chat while sitting on the chair, and when Kitty wishes she was home, the chair teleports her away. They return to get everyone. Gar transforms into a giant dragon (Colossus, who is jealous of how the two youngest are talking to each other, doesn’t like that the dragon looks like Lockheed, who at this point is a shared special character between the too-old Russian and his too-young special friend). Starfire realizes that Peter speaks a language she doesn’t know, so she kisses him and Nightcrawler asks if she knows German. With Gar on the chair, and the other heroes on Gar, they teleport back to New York. They can detect Dark Phoenix’s energy under Central Park, and head there. Under the park, they are attacked by Slade and some Parademons. These two teams are very powerful together, and soon they make their way to the place where Darkseid has constructed a base with a big sculpture of his head in a prominent place. A fight breaks out, with the X-Men trying to reach Jean inside of Dark Phoenix. She sends her energy into Darkseid’s portal, he talks a lot, and Xavier and Raven realize they need to work together. They try to overwhelm Dark Phoenix by replacing her negative emotions with love. Logan and Deathstroke fight, which is pretty cool, and Robin suggests that Phoenix pull back the energy she sent into the Earth. Everyone fighting Darkseid has a tough go of it, but when they work together, they are effective. Dark Phoenix recovers her power, but still feels discombobulated. She wants to return to the state of death she was in; Darkseid tells her to focus her energy into someone. She chooses Scott, bonding with him. Scott’s influence on the entity is such that it attacks Darkseid, and both villains disappear. As fireworks go off in the Park above, we see the Phoenix depart, flying towards the Source Wall with Darkseid in her talons. The two teams are happy that things are over, but Storm still wonders who it was that warned Scott and Jean’s parents. Later, Metron recovers his chair, and we see that Darkseid has been added to the Source Wall.
This was a fun read. I like that Chris Claremont avoided two tropes (clichés?) of intercompany crossovers, in that no time was spent figuring out how Marvel and DC characters could coexist in the same universe, and that when the two teams met up, they didn’t really fight (aside from Starfire’s attack on Professor X).
I actually love the notion that the X-Men and the Teen Titans live in the same New York, but have just never crossed paths before. To imagine that the entirety of Earth-616 is also Earth-1 is pretty cool, and would have opened the door to other crossovers that would feel just as organic.
There was a lot happening in this book, which while oversized in length, did not have enough space for Claremont to give every character on both teams their own little arc (although he did pretty good at finding just about everyone something important to do). I liked the natural friendship that emerged between Gar and Kitty, but there weren’t many other special moments between members of the two teams (the Colossus/Starfire kiss, and Nightcrawler’s reaction to it made me laugh). It makes sense that Raven would start to bond with Xavier, seeing as they’re both cold characters.
I like the notion of the teams facing two villains with ‘dark’ in their names. It’s curious that the Titans would be going up against Darkseid, whom they don’t even seem to know at this point, and I assume that’s why Deathstroke was brought into things, as he has a more personal animosity to many of the Titans. It also gave the opportunity for us to see him fight Wolverine, which was the most thrilling part of this book.
Bringing Dark Phoenix into the mix was quite a flex. Her death was hugely impactful on all of the X-Men, so to have her show up here, even in a story that was clearly not part of continuity going forward, would have been exciting for the fans.
I was pleased to see that Claremont didn’t overdo it too much with his writing; my default memory is of his most excessive era, and it means that I sometimes forget how good he was at his height (I would argue this came out before he achieved his highest level).
And Walter Simonson’s art is terrific throughout this story. He juggles a lot of characters, and his art shows the influence of George Pérez on the Titans parts, and maybe Paul Smith on the X-Men pages (or am I imagining that? Did this come out before Smith was on the book? I should just check instead of speculating).
Regardless, this was a good comic that I probably should have read forty years ago. I’m glad I picked it up when I did, and am happy to have it as a part of my collection. I don’t get too fired up about these fan-service projects, so I’m actually kind of glad that this is a one-off project, and didn’t become the model for more like it. I think that also makes this a lot more special.
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