Monday PSA: The New Teen Titans — Problem Child

June 14th, 2009

Filed under: Comics, Medicine

‘Remember how I mentioned that there were two New Teen Titans anti-drug PSA comics from the ’80s? It turns out I was wrong: there were three.

teen titans

cover, The New Teen Titans -- Problem ChildJesse, trying to emulate his older brother Dave, has started to use drugs. After he shares some angel dust-laced marijuana with his friends, he heads off to an anti-drug rally his parents are making him attend. The Teen Titans (minus Robin, who is once again replaced by generic hero “The Protector”) are speaking at the rally — no, not Speedy, he’s probably back at Titan’s Tower getting high.

When the Teen Titans tell the audience that drugs are bad, and his parents chime in to support the Titans, Jesse throws a tantrum and runs out of the meeting in a huff. Beast Boy tails him, just to make sure he doesn’t get into any trouble and — wouldn’t you know it — there’s a tall cliff in the middle of town that Jesse almost tumbles over. Beast Boy turns into a rhinoceros and stops him from falling off the edge. At just that moment, the drugs Jesse’s been taking cause severe stomach pains, and Jesse falls off the cliff despite the presence of a green pachyderm. Luckily, Raven’s soul-self swoops by and saves him, but not before her empathic powers absorb the hallucinatory effects of the drugs and Raven begins to Freak Out. The other Titans are able to subdue her and they cart her off to the hospital. Seeing the effects of the drugs on Raven, Jesse swears never to use drugs again.

The Teen Titans now turn their attention to Jesse’s supplier: his older brother Dave. They track him down to an old abandoned shack at the end of town (where despite begging his supplier for a hit the page before, he’s now handing out drugs to half a dozen kids – for free). A brief skirmish ensues and Dave escapes , but that was really the plan all along. The Titans now follow him to his supplier. A bigger skirmish follows and the Teen Titans are able to capture the entire drug dealing gang. Furthermore, both Jesse and Dave have sworn off drugs for good.

teen titans

Like the previous Teen Titan anti-drug comics, this one starts with a letter from Nancy Reagan. Several pages of confidence building and decision making exercises are included at the end of the comic. Unlike previous comics, this one is sponsored by IBM, so I’m not clear why Robin was replaced by the Protector, as I understood that was due to Nabisco/Keebler rivalries. The story is by Marv Wolfman and Joey Cavalieri with capable pencils by Adrian Gonzales.

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5 Responses to “ Monday PSA: The New Teen Titans — Problem Child ”

  1. Chris Gumprich
    June 15th, 2009 at 7:43 pm

    “‘Remember how I mentioned that there were two New Teen Titans anti-drug PSA comics from the ’80s? It turns out I was wrong: there were three.”

    Don’t feel bad… I own all three of them, and I still thought there were only two.

  2. Dean
    June 15th, 2009 at 8:39 pm

    Later, the Titans were forced to stage an intervention for Raven, whose addiction to empathically absorbing drug effects was getting out of control.

  3. Sean Duggan
    June 16th, 2009 at 7:49 am

    You know, if I were a cynical man, I’d wonder if perhaps there’s some royalty or attribution that they were just as happy to avoid. You know, since they weren’t really making money on the PSA comics and they knew that people more or less swallowed the first two.

  4. Jonboy
    June 17th, 2009 at 4:41 pm

    Wow, look at that cover. Who would’ve expected to see a young Dane McGowan from ‘the Invisibles’ in an ANTI drug comic. This must’ve been from his reinacarnated Buddha phase when he was feeling a little bit more magnanimous. (and that is my big word for today)

  5. Jon
    June 18th, 2009 at 7:31 am

    I actually found Polite Dissent a few years ago as a result of doing a search on what I’d thought was the one and only New Teen Titans anti-drug comic, and was surprised to learn that there had been another one. Now I learn that there are three!
    Oh, and I dig the “Arbitrarily Interesting Medical Condition” thing off to the side, especially since I actually have Exploding Head Syndrome.
    Oh, and I don’t know if you know about this, but the University of Nebraska-Lincoln has a great site collecting downloadable versions of educational and government-commissioned comics that can be found here.
    Looks like they only have two of the three Titans comics.

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