Mentor Issues

On Christmas Eve, Kevin Melrose of Newsarama Blog's "Comics, Covered" posted a wonderful look at the long-standing tradition of holiday-themed comics. Among those classic comics spotlighted was Teen Titans #13, featuring an trendy retelling of the Dickens classic A Christmas Carol. It's not the story's cliches that caught Melrose's attention, however, but the unexpected betrayal displayed in the behavior of Kid Flash. Who would have ever suspected the young Wally West of struggling with "mentor issues"? Let's simply say that the Titans Tower comic library was missing its issues of The Flash, and shame on those careless teenagers for not keeping up with their subscription!

“The TT’s Swingin’ Christmas Carol!” is, thankfully, reprinted in Showcase Presents: Teen Titans, Vol. 1, so I got to experience the weirdness myself. The core of the story is, obviously, a retelling of the Dickens classic (featuring Ebenezer Scrounge, owner of the Junkorama junk yard), but the opening sequence offers some interesting subtext: On Dec. 25, the Titans lounge around their headquarters, reading — because that’s what hip ’60s teen-agers do. Aqualad is reading an Aquaman comic, Wonder Girl is reading Wonder Woman, and Robin is reading A Christmas Carol before being shamed into abandoning that “ungroovy” story in favor of Batman. But what’s Kid Flash reading? No, not The Flash. Superman! I’m not saying who, but someone has some mentor issues.