The Finale - Ultimate Teen Titans
Ultimate Teen Titans
The Origin: It's N Sync meets superheroes. When the JLA emerges as media darlings after their battle with Despero, LexCorp manufactures its own superteam. Gathering a group of hip, good-looking teenagers with superhuman abilities, Luthor's PR team designs marketable codenames and costumes for each. Calling them the "Teen Titans" (a name the team hates), Luthor now has a cash-cow bonanza first, "superhero" team second.
The Characters: Placing ads in all the Hollywood trades; LexCorp holds auditions for the team. First to sign on is a young acrobat named Richard Grayson, who desperately wants to escape his life in the carnival act with his parents. Coming prepared with the code-name "Nightwing" he's more than a little disappointed to instead be labelled "Robin." Then there's Raven, a mysterious Goth-chick who spent years living on the streets through a combination of street smarts and her control of her "living darkness." Escaping from the island of Themyscira was easy for Donna (who creates a last name in Troy), but escaping her big sister Diana's shadow may be harder; Donna is given the codename Power Girl (instead of the proposed name 'Wonder Girl'' to avoid trademark infringement with the JLA's Wonder Woman), which suits her fine since she wishes her presence in Man's World remain secret from her Amazon sisters. The arrogant Prince Arthur of Atlantis, a 19-year-old future king called Aquaman, wants to familiarize himself with the surface world before taking up his royal responsibilities; he insists he's the team's natural leader, much to the chagrin of the others. Roy Harper - given the name Green Arrow - was raised on an Indian reservation learning dead shot marksmanship with his bow; the wildcard of the team, Roy takes immense pleasure in ribbing team-mates (like calling Robin "****." or Aquaman 'Artie"). The final piece to the Teen Titans make-up is accident victim Victor Stone, who LexCorp rebuilt as Cyborg.
The First Arc: Marketed as a pop-star superteam, the Teen Titans are sent out to battle low-level supervillains and thugs, allowing decisive victories. But when the team discovers Green Arrow overdosing on Ecstasy after a rave with Raven, the Titans secretly buck their bosses in their off-hours to get their hands dirty. They take out an E lab without telling LexCorp, which wants to keep the team's image squeaky clean. During the raid though, Power Girl accidentally kills a dealer, creating rifts among members. What's worse - keeping all of their extracurricular activities on the down low proves tougher than they ever imagined, particularly when members like Green Arrow, Raven and Cyborg refuse to participate!
The Big Picture: With a murder hanging over the team's collective heads, the Titans still participate in more nightly raids on drug dealers and gang-bangers, But as time goes on, their meta-human vigilante activities spark the first Ultimate DC crossover by attracting the attention of a rival team: the Justice League.
