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BATTALION |
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Fight For The Future
| Battalion makes the scene in TEAM TITANS #2 [1992]. |
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Battalion's story began 10 years in the future; Or, rather, the false future where Lord Chaos reigned and a force known as the Team Titans struggled to overthrow his tyranny. Lord Chaos sought to destroy the rebels known as the Team Titans.
Lyons (Battalion's real name; his first name never revealed) was a concert pianist with a lovely wife named Essie and two children. Chaos had outlawed music but Lyons (or, Battle Lion, as the media had dubbed him) continued to perform. Chaos also found Lyons' genetic mutation to be an affront to nature. At one concert, Chaos interceded and slaughtered Lyons' wife and children before his eyes.
Lyons vowed revenge on Chaos and joined the rebellion. Lyons, now dubbed Battalion, became the ‘drill sergeant from hell' to the Team Titans, a resistance force in Chaos' world. He worked with the future-Nightwing in training these young warriors.
Total Chaos
Shortly thereafter, the Team Titans leader gave the team a mission: travel 10 years into the past to stop Chaos from ever being born. To accomplish this, the Teamers were assigned to kill Donna Troy before she would give birth to the child who would become Lord Chaos! The Teamers successfully traveled to the past and came into conflict with the Titans. During the conflict, Battalion also traveled to the past. Donna gave birth to her son before the Teamers could intervene. However, the Titans and the Team Titans were able to stop Chaos and spare Donna's life at the same time.
After this, the Teamers found themselves stranded in the past, unable to return to their future. With nowhere else to go, they resided at Donna Troy's New Jersey farmhouse. The Teamers tried to find a place in this new world.
At one time, the Teamers searched for their counterparts in this timeline. Battalion tracked down his future-wife, Essie, only to find she was engaged to another man. Battalion became obsessed with this timeline's Essie, to the point of unconsciously becoming a stalker. He was eventually able to talk to Essie and lay his feelings to rest. This timeline's version of his wife was not the woman he knew.
A mysterious woman named Kole also entered Battalion's life. This ‘Kole' seemed to be the same Kole who allied herself with the Titans and perished in the Crisis on Infinite Earths. Kole made references to being ‘nothing alive' - the implication being she may have been a ghost of some sort. She had some sort of bond with Battalion that was never made clear; she disappeared after aiding the Teamers.
| The Team Titans cease to exist! It all happened in ZERO HOUR [1994]. |
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Out Of Time
Battalion also started to develop feelings for Donna Troy. But before he could sort out these new feelings, the Teamers lives were disrupted by the time crisis known as Zero Hour. It was then revealed that the Team Titans leader in the future was the villainous Monarch - who created a false future world so he could train meta-humans (The Team Titans) to act as sleeper agent assassins. He knew of the impending time crisis, and wanted a super-powered army at his command. The time-villain Extant commanded all the Team Titans to attack the heroes who were trying to unravel this time crisis. His plan was thwarted; the heroes contained the Teamers. Time continued to collapse, erasing the false timelines that had emerged. As a result, all the Team Titans were erased from existence.
Strangely enough, three people remained unscathed from Monarch's false timeline: Tara Markov (Terra II), Miriam Delgado (Mirage) and Deathwing (who was believed to be a future Dick Grayson). The Time Trapper revealed that Mirage, Deathwing and Terra were from this timeline, not an alternate timeline, as they had thought. All three had been implanted with false memories by the Time Trapper and turned into "sleeper agents" who would fight the villainous Monarch in the coming Zero Hour event.
The rest of the Team Titans, including Battalion, ceased to exist altogether. It is unknown whether some version of Battalion has or will exist in this timeline.
Battalion possesses enhanced speed, strength and durability. He is also very knowledgeable with all sorts of weaponry.
Artist Kevin Maguire on Battalion [from The Titans Companion, 2005]: "Battalion, I remember that. [...] I remember that someone else - I forget who it was - had done a design of him, and basically he was just a shirtless guy with a blonde crew cut, and I [thought], “Battalion? I don’t know.” I just thought of “battle”and “lion,”and went from there."
Writer Marv Wolfman on Battalion: The writer calls Battalion "the drill sergeant from hell" and says, "He's the one who put them all together in the future. He and Donna Troy are at war over control of the group."
Total Chaos: New Titans #90-92, Team Titans #1-3, Deathstroke #14-16 [1992]: The Team Titans have been sent to the past to kill the pregnant Troia before she gives birth to her son, who could become a god-powered dictator named Lord Chaos in the future. Battalion emerges from the future to join the battle. The Team is defeated, and Troia, having lost her powers, gives birth to a normal baby boy. First appearance of Battalion in Team Titans #2.
Team Titans #4-5 [1992-1993]: As Judge and Jury come into conflict with Metallick, Battalion enters the fray. Battalion's ties to the Judge lead to revelations about his past. Meanwhile, the Teamers settle in their new home at Donna Troy Long's farmhouse. Origin of Battalion in issue #5.
Team Titans #6 [1993]: The Team Titans celebrate the holidays, by going in search of their pasts, here In the present. Battalion tracks down his future-wife, Essie, only to find she is engaged to another man.
Team Titans #11-12 [1993]: Battalion decides to set things right between his wife, Essie, and himself. Just one little problem: she's married to someone else in this time. As Battalion confronts Essie, Kole appears and helps him realize it isn't the same woman he knew.
Zero Hour #4-0 [1994]: Time continues to collapse, erasing the false timelines that had emerged. As a result, all the Team Titans are erased from existence! 'Death' of Battalion, Killowat, Dagon, Redwing, Prestor Jon and all the Team Titans. Mirage & Terra mysteriously survive.
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Team Titans Series Overview
Team Titans #1 to 24, September 1992 to September 1994
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| The Team Titans - From DC Cosmic Teams Card Set, 1993 |
The Future Is Now
The "Titans Hunt" storyline included the introduction of the Team Titans, a group of time-tossed teenagers from a bleak future ruled by Lord Chaos. Introduced in New Titans #79 [1991], a mysterious group of teenagers was trying to track down Donna Troy in an attempt to kill her. On the last page, the Team Titans membership is revealed: Mirage, Redwing, Nightrider, Killowat - and Terra! This last page shocker was followed-up in New Titans Annual #7, where the alternate future world of the Team Titans was established. Given orders by a mysterious leader, The Team Titans were sent back in time to eliminate Donna Troy before she could give birth to her son, who will turn out to be Lord Chaos. The Teamers' arrival in the present is detailed in New Titans #80.
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| The mysterious Kole appears. |
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When the Team Titans were created for the 1991 New Titans Annual, writer Marv Wolfman said he had no idea that the group would get their own title. Editor Jonathan Peterson suggested that the annual feature Nightwing leading a Titans group in the future. "I didn't just want to have him lead a group fighting Monarch, and I realized it would be more exciting to develop a parallel story," recalled Wolfman. "Rarely can you come up with many characters all at once that work, but in this case, all the characters and their origins jelled quickly. It was very much like when I did the original Teen Titans group. They came one right after another. The Team Titans were all designed by [artist] Tom Grummett, and we realized we had more than an annual story. There was immediate interest at DC, because the characters worked. So, we figured out a way to bring these characters back into our present."
The Team Titans continued to track Donna Troy in New Titans #85-89 [1992], as Terra II made herself known to Changeling - while Mirage made her own plans to win the heart of Nightwing. As Donna's pregnancy accelerated, it led into a final three-way conflict with the Team Titans, New Titans and Lord Chaos. Team Titans #1-3 featured a crossover with New Titans #90-92 and Deathstroke #14-16 called "Total Chaos." The Team Titans first clashed and then teamed up with the Titans to ultimately defeat Lord Chaos.
Team Titans was written by Marv Wolfman and #1-3 featured art by Kevin Maguire. Later, art chores were assumed by Phil Jimenez with issue #7. Wolfman left the title with issue #12.
Wolfman later reflected on his Team Titans tenure in a titanstower.com interview: " Jonathan Peterson asked me to do a one-shot annual featuring these alternate universe characters. I came up with them for a one-shot only and somehow they get put into their own book. Had I known that was going to happen I would have spent a lot more time working on them so they could sustain a book. I never thought they should be their own title as they were a one-note concept. The Team Titans title was not one of my favorites. I did like the individual members, though, and I really liked what I did with their origin stories. It's just the book itself never should have been published."
X-Force-Fitting The Team Titans
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Extant's manipulations of the
Team Titans unfold in ZERO HOUR [1994]. |
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Jeff Jensen and Phil Jimenez co-wrote the book starting with #13 until its cancellation with #24 [1994]. The last few issues of the book featured art by Terry Dodson.
The book seemed to be conceived as an answer to Marvel's popular X-Force, with its teenage warriors and tough drill sergeant mentor/leader (Battalion subbing for X-Force's Cable). The concept never caught on with readers and the book was ultimately canceled. The Team Titans' fate was revealed in Zero Hour, where their timeline collapsed, thus erasing all the characters from existence (except Terra, Mirage and Deathwing).
Jimenez later reflected of his Team Titans tenure on an AOL chat: "I signed on to do a particular kind of self-aware, kitschy project while the higher ups wanted the new X-Force - and everything we had planned got screwed up by Zero Hour - none of which were particularly good for the team, DC Comics, or my career. We had originally intended to explore various things with the Team; Mirage's psycho pregnancy; Killowat's subtle racism, the possibility that Terra was a lesbian earth elemental. Kole was Marv's doing, not mine and we had to explain her away. In our original plan, the Team Titans were from an alternate time line and Terra was that time line's Earth elemental and she was going to be a lesbian."
"Mirage was going to go nuts during her pregnancy, and try to shape change it out of existence and it would be invulnerable to that, and she'd eventually kill herself. Mirage was never a favorite. But I found the drama of her after-rape period ripe with possibilities."
"We were going to explore the Joker's Daughter angle. We were going to find out that the Joker's Daughter was insane - that her memories of the Titans (now non-continuity) were just ravings in her head. She was going to steal the Time Commander's hourglass and reshape Manhattan into the island that she remembered, recreating a 70's world of heroes, villains, and icons that the Titans would find themselves in."
Alternate Futures
The Team Titans seemed full of possibilities - and missed opportunities. Kole returned in the pages of Team Titans only to mysteriously disappear. Phil Jimenez's plans for the book were contrary to DC's vision. The Joker's Daughter appeared in issue #13 - and was never seen again. And then there's the Team Titans leader...
The idea of Monarch as the leader of the Team Titans seemed like a last minute Zero Hour shuffle - and it was. Phil Jimenez revealed as much, "We were told to write that this second Kole, as well as nearly every other character we introduced in Team Titans, was a creation of Extant/Monarch, in order to lead the Titans down the path they would need to be super-powered assassins. So Kole was nothing more than an Extant-created construct."
But who was intended as the original Team Titans leader? It was actually the much-loathed Danny Chase. "That was part of the idea of making Danny Chase tolerable," editor Jonathan Peterson admitted in a 2005 interview with titanstower.com. "We could make him like John Conner from Terminator 2. He goes from whiny kid to leader of the rebellion."
Perhaps the most interesting angle to the Team Titans was editor Jonathan Peterson's original plan, " I thought, if Marvel has X-Men and New Mutants, we should do the same, so Marv said, “Okay, so we’ll have a new Teen Titans,” and then Kevin Maguire suggested we alter it, and call it Team Titans. "
"[...] I wanted to get the Teen Titans back, so I explained my whacked out idea. I really wanted Robin, Wonder Girl, Kid Flash, Changeling, Raven, Starfire and Cyborg back to what they were originally, so I wanted to do an alternate dimension or timeline, and I turned to Kevin and said “You get to launch an all-new Titans book and design them from the ground up.” Not only that, but this alternate universe would have an alternate young Robin, and alternate young Starfire and all the rest. The plan for Team Titans was a secret one. With the first Team Titans Annual, or at the end of the first 12 issues, I told Kevin he would then be re-launching the Teen Titans with alternate versions of the core-seven members."
"My plan there was to have those members slowly grow in those twelve issues. They would grow or move on or be phased out. That would lead into the first Annual. That Annual would introduce our alternate [universe], younger Teen Titans. The book would change it’s title to Teen Titans and feature the alternate, younger versions of those core-seven Titans. That was the plan."
Short List of Notable Appearances
Team Titans #1-24
Team Titans Annual #1-2
New Titans #79-80, 85-92
New Titans Annual #7
Deathstroke #14-16
Zero Hour #0-4
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