FOCUS ON GEORGE PEREZ (Aug 1985)
Fantagraphics

The always amazing Heidi MacDonald interviewed George Perez in 1985 for Fantagraphics' Focus on George Perez book, and Perez had a surprising revelation about the actual fan reaction to the scene...

MacDONALD: The first time I ever saw Baxter paper, I think it was the white that was most impressive. Let me ask you now about the famous, or infamous panel. Whose idea was that, the panel of Dick and Kory?

Pérez: Oh, that was mine.

MacDONALD: Uh-huh. And…

Pérez: Well, the simple reason that Dick is 19 years old. I was married at 19. And, Kory’s age is indeterminate. Equivalent of an Earth 18-year-old, but their mores are different, and for her it was a totally irrelevant as far as the fact that she was at that age. Marv didn’t want to go into a controversy on the letters page, but as far as we’re concerned, and particularly as far as I’m concerned, they’re both at the age of consent. Dick is not a fool, and if there were any chance of them regretting the action later, they would have taken any preventive deeds necessary, but they are both consenting adults, and no matter what – the title says Teen Titans – at 19 years old, those two are legally adult.

MacDONALD: Yeah, I was going to say, Robin has killed. I should say Dick. And there’s more hullabaloo than when he’s killed someone.

Pérez: They’re worrying more about the fact that he’s gone to bed with someone whom he’s deeply in love with. And the fact that when he kills someone, it was also protecting this same woman, it’s like everything he’s done that’s been out of character for him up till now, has always been because of her. Since a storyline is coming up wherein they go back to Tamaran, and I believe the jist of it – great of Marv not to take to hemming and hawing about it – is the fact that she’s going to abdicate.

She has absolutely no desire to return to Tamaran. She wants to stay with Dick, and we have to give her, as far as the readers were concerned, a full reason to stay on Earth. It has to be shown that Dick is not giving her a hard time, that it’s unrequited. The fact that they are lovers gives her a legitimate reason to stay with Dick. Otherwise, it would be an insult to the Starfire character if she said, “I’ll abdicate my throne,” without us being really sure that it was worth abdicating. She does have duties, but the Tamaranians are creatures of emotion, too. And, that one panel, which I did as tastefully as I could, there was no nudity involved, nothing was shown of the act, it’s just the fact that she was in what was established as being his bedroom, because I’d drawn the bedroom before. It’s the bedroom set I have. And, make no question about it, they were in bed together, and…

MacDONALD: And it wasn’t because her bed had disappeared.

Pérez: It wasn’t because her bed had disappeared, it was because of the fact that his bed was recognizable. I wanted to use a familiar room, so that you know that she was in there with him. As opposed to any vagueness as to whose bed that is. It’s his bed, there’s no question about it. It’s established. And there were much fewer letters than everyone made it out to be. It got exploded totally out of proportion.

MacDONALD: Oh, then there wasn't a great swell of outrage?

Pérez: No, Marv got a few letters. Enough to say that he had to print one, because he couldn’t ignore it, but not in direct proportion to the amount of letters we get. It wasn’t a fifth of our mail.