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.