Below is the transcript to "Titanic Minds" from the special feature of TEEN TITANS: THE JUDAS CONTRACT (Bluray/DVD).  

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I know you love being haunted
by visions of the past.

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I actually found these,
going through my photos.

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Remember when we first started Titans,
one of our first conventions together.

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- We were like babies.
- I know, I know.

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- I'm only 12 now.
- I know.

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And they're going to change
our diapers now, just as then. Um...

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Remember this one?

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That was from the Heroes' Convention
in Charlotte.

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I think it might have been
the very first one.

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Yeah, we were both
guests at the first one.

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GEORGE PEREZ: Look at the hair.
MARV WOLFMAN: Oh, my God.

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<i>I have a lot of hair and it's dark.</i>

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Hey, at least you still have
the wisps of snow.

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The plows came and took mine, you know.

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Oh, wow.

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Yeah, but I was trying to look
for some photos from our Titans days.

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I think this one actually...

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I think we had gotten off Titan,

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and we had just gone on <i>Crisis</i>
at that point, judging by...

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- Yeah, based on the hair.
- Right.

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We're judging everything by our follicles.

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- Yeah.
- I love that.

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<i>WOLFMAN: I love
getting together with George</i>

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and it's great because we just fall
right back into the same patterns

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that we had when we were doing the comic.

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I always look forward to any chance
I can have to see Marv.

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It's bit of a change,

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uh, having a partner
who used to live within

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walking distance of, now
being entire country's width apart, so,

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any chance I get to spend time with Marv
is always a chance I treasure.

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It's just fun talking to somebody
who has gone through

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the same stuff I did on all those books.

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-(LAUGHS)
- I remember

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when you first asked me
about doing Titans,

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you know, it's like a...

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I didn't think
the book would last six issues.

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<i>WOLFMAN: Nothing at DC had lasted,
at that point, more than six issues.</i>

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Any new book
had been canceled within the first six.

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So I think we had...

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We thought that we would do the book
exactly the way we wanted it.

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It would be canceled at six.

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Then we'd go on to other assignments.

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And for me, 16 years later,
it proved to be true.

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Well, the thing is, obviously,
I was very flattered that you asked.

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What made you think of me?

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I remember, at that point
I was still working at Marvel.

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- Yeah.
- And you had gone...

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And I believe that you and Len Wein
had been discussing The Titans book,

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um, before I was involved.

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Yeah, you were still at Marvel.

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I was working on Superman
and a couple of other titles

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and was putting together The <i>Titans</i>

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and wanted to work with you.

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I was back up in Marvel for something
and I saw George Perez in the hallway,

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and we started talking
about what we were doing

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and I mentioned Teen Titans,
and then suddenly asked,

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"Would you be interested in drawing it?"

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And George said he'd be interested
in doing some work at DC.

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I think he was more interested
in <i>Justice</i> League than Teen Titans.

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I took on the Teen Titans,
only with the provision

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<i>that</i> I would <i>get</i> at <i>least one</i> issue
<i>of the Justice League of America,</i>

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which is the book I really wanted to draw
at that time.

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That I wanted to be able to do one
if the artist at that time

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was ever gonna take a vacation.

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And if they gave me that then,
as a favor to Marv,

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I would do this book, Teen Titans.

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Yeah, it was pure serendipity.

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We had done a couple of jobs together.

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<i>PEREZ: The first time I met Marv Wolf man,
he was my editor.</i>

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I was working on
the black and white comics

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over at Marvel Comics, at the time.

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He did the Gulliver of Mars stories,
and it wasn't very good.

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Marv was one of my harshest critics.
I didn't care for Marv.

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But I remember that when you were,

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uh, since I knew
you were an art teacher at one point,

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um, that when you criticized my work,

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you were criticizing my baby.

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So, of course I was very,
very defensive and protective.

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But I know
that with every bit of criticism,

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I wanted to prove you wrong.

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To prove you wrong,
I ended up proving you right.

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'Cause I had to address
what my weak spots were

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that I couldn't see,
but an outsider would.

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I'm a big believer
in challenging the people,

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uh, that you just don't tell people,

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"Everything's good. You're great.
You're fine. Keep at it."

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Uh, you're not gonna get better if you
don't attack what you're doing wrong.

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You can teach art, you could teach
perspective, you could teach...

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A couple of the things,
you can't teach storytelling,

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and the one thing that you had
from day one

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was clear, perfect storytelling.

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Understanding how characters move
within the panel,

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and where the camera was put.

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The sheer desire to draw comics...

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Nothing could stop me.

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When people ask, you know,
without being an artist, and you go,

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"You're an artist when you can't imagine
yourself not being an artist."

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- Exactly.
- For me, it's always been instinctive.

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Telling a story was just something that
I was... As you said, it can't be taught.

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You had that from day one,
before the rest of it came together.

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Uh, I had a similar experience

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where I had my storytelling correct.

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I didn't have my dialog worked out.

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I didn't know how to do it, and I wasn't
getting a lot of work in the early days.

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And one day, Gerry Conway, actually,
said to me,

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"You're not getting work
because your characters aren't real."

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- Mmm-hmm.
- And I was...

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I learned that, and I spent a year

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just learning how to write characters.

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Analyzing everything I read
that I really liked.

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And then came back, and that's when
I started on Tomb of Dracula.

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Which is the book that made my reputation,
that led to the other stuff.

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It's amazing actually, how very few photos
there are of us during that time.

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I don't think... We certainly
never thought of it as anything special.

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We were doing what we liked.

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We got together to do--

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The fans obviously though it was special.
They are the ones that took the photos.

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We were pretty casual with it.

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George and I both lived in Flushing,

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uh,aboutfive,
six blocks from each other.

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Because of the proximity
of where we lived,

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and particularly during
the formative years of The Titans,

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was a great advantage, 'cause then, you're
not a hollow voice on the telephone.

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We'd start working out most of our stories
at a diner.

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- That was--
- Hillside diner.

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- That's right.
- It was next to a movie theater.

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It was a standard diner,
nothing special about it.

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We'd sit down and we'd start talking
about all sorts of stuff.

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How we are doing, how our day has been,
if there's anything interesting going on.

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Slowly you would find yourself
talking about the story.

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We had no time limit,
it took as long as it took.

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Living near each other, I think,
gave us a great, you know,

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feeling, like, you and I,
we're like brothers coming up.

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Yeah, it took all of our strengths
to work that way.

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- And there were no negatives.
- I know.

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I'd have about a page or so, typed out,
of just my thoughts,

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of who the villain, the story concept.

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Not how we were gonna tell the story,
but the idea of the story.

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He'd come in, ready to figure out
how to take those ideas

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and make them a visual,
as opposed to writing.

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Wanna show you something.

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Uh, this is the original page,
you had a copy,

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I gave you a copy when I did it,

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of my original thinking
of who the Titans would be

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and what we'd start to do.

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Um, including coming up with Titans Tower,

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which was the double "T" shape.

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<i>The inside one with the--</i>

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<i>PEREZ: Right, with the windows folded
on the interior.</i>

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<i>WOLFMAN: The feeling was,
Superman had the Fortress of Solitude,</i>

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Batman had the Batcave,

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Green Arrow had the Arrowcave,
which was the Batcave minus the bats.

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- Mmm-hmm.
- Um...

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The Titans should have something that was
unique, architecturally, for them.

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<i>And the Double "T" just said building,
you know.</i>

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This was also some of the early
characters, uh, the names of characters,

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<i>I lowered Starfire's name a little bit,</i>

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<i>uh, because I knew
there'd be another character in there.</i>

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<i>And finally picked on Raven.</i>

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In my original notes on Raven,
I wrote, "She should be black."

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But then I went,
I don't like that concept,

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I don't like characters
being called by their racial names

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because you don't see... You never see
white Superman, as a name.

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- Right.
- You never say, white Green Lantern.

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- Even White Tiger was Hispanic.
- Yeah. Uh...

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So, Cyborg did not say race,

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therefore he could be anything.

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Why would a character call themselves
something that just highlights their race,

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-because, that, to me, is fake.
- Mmm-hmm.

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That's saying, "Congratulate us,
we're doing something here."

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You should be doing that without
congratulating yourself over doing it.

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You're doing it because there should be
all these people there. Um...

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It was just fun, digging this up again,
after all the years,

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and seeing the early thinking,
before it was all approved,

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before it was all locked down.

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There were two items that were changed

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from the original concept art
of the new characters.

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One was I originally... I did put a belt
on Raven, and we removed that...

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Now she has a belt again.

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-(CHUCKLES)
- In the new version of the costume.

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Joe Orlando, over at DC,
when he saw the sketch of Starfire,

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-he said, "Make her hair a little longer."
- Yeah.

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And it does create
a totally different look for her

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with the billowing
mane of hair that she has

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all the way down to the back of her legs.

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When working together, particularly when
you're dealing with two artistic types,

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there's always a temptation
of the ego getting in the way

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that the artist wants to represent
his work as purely as possible,

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the writer wants his words and his ideas
as pure as possible,

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but one of the unique, uh, situations
of working with someone

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as generous and as professional
as Marv Wolf man was...

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The idea, the notion, that the story,
the finished product

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was the most important aspect
of everything.

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It was more important
than either one of us.

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I may come up with a sequence,
a very strong story concept,

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and George may say,
"Why don't we do it this way

197
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"because that will be
visually more interesting."

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Well, he gets my ideas
that I want character-wise,

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it gets him to draw a great picture

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that's gonna lead the reader in.
That's the way we do it.

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Sometimes we interrupt one another,

202
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'cause the other person
has just come up with another idea,

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and then we would incorporate that.

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We do each sequence like that.

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And I was always, uh, grateful that

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you trusted me so much that after a while
you allowed yourself

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to be even looser in the plot,
give me all the main points

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but don't tell me
how the characters behave.

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'Cause you knew that I knew them.

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Yeah, there's no reason for me
to have done that, you knew the character.

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I guess, for the same reason I didn't put
any liner notes in there,

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you were able to second-guess me.

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And that's why we had the co-create,
co-editing, co-plotting,

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all that thing is "co" because it wasn't
just... I wasn't the only writer.

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00:11:06,040 --> 00:11:08,625
(CHUCKLES) He was doing that as well.

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00:11:09,127 --> 00:11:11,045
I remember when we were doing The Titans,

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-we were just trying to do a cool comic.
- Yeah.

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And <i>Judas</i> Contract, uh,
was a real highlight for me,

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00:11:19,637 --> 00:11:24,137
uh, because we were doing something
that no one was gonna expect.

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And I was so gratified that because...
I think possibly because,

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we also didn't have the internet,

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00:11:30,815 --> 00:11:33,359
we didn't have information
funneling back and forth.

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- We were able to surprise.
- Yeah.

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Today you couldn't do it,
'cause the fourth cover would be out

225
00:11:38,281 --> 00:11:39,949
before the first issue was, uh...

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Well, thankfully,
I also drew that last cover...

227
00:11:43,036 --> 00:11:46,414
But it indicated she was a wolf
in the fold, but it didn't indicate

228
00:11:46,581 --> 00:11:50,001
that she would remain a bad person
up until the very end.

229
00:11:50,168 --> 00:11:54,630
<i>The Judas Contract is</i> talked <i>about
for Terra,</i>

230
00:11:54,797 --> 00:11:58,300
but that's the introduction of Nightwing,
it's the introduction of Jericho,

231
00:11:58,468 --> 00:12:00,636
and it's also the origin of Deathstroke.

232
00:12:00,803 --> 00:12:03,847
Each one of them facing important
parts of their life

233
00:12:04,015 --> 00:12:05,266
that was going to change.

234
00:12:05,433 --> 00:12:07,977
And every one of the characters
was affected.

235
00:12:08,144 --> 00:12:11,397
Not on a punch-out storyline,
but emotionally.

236
00:12:11,606 --> 00:12:12,607
Mmm-hmm.

237
00:12:12,941 --> 00:12:17,028
And when you start dealing with emotion,
stories become more about

238
00:12:18,071 --> 00:12:22,571
what the readers really feel
and care about, than the action.

239
00:12:23,159 --> 00:12:25,661
You forget the action. You forget that.

240
00:12:25,828 --> 00:12:30,123
The action keeps the story
from becoming too boring or something.

241
00:12:30,291 --> 00:12:34,791
But you forget every action scene because
they're not that dissimilar in many ways,

242
00:12:35,296 --> 00:12:38,882
but character stuff
allows you to get deeper.

243
00:12:39,050 --> 00:12:42,344
And I think that's what
the readers always took with The Titans.

244
00:12:42,512 --> 00:12:47,012
A lot more personal involvement
in the development of these characters,

245
00:12:48,268 --> 00:12:51,020
uh, was put upon me than ever before.

246
00:12:51,688 --> 00:12:55,274
Uh, it wasn't just interpretation,
it was total definition of the character.

247
00:12:55,441 --> 00:12:59,820
And the fact that it succeeded so well
was very, very inspiring.

248
00:13:00,113 --> 00:13:04,408
I remember when I...
Uh, designing of Terra's face,

249
00:13:04,617 --> 00:13:06,994
I could make her... Gave her the overbite.

250
00:13:07,161 --> 00:13:09,538
Yeah, I was just
about to ask about the overbite.

251
00:13:09,706 --> 00:13:12,583
Where did that come from? 'Cause
I thought it was such a perfect touch.

252
00:13:12,750 --> 00:13:14,376
Well, the thing is,
because of the fact that

253
00:13:14,544 --> 00:13:17,630
I had already three young women
in the cast of The Titans,

254
00:13:17,797 --> 00:13:20,633
<i>I said, "I needed something
that would make her distinctive,"</i>

255
00:13:20,800 --> 00:13:24,303
<i>and just giving her the stereotypical</i>

256
00:13:24,721 --> 00:13:29,221
uh, elfin look of a young child
as shown in a comic, 'cause again,

257
00:13:30,977 --> 00:13:33,145
you have Kori who didn't look
like any teenager I ever met,

258
00:13:33,313 --> 00:13:36,774
teenage girl I ever met,
and Raven and Donna.

259
00:13:36,941 --> 00:13:41,441
And again, it made her look
that much younger and that much cuter.

260
00:13:42,030 --> 00:13:45,533
That of course,
when we reveal her true nature,

261
00:13:45,992 --> 00:13:49,495
there's that visual, uh, surprise.

262
00:13:50,038 --> 00:13:52,915
<i>WOLFMAN: Yeah, and you certainly,
when we revealed it, uh,</i>

263
00:13:53,082 --> 00:13:55,375
and she comes out in lingerie,

264
00:13:55,543 --> 00:13:58,420
it threw everybody for a loop.

265
00:13:58,588 --> 00:14:03,088
Oh, gosh, yes. I mean it was the harshest
change I could make for her, you know.

266
00:14:04,719 --> 00:14:08,597
No parents complained, no fans complained,

267
00:14:08,765 --> 00:14:12,268
they were just so horrified
that Terra was a villain.

268
00:14:13,394 --> 00:14:17,894
The fact that she was in that nightgown,

269
00:14:18,191 --> 00:14:20,818
um, was not even mentioned for years.

270
00:14:20,985 --> 00:14:24,780
Once the story came into legend,

271
00:14:24,947 --> 00:14:28,784
um, and people talked about this story
as being a high point in The Titans,

272
00:14:28,951 --> 00:14:31,495
then people mentioned it,
but that was years later.

273
00:14:31,662 --> 00:14:35,290
People actually thought,
is she like a double agent,

274
00:14:35,458 --> 00:14:36,959
is she actually working for the Titans?

275
00:14:37,126 --> 00:14:40,170
And they always expected that she was
suddenly going to turn a new leaf,

276
00:14:40,338 --> 00:14:41,630
and we always knew better.

277
00:14:41,798 --> 00:14:43,925
That's the way it always was. Uh...

278
00:14:44,092 --> 00:14:47,512
At Marvel, they would always be fighting
villains who would turn into heroes.

279
00:14:47,678 --> 00:14:50,472
- Mmm-hmm.
- And we were determined

280
00:14:50,640 --> 00:14:52,642
to make the readers feel

281
00:14:52,809 --> 00:14:54,685
that that was going to happen.

282
00:14:54,894 --> 00:14:56,687
But that would never happen

283
00:14:56,854 --> 00:14:58,522
because she was a psychopath.
(CHUCKLES)

284
00:14:58,689 --> 00:15:03,189
Of course, we knew upfront
that, uh, Terra was gonna die.

285
00:15:03,528 --> 00:15:08,028
From the very second that Marv and I came
up with the character of Terra Markov,

286
00:15:08,866 --> 00:15:12,661
we knew that she was a character
who was gonna die in the end

287
00:15:12,829 --> 00:15:14,205
because she was a bad person.

288
00:15:14,372 --> 00:15:18,872
And we knew upfront, that we had to
make sure we didn't change our mind.

289
00:15:19,710 --> 00:15:23,171
We did not want to fall in love with
these characters, because it's so easy to.

290
00:15:23,339 --> 00:15:26,925
You created them, they're gonna
reflect the things that you say and think.

291
00:15:27,093 --> 00:15:28,844
But it was vital to us not to.

292
00:15:29,512 --> 00:15:32,348
I remember, you and I knew that
part of the criticism

293
00:15:32,515 --> 00:15:34,725
of bringing in a young teenage girl,

294
00:15:34,892 --> 00:15:37,227
a young teenage girl
in a book called Teen Titans...

295
00:15:37,395 --> 00:15:39,063
Kind of makes sense
if you're a teenage girl,

296
00:15:39,230 --> 00:15:40,689
-a younger teenage girl.
-(LAUGHS)

297
00:15:41,315 --> 00:15:43,525
Um, that people were gonna think
that we were trying to emulate

298
00:15:43,693 --> 00:15:46,278
X-Men at the time of Kitty Pryde.

299
00:15:47,321 --> 00:15:50,741
Um, and I love it that from day one,

300
00:15:50,908 --> 00:15:53,702
we knew she was the wolf
in the fold there.

301
00:15:53,870 --> 00:15:57,415
And that the biggest challenge
to both of us, at that point,

302
00:15:57,582 --> 00:15:59,375
was to make the fans like her.

303
00:15:59,542 --> 00:16:01,794
Yeah, while we never lost track of the...

304
00:16:01,961 --> 00:16:04,797
(STAMMERING) Hey, everything's...

305
00:16:04,964 --> 00:16:07,299
In a good story,
they can go back to the first issue

306
00:16:07,508 --> 00:16:08,800
and see that you never lied to them.

307
00:16:09,135 --> 00:16:11,470
I said, "Oh, no, no, no,
this was all logic.

308
00:16:11,637 --> 00:16:12,804
"This was all set up, you know?

309
00:16:12,972 --> 00:16:16,058
"And anything that was a lie was 'cause
the character herself lies,

310
00:16:16,225 --> 00:16:19,895
"'cause she's obviously
not who you think she is."

311
00:16:20,480 --> 00:16:23,274
When we killed Terra Markov,
reaction was pretty strong.

312
00:16:23,441 --> 00:16:26,777
Some were genuinely surprised,
and some were genuinely upset.

313
00:16:27,028 --> 00:16:28,279
Quite upset.

314
00:16:28,488 --> 00:16:32,988
The only hate mail we got
was when we killed Terra.

315
00:16:33,284 --> 00:16:35,995
And it was a very well-written letter.

316
00:16:36,162 --> 00:16:38,747
I mean, they actually understood
the use of semicolons.

317
00:16:38,915 --> 00:16:43,085
We did our jobs well to the point
that it scared us that we did it too well

318
00:16:43,252 --> 00:16:46,755
when they took
the death of a fictional character

319
00:16:47,048 --> 00:16:48,340
so seriously. (CHUCKLES)

320
00:16:49,592 --> 00:16:51,343
<i>WOLFMAN: It was
a really frightening letter.</i>

321
00:16:52,803 --> 00:16:57,303
<i>And it turned out to be a 12 or 13
year old kid in Texas.</i>

322
00:16:59,185 --> 00:17:03,105
I remember one of the great moments
in coming up with that storyline

323
00:17:03,272 --> 00:17:05,774
that you and me and the diner in New York.

324
00:17:05,942 --> 00:17:07,151
Oh, yeah.

325
00:17:07,360 --> 00:17:09,820
Talking for anyone else
to hear in the diner

326
00:17:10,071 --> 00:17:12,823
about killing off this young teenage girl.

327
00:17:12,990 --> 00:17:15,701
We're just going at it. What we're
gonna do, how we're gonna do it...

328
00:17:15,868 --> 00:17:18,245
And there has to be a body,
we must see the body...

329
00:17:18,412 --> 00:17:20,122
Here we are talking,
never once probably mentioned

330
00:17:20,289 --> 00:17:22,582
the fact that
we're writing a comic book story,

331
00:17:22,750 --> 00:17:26,295
and being able to walk out of that diner
in New York

332
00:17:26,462 --> 00:17:28,839
and not a single person called the cops.

333
00:17:29,006 --> 00:17:31,425
-(BOTH LAUGHING)
- This is only in New York.

334
00:17:31,592 --> 00:17:33,427
I don't know if they heard
it or didn't hear it.

335
00:17:33,594 --> 00:17:36,638
But if they heard it, we've just plotted
the death of a 15 year old girl

336
00:17:36,806 --> 00:17:38,808
and nobody cared. (LAUGHS)

337
00:17:38,975 --> 00:17:40,810
New York, New York, it's a hell of a town.

338
00:17:41,185 --> 00:17:44,521
Well, you know, it's amazing
with Deathstroke to see all this.

339
00:17:44,814 --> 00:17:49,314
I never imagined that that half mask,
the half orange, half black mask,

340
00:17:49,902 --> 00:17:51,945
<i>um, would become iconic.</i>

341
00:17:52,113 --> 00:17:54,115
<i>And people have asked me,</i>

342
00:17:54,282 --> 00:17:58,661
why did I... It wasn't in the script
that I decided that he only had one eye.

343
00:17:59,495 --> 00:18:01,288
Uh, having a mask
that covered one of the eyes.

344
00:18:01,455 --> 00:18:04,583
And my whole thinking was, "Well,
it looked visually cool,

345
00:18:04,750 --> 00:18:09,171
"and how really great
an assassin he must be,

346
00:18:09,338 --> 00:18:11,798
"that he can do...
That he'd have the reputation that he has

347
00:18:11,966 --> 00:18:13,842
"and have no depth perception.

348
00:18:14,010 --> 00:18:16,429
-"That he can actually do..."
- And doesn't care...

349
00:18:16,596 --> 00:18:19,307
Exactly. That was
one of the things I enjoyed doing

350
00:18:19,473 --> 00:18:21,975
because, again, that
wasn't in the original plot.

351
00:18:22,143 --> 00:18:24,436
He was just an assassin
and everything else...

352
00:18:24,604 --> 00:18:28,441
Obviously I tried to come up with some
kind of visual and never did I realize

353
00:18:28,608 --> 00:18:32,111
35 years later,
I'd be still seeing that mask everywhere.

354
00:18:32,570 --> 00:18:36,365
You know, one of the things that I find
is totally amazing, that with all the

355
00:18:36,532 --> 00:18:39,117
supposedly controversial things
that we put into that story...

356
00:18:39,619 --> 00:18:44,119
Um, we even had established
an unmarried Nightwing

357
00:18:44,707 --> 00:18:47,334
and Kori were sexually involved.

358
00:18:48,377 --> 00:18:51,797
Um, that the only thing that we seemed
to ever face was, at that point,

359
00:18:51,964 --> 00:18:55,467
DC wanting Robin back.

360
00:18:55,718 --> 00:18:58,554
Yeah, uh, what had happened was,

361
00:18:58,721 --> 00:19:02,057
because we were the editors of the book...

362
00:19:02,224 --> 00:19:03,725
And the book was a top selling book.
(LAUGHS)

363
00:19:03,893 --> 00:19:08,393
Yeah, and it was the top selling book
by 4 to 1 over everything else.

364
00:19:10,232 --> 00:19:12,901
Uh, they pretty much never looked
at the book until it was printed,

365
00:19:13,069 --> 00:19:15,404
so DC didn't have any notes there.

366
00:19:15,571 --> 00:19:18,407
But the editor of Batman
wanted Robin back.

367
00:19:20,993 --> 00:19:24,496
And he wanted to make Robin young again.

368
00:19:24,955 --> 00:19:29,455
And I fought that and finally suggested
a win-win type of situation

369
00:19:30,503 --> 00:19:32,588
which is the only way
you get anything done really,

370
00:19:32,755 --> 00:19:33,922
if you can come up with it,

371
00:19:34,090 --> 00:19:37,176
was, let them have Robin back
but we keep Dick Grayson.

372
00:19:37,343 --> 00:19:40,846
That fit with our story.
He's been growing up, he's been...

373
00:19:42,223 --> 00:19:44,183
He wanted to step out on his own.

374
00:19:44,517 --> 00:19:47,019
It was time to get him out
of those short green pants.

375
00:19:47,186 --> 00:19:50,230
-(CHUCKLES)
- And they loved the idea

376
00:19:50,398 --> 00:19:53,401
'cause I said, "You can make it a
big contest, you can do a whole big thing

377
00:19:53,567 --> 00:19:56,945
"to promote the first new Robin
in 50 years," or whatever it was

378
00:19:57,113 --> 00:19:58,948
at that particular point.

379
00:19:59,115 --> 00:20:02,159
But let us have Dick Grayson
at the age he is now,

380
00:20:02,326 --> 00:20:06,621
so we're able to do two or three issues
where he quits being Robin,

381
00:20:08,290 --> 00:20:11,042
uh, has his meeting with Batman,

382
00:20:11,210 --> 00:20:15,047
quHs,andthen
when the Titans are in trouble,

383
00:20:15,214 --> 00:20:19,714
he forms a new identity,
which sort of honors Batman

384
00:20:20,720 --> 00:20:23,764
because he calls himself Nightwing,
he's in the dark...

385
00:20:24,223 --> 00:20:25,432
- Mmm-hmm.
- Type of costume...

386
00:20:25,599 --> 00:20:29,185
<i>But he's still the young guy,
he's still the very sexy guy.</i>

387
00:20:29,353 --> 00:20:32,856
He's still the character we were creating.

388
00:20:33,274 --> 00:20:37,486
And it allowed the first teenage sidekick

389
00:20:37,653 --> 00:20:39,237
to grow into his own hero.

390
00:20:39,405 --> 00:20:41,657
The first legacy character, right.
The first legacy.

391
00:20:41,824 --> 00:20:45,494
But that led us to go to the next step
and create our own character

392
00:20:45,661 --> 00:20:50,161
who has now become phenomenally popular
as a hero.

393
00:20:52,501 --> 00:20:55,086
Uh, everywhere I go,
I see people in Nightwing shirts.

394
00:20:55,504 --> 00:20:57,005
And I think costumes, oh, gosh...

395
00:20:57,173 --> 00:20:58,924
Some of them may not even know
who Nightwing is,

396
00:20:59,091 --> 00:21:00,675
but they're wearing the shirt

397
00:21:00,843 --> 00:21:02,594
-because it's a cool shirt.
- Mmm-hmm.

398
00:21:03,304 --> 00:21:06,807
I remember with everything else...
With all the fans that keep coming to us,

399
00:21:08,809 --> 00:21:10,852
um, that for quite a while,

400
00:21:11,020 --> 00:21:14,064
I think The <i>Titans</i> was the longest run
lever had in any book. Uh...

401
00:21:15,399 --> 00:21:19,899
To have the term Wolf man-Pérez,
has become a brand.

402
00:21:22,072 --> 00:21:24,324
How do we live up to that,
particularly since

403
00:21:24,492 --> 00:21:28,120
Wolf man-Pérez haven't been Wolf man-Pérez
for a number of decades now, really,

404
00:21:28,287 --> 00:21:30,539
on any kind of regular basis.

405
00:21:30,706 --> 00:21:33,250
Um, but it's something
I take great pride in

406
00:21:33,417 --> 00:21:36,920
'cause the Titans are defined as
the Wolf man-Pérez era.

407
00:21:37,171 --> 00:21:41,300
Collectively, the Wolf man-Perez team
created the new Teen Titans.

408
00:21:41,467 --> 00:21:44,887
It was a unique combination
and made The Titans what it was today.

409
00:21:45,054 --> 00:21:47,181
If I wasn't there,
it would have been a different book.

410
00:21:47,348 --> 00:21:50,392
If Marv wasn't there, there probably
wouldn't have been a <i>Titans</i> book.

411
00:21:50,559 --> 00:21:53,979
Together we created something
that was unique because it was

412
00:21:54,146 --> 00:21:57,983
such a wonderful melding
of two artistic visions,

413
00:21:58,150 --> 00:22:01,570
all serving the same purpose,
of telling a really good story

414
00:22:01,737 --> 00:22:04,573
with characters that we hope
the audience would find interesting.

415
00:22:04,949 --> 00:22:09,449
I know that when I was growing up,

416
00:22:10,037 --> 00:22:14,332
it was Lee and Kirby or Lee and Ditko,

417
00:22:14,750 --> 00:22:19,250
and fans come to me all the time
and they talk about Wolf man-Pérez,

418
00:22:21,257 --> 00:22:25,261
and it means the same to them,
and I'm always shocked.

419
00:22:25,427 --> 00:22:28,471
I think it's wonderful
that people still can love the material

420
00:22:28,639 --> 00:22:32,017
and they understand
that when the two of us come together

421
00:22:32,184 --> 00:22:34,477
it's gonna be as good as we can make it.

422
00:22:34,645 --> 00:22:37,773
We're not gonna be
rushing through anything.

423
00:22:37,940 --> 00:22:41,109
We're really gonna push each other
to do a great job.

424
00:22:42,945 --> 00:22:46,615
And because we're in sync,
the material is gonna work somehow.

425
00:22:47,199 --> 00:22:51,036
You bring your life story to the pages,
I bring mine,

426
00:22:51,203 --> 00:22:52,746
and then somehow we work them out.

427
00:22:52,913 --> 00:22:57,413
And I think all good partnerships,
uh, honor that rather than resist it.

428
00:22:58,961 --> 00:22:59,962
- Mmm-hmm.
- Um...

429
00:23:00,129 --> 00:23:04,629
And I think, that's why
the Titans can work on cartoons, frankly,

430
00:23:04,884 --> 00:23:07,386
uh, because we put it into the characters.

431
00:23:07,636 --> 00:23:11,139
Well, I think it's like the two parents.

432
00:23:11,599 --> 00:23:15,019
Letting their children alone
and watching them have lives of their own.

433
00:23:15,185 --> 00:23:19,189
The fact that I got... I did not
find out about the animated cartoons

434
00:23:19,356 --> 00:23:23,401
until Paul Levitz, publisher at DC
at that time, called me up

435
00:23:23,569 --> 00:23:26,196
and told me about it, that there
was going to be a <i>Titans</i> cartoon.

436
00:23:26,363 --> 00:23:29,324
'Cause at this point, my children
are off on their own,

437
00:23:29,491 --> 00:23:32,744
whatever they do, it's their lives.

438
00:23:32,912 --> 00:23:34,246
And the fact that they
send money home

439
00:23:34,413 --> 00:23:35,956
-to their daddy...
-(BOTH LAUGHING)

440
00:23:36,248 --> 00:23:39,125
Or co-daddy, is very nice of them.

441
00:23:40,127 --> 00:23:42,879
- Titans have two daddies.
- Oh, yes, that right.

442
00:23:43,047 --> 00:23:45,174
My two dads. Um...

443
00:23:45,341 --> 00:23:49,841
But it's like I still have
such incredibly fond memories of...

444
00:23:51,597 --> 00:23:54,016
It feels like,
"My God, were we that young?"

445
00:23:54,350 --> 00:23:57,394
- This is going to be very mushy so...
- Oh, I know, yes.

446
00:23:57,561 --> 00:24:00,981
But just the idea of getting together

447
00:24:01,148 --> 00:24:02,732
-like two fan boys.
- Yeah.

448
00:24:02,900 --> 00:24:06,570
And just coming up with stories
because it was fun.

449
00:24:06,737 --> 00:24:11,237
Sometimes I think the industry,
it happens with so many industries,

450
00:24:12,159 --> 00:24:14,286
are forgetting what it was like to create,

451
00:24:14,453 --> 00:24:18,953
not to manufacture, but to create,
and letting the children play.

452
00:24:19,124 --> 00:24:23,253
In the case of Cyborg, Raven, Starfire,

453
00:24:23,420 --> 00:24:26,381
those characters never existed
until Marv came up with the idea

454
00:24:26,548 --> 00:24:28,424
and I came up with the visual.

455
00:24:28,592 --> 00:24:33,092
There were no preconceptions. We were
the founding fathers of those characters.

456
00:24:34,473 --> 00:24:37,267
I am so incredibly grateful

457
00:24:37,434 --> 00:24:40,895
that even if you and I
didn't work together again,

458
00:24:41,063 --> 00:24:45,563
that our friendship has been so strong
after all these years and...

459
00:24:47,111 --> 00:24:50,489
- To me, that...
- Oh, yeah, no, that's the real benefit.

460
00:24:50,656 --> 00:24:52,282
That's the real good thing.

461
00:24:52,449 --> 00:24:54,242
The working together would be nice,

462
00:24:54,410 --> 00:24:57,496
I would, you know,
sell somebody's right arm,

463
00:24:57,663 --> 00:24:59,289
not mine, 'cause I have to type with it.

464
00:24:59,456 --> 00:25:03,084
But I'd sell somebody's right arm
to work with you again. (LAUGHS)

465
00:25:04,962 --> 00:25:06,880
Um, and yeah, one of these days, I hope.

466
00:25:07,047 --> 00:25:09,799
We're still young enough.

467
00:25:09,967 --> 00:25:14,467
Oh, yeah, I guess... It's common knowledge
that I've had issues with my eyesight.

468
00:25:15,222 --> 00:25:17,349
Uh, but I can still...

469
00:25:17,516 --> 00:25:21,895
I think I can still do nice storytelling,
that's instinctive.

470
00:25:22,062 --> 00:25:26,399
Marv not only complimented me
on the story elements I kept adding,

471
00:25:26,567 --> 00:25:29,736
sometimes he was suggesting dialog.
He encouraged me,

472
00:25:29,903 --> 00:25:33,281
and he said that you really
should try your hand at writing.

473
00:25:34,867 --> 00:25:37,578
And I never would be
the writer that Marv Wolf man is,

474
00:25:37,745 --> 00:25:40,164
but he made me a much better writer
than I ever thought I could be.

475
00:25:40,330 --> 00:25:43,624
Again, I miss you, Marv. (STAMMERING)

476
00:25:44,918 --> 00:25:49,418
And I have... I know you and I have talked
about it and we'll see what happens.

477
00:25:50,090 --> 00:25:54,552
Hopefully someday in the future
we may be doing, you know,

478
00:25:54,720 --> 00:25:56,471
conventions together
and just talking about

479
00:25:56,638 --> 00:25:58,264
the latest project
that we're working on together.

480
00:25:58,432 --> 00:26:02,894
It will be nice that the Wolf man-Pérez
doesn't become just a historical footnote,

481
00:26:03,062 --> 00:26:04,480
that we're just not Lewis and Clark,

482
00:26:04,646 --> 00:26:07,357
we're not, uh, all these other words
that are just part of history.

483
00:26:07,524 --> 00:26:11,402
That we are a vital contributing
part of the comic community.

484
00:26:11,570 --> 00:26:13,280
But you know, when we did <i>Games,</i>

485
00:26:13,489 --> 00:26:15,991
just a couple of years ago,
we finished off the <i>Games</i> book,

486
00:26:16,158 --> 00:26:18,618
I remember having lunch with you,

487
00:26:18,786 --> 00:26:20,996
-and Mike Perkins was thanking you.
- Yes, our anchor.

488
00:26:21,163 --> 00:26:25,663
And he said that for a brief time, because
of the way we just talk to each other

489
00:26:26,376 --> 00:26:29,670
and come up with ideas
and fling things back and forth,

490
00:26:29,838 --> 00:26:33,591
he felt that he was
back when he was a fan,

491
00:26:33,759 --> 00:26:36,970
watching it happen
'cause that doesn't escape.

492
00:26:37,137 --> 00:26:40,515
The electricity of the two of us works.

493
00:26:40,682 --> 00:26:42,266
And I hope we get a chance to do it again.

494
00:26:42,434 --> 00:26:43,601
(STAMMERS)

495
00:26:43,769 --> 00:26:45,645
Here's hoping. Here's hoping.

496
00:26:45,813 --> 00:26:47,189
- Yes.
-(BOTH CHUCKLING)