Writer Tom Taylor and artist Nicola Scott have gone on the record to talk about their new Titans series, Beast World. News that the young heroes were getting a series that will rock the DC Universe was announced recently at San Diego Comic-Con, and with a tweet that Taylor posted. We have been waiting eagerly for its first official issue.
Titans: Beast World is set after Beast Boy gets injured fighting Deathstroke in Dark Crisis. While everyone’s recovering from their fight, Necrostar, a sea star like Starro that travels the galaxy conquering worlds, chooses then to wreak some havoc on Earth. Unlike Starro, however, Necrostar changes all villains and heroes into mindless animals that Amanda Waller is trying to take advantage of.
In the interview with DC Comics, Taylor and Scott said:
DC: I don’t remember the last time there was a Titans event. It feels like it’s been a long while.
Tom Taylor: It’s been a very, very, very, very long time. This is the first time in what feels like forever.
DC: Was it always in the Titans plan to build to something like this? How did this come about?
TT: It kind of was in the plans, actually. A lot of this was in my initial pitch for Titans. It was an idea that I had for where I wanted the book to go far in the future. But then, we had this opportunity for an event to be able to tell more story, and because the idea was so big, it seemed custom-made for an event.
Essentially, there is an ancient evil, and the only person that can stand up to it is Beast Boy, and the only way he can do that is by becoming a Starro. So, Garfield Logan becomes “Garro” and in so doing, something happens where he loses himself and Beast Boy becomes the greatest threat to the DC Universe. His spores infect the planet and create animal-human hybrids. We have things like Black Adam becoming a lion man and tearing people apart. It’s huge and obviously, the Titans are at the center of it, but it also involves every other character in the DC Universe.
DC: It feels like Beast Boy has really had a hard time with things lately. He’s been through a lot. Why put the guy through so much? What did he do to all of you?
TT: I think it’s because we like him. I think it’s because he’s so clearly the heart and soul of the Titans. He hasn’t had massive stories involving him. Yes, he got shot in the head by Deathstroke in Dark Crisis and also, obviously, Nicola and I built Gar and Raven very quickly in Titans and instantly fell in love with their relationship. Nicola and all her pages of him as a mouse under the covers—it’s so beautiful!
DC: You mentioned Raven. What sort of role should we expect her to play in “Beast World”?
TT: You can probably imagine that she’s not going to be happy about any of this, and so she has a very large role to play in it. I can’t spoil what happens to Beast Boy to get him to this place, but I can tell you that Raven’s reaction will be peak Raven.
DC: Nicola, Titans is your first ongoing series for us in a while. I’m curious, why was it the series that brought you back?
Nicola Scott: When I was contacted by the editor, it was the day after I delivered my last page of Wonder Woman Historia, and so I was not prepared to even think about working for weeks. But she came with this promise of, “It’s Titans, they’re adults and they’re the new Justice League. It’s the original characters that are coming back together and Tom’s writing it.”
All the ingredients quickly become this combination of things that you just can’t say no to. Of course, I’m going to say yes to that! I just had to work my brain around to being ready to start on something so quickly after finishing something else.
I love these characters. I’ve been able to dabble with these characters and this team a number of times over the past eighteen years. To finally have this moment where it’s the core team—the original team—and they’re now fully formed adults, coming back together to fulfill the promise of their childhood. Their training from the very beginning has been to take over. To be the team that the Justice League isn’t ever really going to be able to be because they’re a bunch of separate people who come together. The Titans are a family. They’ve been working on their relationships together for over a decade—they’ve sorted out their drama.
DC: How much planning has gone into your run of Titans? How far ahead have you mapped out? This seems like a pretty major thing to tackle right out of the gate.
TT: Because “Beast World” was a big part of what I began pitching, we were discussing a lot of this when I was in Madrid last year and I was having these late-night Skypes with [editor] Brittany Holzherr, [editor] Jessica Chen and Bruno Redondo. I had this giant idea. A lot of what we’re doing in the first arc, as well as bringing the team together this way for the first time and having them step up, it was always sort of leading to the event. It’s a huge idea—it has massive implications. Honestly, when talking about events, we frequently say things like, “This will change the DC Universe forever!” But “Beast World” actually does. I can’t talk about it yet, but something happens at the end of this that really does change the DC status quo.
Read the full interview here.
We can’t wait for the first issue to be released this November! Until then, the first two issues of Titans by Taylor and Scott are available in stores and on DC Universe Infinite.
Source: DC Comics
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