The 80s were a strange, but massively important time for the world of comics.
However, there’s one seriously overlooked piece of history that ended up having ripple
effects that subtly influenced the world of DC Comics.
You’d think that this would be something that was caused by a larger than life villain
or a big multiversal crisis, but what ended up happening was the perfect storm of drugs,
cookies, and the United States government that caused Robin, the leader of the Teen
Titans to literally be whited from the pages of his own comic book.
You see, anti-drug PSAs are nothing new for the world of comics.
In fact, previously on the channel, we covered Fastlane, the Spider-Man PSA where he took
on marijuana that was so hated that fans were known to actually take the pages right out
of their comic book, but for this story though, the meddling happened right at the source.
So let me introduce you to the Teen Titans Drug Awareness Special and The Protector,
the forgotten leader of the Teen Titans!
Having not been alive in 1983, my first exposure to The Protector is the same as a lot of modern
comic book readers.
In DC’s controversial series, Heroes in Crisis, the plot revolves around Sanctuary,
a rehabilitation clinic for superheroes.
It’s pretty standard to see therapy sessions from characters like Wally West, Arsenal,
and even my favorite superhero of all time, Booster Gold, but this was also a chance for
DC to showcase some of their lesser known characters like Blue Jay and Commander Steel.
They’re obscure, but I’m a big comic nerd so I’ve at least heard of them, but The
Protector?
What’s his deal?
In Heroes in Crisis, The Protector mentions that his main shtick was fighting against
drugs.
All the while though, he was hypocritically taking them.
That’s an interesting premise, enough to make me want to dig deeper, but what I discovered
is that The Protector comes from a series of just three special issues of the Teen Titans
that were made in conjunction with corporate sponsors and the United States government
itself.
It’s customary for First Ladies to take up a cause such as Michelle Obama’s “Let’s
Move” campaign for tackling childhood obesity.
In the 80s, there was Nancy Reagan’s famous “Just Say No” campaign regarding drugs.
As a part of this, the program approached DC Comics about commissioning a special one-shot
comic book featuring the standard DC Heroes taking on the world of drug use, but after
meeting with the comic publisher, they settled upon the Teen Titans.
After all, who better to handle a teen issue than teen characters?
The creative team was thrilled to be working on the special issue.
It gave a great opportunity to bring character development to Green Arrow’s sidekick / Teen
Titans member, Speedy, who had famously been dealing with an addiction to heroin.
However, that development wasn’t really mentiontioned or dealt with in any meaningful
way in the Teen Titans series at this time.
Sadly, writer, Marv Wolfman’s, initial plot to take a more realistic look at drug use
was watered down as these books were going to be distributed at schools.
See, this wasn’t going to just be a standard DC comic.
There was the additional red tape of having to get every detail approved by several committees.
This led to other mild censorships such as changing Starfire’s costume to be less revealing
and to keep Donna Troy’s neckline a bit more modest.
In an interview with artist, George Perez, he revealed that those changes were actually
his idea, hoping to beat the committee to the punch and give them as little ammunition
to complain about as possible.
Strangely enough though, there was one big change that was made to the book that came
from a that place you might not expect… the cookie industry.
Wait, what?
Okay so get this.
In order to help offset costs, the specials received funding from corporate sponsors.
This included IBM, the National Soft Drink Association, and Keebler cookies.
That last one caused an issue because, I kid you not, the COOKIE rights to Robin were already
taken by Nabisco as a part of the Super Friends branding.
As such, Robin couldn’t appear in conjunction with a product that was associated with a
direct competitor.
This was going to be an issue for DC considering that Robin is the leader of the Teen Titans
and for the Drug Awareness Special, the artwork was already completely finished.
To replace Robin, such an integral part of the team would mean that the book would have
to more or less be completely redrawn which is a huge waste of time and money.
The solution?
Literally taking white out to erase Robin out of the artwork and draw a completely new,
but similar character on top.
This is where The Protector finally comes into play.
This Robin stand-in was directly created by Marv Wolfman and George Perez which certainly
explains why his costume fits right in with the other Titans.
However, the edits themselves were made by Dave Manak who must have misunderstood something
since Wolfman stated in an interview that the design was exactly how he imagined it,
but the purple bits were supposed to be black.
So using my terrible Photoshop skills, this is my estimation of what The Protector was
originally envisioned to look like.
Oh wow, that actually came out a lot better than I expected.
Neat!
Because The Protector was being drawn over Robin, it led to some odd situations like
him calling the shots, flying THEIR jet, and this very odd instance of Raven calling him
“Pro” despite the fact that she is not that casual with anybody else.
That’s probably because the word balloon was already drawn to say “Robin”, a name
that’s nearly half as short as Protector.
I counted on my fingers to double check and it’s true.
Honestly, this whole cookie licensing issue is probably the most interesting part of the
special considering that the watered down version reads a lot like a heavy handed “very
special episode” on an old TV show, but let me give you a quick rundown just to be
safe.
The issue opens up with a letter from Nancy Reagan telling kids that by participating
in the campaign, they too can be heroes just like the Teen Titans.
The book has a lot of these big monologues from kids that are suffering from addiction
talking about how much their habits have ruined their lives.
There’s also such highlights as Raven’s power of empathy causing her to hallucinate
when she picked up the emotional energy of a kid that was tripping nearby.
Then the boy straight up DIED on the next page and Starfire decided to avenge him by
going on a rampage where she destroys a drug lab.
The back of the book also includes some neat little games and worksheets like this one
where you can write a good way to just say no.
Oddly enough though, there’s not a situation presented where you can say no way to some
dank Lombre.
Instead, there’s “We’re going to take Peter’s knapsack and throw it up a tree!
You want to come?”
And “Wow!
I don’t believe it!
These are the answers to tomorrow’s test!”
The only drug related situation is “We found these pills in my mother’s medicine cabinet!
Want to try some?”
The issue also ends with a little declaration that you can write, promising to be a Titan
in the drug war, but this requires a freaking signature from the reader AND a witness.
That’s a lot, comic.
Calm down.
Despite how hokey this might all seem, the special issue was a success and two more books
were commissioned.
Although these new issues weren’t sponsored by Keebler, DC decided to stick with The Protector
as a replacement for Robin, but this time since he was planned to be included from the
get go, he took a more active role, but man, they must have loved making Raven hallucinate
since they did it again, but in much grander fashion.
The campaign got so popular that even outside of the two additional comic book specials,
the government commissioned an animated TV spot featuring the team.
This is the only footage of the spot that I was able to find online.
The quality is bad so instead, we’re going to focus on this animation cell and this reference
sheet.
Although some Teen Titans stories were featured in the 60s on the Superman/Aquaman Hour of
Adventure, this promotional clip was the only time that Raven, Cyborg, Starfire, and Beast
Boy were animated until the 2003 cartoon series, but get this!
The TV spot actually got the ball rolling on a pitch for an all new Teen Titans cartoon
series that was using the models from the promotional clip along with civilian identities
for each of the character as noted by this concept art.
Now, astute fans might also notice that the character models that were used for the awareness
campaign are also the exact same designs that we saw in the Teen Titans Go!
Episode, “Classic Titans”, which is hands down one of the best things to ever come out
of the show!
“I’ll use my dinosaur tracking birdarang!”
“You have one of those?”
“Of course!”
“Wow, everything is really convenient in this story!”
Seriously, you definitely owe it to yourself to watch this episode even if you hate rest
of the show.
Regardless, it’s crazy that these specials, although forgotten to time had ripple effects
that are still affecting Teen Titans media three decades later!
So what ever happened to The Protector?
Well since he only appeared in the specials, there wasn't much to him.
DC tried to flesh out his character by giving Protector (real name Jason Hart) an entry
in their “Who’s Who?”
manual where it states that through a long chain of events, Jason had to become a superhero
in order to protect his cousin who had become a drug addict.
What this chain of events was, we don’t know since Protector faded into obscurity,
having only really appeared in the background of books and when he was given speaking lines,
they were only in alternate universes.
My favorite references however are ones that I found while researching my video on the
H-Dial, a device that turns its user into a random superhero.
In the 2003 “H-E-R-O” series, one of the personas that the main character dials is
a hero with a similar costume that’s also called The Protector.
Taking it a step further though, the 2003 Teen Titans cartoon had its own comic book
spin off where they took the opportunity to showcase characters that weren’t able to
make it into the show.
This is where we got to see another character with their very own H-Dial, but this time
it stole the powers of nearby heroes and creates new costumes based on the powersets.
When the dialer came by Robin, the H-Dial straight up stole his fighting and acrobatic
prowess and turned the dialer into The Protector!
It’s unlikely that we’re ever going to see Protector again considering that he was
killed off during Heroes in Crisis, but let me leave you with one last detail that might
just be his greatest impact.
And apparently I need to make this snappy because it just decided to rain and I hate
it.
So this might be speculation on my part, but The Protector appeared in comics just one
year before Dick Grayson transitioned from Robin to Nightwing, but I can definitely see
similarities between Nightwing’s original costume and The Protector’s, especially
the original black design.
I mean just take a look at the boots, belt area, and the color scheme of black and light
blue with a splash of warm color.
So yeah.
Maybe I’m just looking into it too much, but I would love to hear your thoughts about
it down there in the comments below.
I want to give a big shoutout to @IamtheRamos for retweeting my last video.
It seriously blew up and I think a big part of that is because you guys were retweeting
it!
So if you want a shoutout then go to my Twitter, @TrailerDrake, retweet this video, and who
knows?
Maybe it’ll be you next time.
But if you liked this video then why not consider subscribing or even watching another one?
And yeah, I mentioned it in this video, but the last episode that I did on the H-Dial
actually contained references to The Protector and also, it’s just a good video in general
so maybe go give that a watch if you’re interested.
Honestly, I’m really tired so I’m probably going to go take a nap, but anyway.
I hope you learned at least a little something new and hopefully I’ll see you next time.