Teen Titans #7(Jan/Feb 1967)
Summary: Hey, cool, this issue is in chapters for some reason! So yeah, I'll break this post down by chapters. First up, Chapter 3! Wait, no... That makes no sense... Ah, I got it. First up, Chapter 1! The US government has been having problems with international smuggling lately. And for some reason, the clues the government have gathered point to famous teenage rocker, Holley Hip. Naturally, when you find yourself having smuggling troubles, you turn to a bunch of teenage super-heroes to do your job for you! And that's just what the government does, as they call the Teen Titans in to assist them in solving this problem. The three boys aren't exactly fans of Holley, but Wonder Girl loves him, and since the Titans would never say no to a request from the government, they agree to go out on a tour of England with Holley... Take that, you stinking, government hating hippie bastards!!! Oh, and the Titans end their visit to the government offices by saluting a PICTURE of JFK... Who salutes a picture!? From there, the Titans meet up with Holley, hop aboard a jet and fly out to London. Upon arriving, the Titans and Holley are hoisted in the air by the joyous English kids. Dick Grayson sadly doesn't scream out, "Holy ass-grabbing, Batman!" in that scene, but by god, he should have! Holley's swinging digs(or "clothes" for us born after the 1970's) are then trucked to a famous clothing designer named the Mad Mod. I haven't the slightest idea why he's called the Mad Mod, but whatever. Kid Flash follows the clothing, and sure enough, the Mod is using Holley's clothes to stash various items, getting them past customs. Helpfully, the Mod makes sure to point out that Holley knew nothing about the Mod's actions, which Kid Flash overhears. Kid Flash goes to radio the other Titans, but he notices one of Mod's men sneaking around, so he rushes to the front of the Mod's shop, directly into a pillory... Yep...
Chapter 2! Since Kid Flash had been cut off in the middle of his transmission, Robin and the Titans head to the Mod's shop to investigate. The Mod helpfully shows them around the shop, at which time Robin notices Mod's men carrying a manikin outside to a truck. Suspecting foul play, Robin and the Titans head out front where Wonder Girl stands in the street and halts the truck's progress. Unfortunately for her, the Mod(who is now in the truck) orders his men to put the truck in reverse, which somehow leads to Wonder Girl smacking her head on the truck's fender and passing out. With that, the truck drives off. The truck stops at the Thames River where the Mod orders his men to toss one of the manikins into the drink. Aqua-Lad, who had been stowing away on the bottom of the truck, realizes that the manikin was actually Kid Flash and hops into the Thames to rescue his partner. The Mod spots Aqua-Lad jumping into the water, grabs his special scuba gear(never leave home without it!), snatches a harpoon and climbs onto his giant robot fish... Why was he riding around with a robot fish in his truck in the first place? I mean, I guess it's good that he did, but still, that's a weird thing for a clothing designer to have with him... Aqua-Lad swims Kid Flash to the surface and winds up getting chased around by the Mod's robo-fish. Aqua-Lad manages to disable the robot fish, but the Mod is saved by his henchmen, who fish him out of the water. Aqua-Lad reports back to Robin, who has no evidence of the Mod's wrongdoing, which at this point includes, international smuggling, attempted vehicular manslaughter, assault and attempted murder. In order to get some evidence, Robin tells Holley the whole story and Holley agrees to ship the Titans to his next gig in a clothing box. While on board the plane to Paris, Robin manages to get some incriminating pictures of the Mod with his mini camera, but the plane hits some turbulence and he falls out of the box with Wonder Girl, alerting the Mod to his presence. On a positive, when he falls out of the clothing box, Robin screams, "Holy suitcases!".
Chapter 3! Damn is this review turning out to be longer than I expected... This is like a JT review now! Upon seeing WG and Robin, the Mad Mod fires knockout gas at them and kicks them out of the plane! Wow, that seems kind of extreme! Falling through the sky revives Robin and WG, and WG flies over and catches the original Boy Wonder. However, the Mod leaps out of the plane with a parachute and Wonder Girl's magic lasso! Okay, I have to give the Mod some props for that! The Mod ties Robin and WG up, in mid-air(!), with the lasso. He then pulls off Robin's utility belt and tosses it away, correctly figuring that Robin's camera was in it. Unfortunately for the Mod, while falling through a cloud, WG manages to free herself and Robin from the lasso, slipping away from the confused Mod. The Titans meet up with Holley in Paris and Robin finds out that the Mod wanted one of Holley's outfits in order to alter it. Figuring the Mod had stashed something on the outfit, Robin instructs Holley to not turn the outfit over to the Mod. Instead, Holley goes through with his concert in Paris. While preforming, the lights in the arena go dark and the Mod and his men rush the stage and try to strip Holley of his threads. The Titans turn the lights on and swing out of the rafters, knocking the Mod's men out. The Mod grabs Holley and puts a gun to his head, but the Titans swing around Mod in a circle(?!), causing the Mod to become dizzy(!?!). Holley, apparently unaffected by the Titans' antics, smashes his guitar over the Mod's head, knocking the Mod out. The French police then take the Mod and Holley's clothes into custody. Things then get even weirder as Holley realizes he had to finish the concert, but didn't have clothes or instruments. To rectify this, Robin strips out of his clothes(and then stands around in a barrel!), and Holley puts them on. As for music? Holley uses Wonder Girl's lasso and a board... Groovy!!
Thoughts: So yeah, this was a thing that happened... I'm going to overlook the sheer weirdness of the last page, with Robin giving Holley his speedo, because maybe people did things like that in the 60's. I don't know. Looking past that, we have the Mad Mod... Honestly, he was a genius for the most part! His smuggling operation was brilliant(even though I don't know why a famous clothing designer would turn to international smuggling...), he correctly deducted that Dick had taken pictures of him while on the plane, AND he got rid of that evidence. So yeah, he was pretty smart... At least until the end of this issue... His best idea to get Holley's clothing was to rush the stage of a crowded concert and steal the clothes right off of Holley's back!? Even though he knew the Titans were watching Holley's back?! I mean, there wasn't another more opportune moment to get those clothes? Sad... Besides all that, Mod also wracked up a hell of a lot of crimes! In 22 pages, he smuggles things into three separate countries, had a Kid Flash assaulted, tried to run Wonder Girl over in a truck, tried to have Kid Flash drowned, personally tried to kill Aqua-Lad with a harpoon, had Wonder Girl and Robin tossed out of an airplane, tied Robin and Wonder Girl up so they wouldn't be able to save themselves from the fall from said airplane, destroyed property, tried to steal clothes, and held a famous musician hostage at gunpoint! Eat your heart out, Lex Luthor, the Mad Mod makes you look like a chump! Overall, this issue was more than just a comic book story, it was also very educational to me. From this point forward, I'll always remember to salute pictures of JFK. I now also know that English people can't pronounce the letter "H". They also carry celebrities on their shoulders, which is nice, I guess... Oh, and they seem to get dizzy faster than Americans do. I'll keep that one in mind in case I ever travel across the drink, as they say. Finally, if I ever happen to see a person wearing nothing but their undergarments, I'll happily give them my clothes, provided there is a barrel present for me to slip into. See that, you DO learn something new everyday!
# of times Robin said "Holy...": 5
# of times Aqua-Lad made an aquatic alliteration: 7
# of times Mad Mod said, "'aw!": 19.
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