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this is actually so funny. imagining garth quipping and contributing to the conversation in his head cause he forgot the rest of the teen titans can't pick up on his telepathy

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it's funny to look at early Aqualad appearances because LOOK AT THE LITTLE GUY

he needs a comically sized lollipop and should shout Yipee and Gee Whiz whenever something fun happens to him

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Wally: Garth -- I know you don't want to think about this righ now, but with Arthur gone ... in fact, with all of Atlantis missing ... does that make you the new Aquaman? (We see Garth, along with Dick and Donna, looking shocked, almost dismayed at this question.) -- World's Finest: Our Worlds At War #1

Look, I'm sorry, but. His face.

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World's Finest: Teen Titans (2023) #2

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lmaoooooo he’s a fuckin DWEEB I LOVE HIM YOUR HONOR

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yknow i think a really fundamental misunderstanding current dc writers have with garth is that he genuinely wasn't a child soldier like dick or wally. sure he definitely comes from that era and there Are undoubtedly aspects of his character arc and relationship with arthur that are similar to the classic mentor/mentee relationship, but their core relationship didn't start with that. arthur originally only brought garth along because they were just besties. arthur was living it up homeless style with this random orphan he found and they got into some hijinks together. then shit happened, he becomes King, but he's not going to abandon garth so he continues to bring him along.

part of garth growing up was him having to take things more seriously and learn to handle hero shit. like. he was really just randomly thrust into that world because arthur Became a big hero, not because arthur intentionally took on a protégé.

so when i see dc writing rebirth garth or even yj garth as this Cool Kid who was taken under arthur's wing and trained to become a Cool Hero, it's just,,, it's a Huge misunderstanding of garth himself but especially their relationship. his daddy issues are amplified because he always saw arthur as this cool older man who took him in as a son, not as a student. unlike a character like dick who has issues with bruce because bruce himself treats him as both a son and student, garth really became the student in response to arthur's duties, after they already had an established relationship. and even then, garth was never meant to be arthur's protégé in the way the other kid sidekicks were.

like. garth became arthur's sidekick because he wanted to be there. he wanted to be with His Dad and help him on these important missions. he didn't want to be alone anymore, and if that meant risking his life for arthur then fucking whatever, he'll do it. while arthur did take on the role of mentor and garth was very much his sidekick, garth was never the Child Soldier or the Protégé like the other sidekicks. like i'd say that's actually a huge part of his character arc. current dc writers will Never be able to capture garth in the right light if they continue to paint him as the same kind of sidekick the other titans were.

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World's Finest: Teen Titans variant cover by Dan Panosian

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I'm rooting against the Titans now btw, go team Garth

I guess it’s Garth’s turn to join a cult 😔✊

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Cerdian lives

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Garth is majestic, this is incredible art by Nicola Scott

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Aqualad: Origins

Check my Patreon out if you’d like to support the comic, even a little bit helps. Or just to check out the reward tiers, I tried to make them fun: https://www.patreon.com/waitingforthet

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Me: Man, I should read more stories with Garth. Despite being a Teen Titans fan I know so little about him.   

Me after reading his very first appearance in Adventure Comics #269:

*Aqualad/Garth

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HEY IM SO FUCKING NORMAL ABOUT THIS ACTUALLY

VERY FUCKING NORMAL ABOUT THIS.

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2023 is the year of Jeremy Adams throwing children at every hero he is legally allowed to throw children at.

Jeremy Adams: *points at Wally* and you get a kid!

Jeremy Adams: *points at Jay* and you get a kid!

Jeremy Adams: *points at Barry* and you get your kid back! And your other kid back!

Jeremy Adams: *points at Garth* and you get your kid back!!

Jeremy Adams: I don't even know if I'm allowed to do that last one, I just want to.

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What's brilliant about this comic is that it doesn't contradict canon at all. Garth didn't have a name until 1984. He was called Garth for the first time in Tales of the Teen Titans #45.

He debuted in 1960. That's 24 years where he simply was Aqualad!

This is now canon until we are told otherwise.

Check my Patreon out if you’d like to support the comic, even a little bit helps. Or just to check out the reward tiers, there’s some neat bonus stuff and I tried to make them fun: https://www.patreon.com/waitingforthet

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teeny titans

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Garth is an aquatic Targaryen, any other take is wrong

Why is blue eyes Garth a bad thing?? 😭

Garth having purple eyes has been part of his character design from his first appearance, and purple eyes have been part of the Aquaman mythos in some capacity since Silver Age as well. It’s one of those Blue Suit moments where seeing Garth not have purple eyes makes me go “oh, you don’t get it.”

Originally, purple eyes are the sign of a “throwback” - a child unfit to live underwater that the Atlanteans literally just send to the surface world for humans to raise. Garth having purple eyes is how Arthur even knows Garth is Atlantean when they meet in Silver Age; Garth is the exception, he can survive underwater but he’s orphaned and terrified of fish, so they yeet him out of the city as a child and not an infant. Which is insane because Garth cannot survive on land for more than an hour. Clearly nobody was looking out for this kid.

This gets a reboot in the Bronze/Modern age when the purple eyes are considered a mutation and bad omen in Atlantis (we find out this was intentionally made up so Garth would be killed and wouldn’t claim his magic birthright - the purple eyes are part of his royal bloodline and claiming his powers would release his evil necromancies uncle from banishment) The purple eyes are a physical trait that caused Garth to grow up alone and face prejudice as a child/teen/adult. This era of Aquaman is all about prejudice and becoming confident in your personhood. It’s kinda Garth’s whole character theme.

Frustratingly, new52 introduced TWO new pieces of purple-eyes lore and then DID NOT GIVE GARTH HIS PURPLE EYES. why the FUCK would they do that? And again we go back to my beef with the newer stories; If you’re going to remove or retcon, you need to actually replace it with something else.

So like, ultimately you can change a character’s appearance and usually that doesn’t really mean anything. But other times, when stories hinge on that element or it was their most notable feature, you probably should explain your new vision in maybe a sentence or two? But if you choose not to give Garth purple eyes that just tells me you probably haven’t read any of his bigger stories and you probably didn’t even skim his wiki page. It’s like putting Garth in the color blue when he was canonically colorblind and not able to see blue (aka my ultimate Blue Suit Moment) Like babe if you can’t get the basics right, I kinda don’t trust you to do the character justice.

Also because DC usually doesn’t give him curly hair he ends up looking like every single other DC man.