Drugs Are Bad, Anti-Drug Comics Are Worse

In the early 1980s there were a couple of comics featuring The New Teen Titans (sort of) that were distributed for free in schools across the country to promote drug education of the Nancy Reagan “Just Say No” variety.
Throughout the years there were a lot of comics like that, such as a Captain America comic promoting energy conservation, Supergirl helping to illustrate the effectiveness of a wearing a seat belt, and, for whatever reason, Superman teaming up with the Nestle Quik Bunny.
There were also the Radio Shack comics that featured Superman defeating Luthor with the aid of a couple of kids and their TRS-80 computer.
In any case, my school never got the first Titans anti-drug comic, but we did get the second.
The comic, which was published by DC in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Education, the U.S. Customs Service, and, for reasons that are utterly beyond me, the Keebler company.
Yes, that would be the Keeebler Elves people, though thankfully Ernie and the rest of the gang did not make an appearance in the main narrative.
The book did not feature the regular Titans line-up, as at that time Dick Grayson had retired from his role as Robin and had not yet picked up the mantle of Nightwing, and so was replaced in the comic by last-minute invention Protector, a sort of off-brand version of Robin.
Kid Flash also bowed out in favor of former Green Arrow sidekick and reserve Titan Speedy, himself a recovering drug addict.
Those weren’t the only, or even most significant, ways in which this book varied from the regular series, though.
As everyone knows, not only are drugs bad, boobs are also bad, so Starfire’s bosom was made considerably less ample, and her costume was modified so as to cover up whatever cleavage might have remained.
Despite these changes, the artwork of New Teen Titans co-creator George Perez was, as always, phenomenal, though the story, by necessity, was heavy-handed and preachy and always cycled back to the point, which was that drugs are bad.
I remember being excited when I heard about this book and had seen an image from it on the news. Why? Well, as I’ve mentioned many times, I was a huge Titans fan, and the idea of getting a free copy (though given that my parents bought them for me, all of my comics were free) of a Titans comic was exciting in and of itself.
However, what pushed it over the top was the glimpse of the never before seen by my eyes character of Protector.
You see, as mentioned, Dick Grayson had given up on being Robin and had stepped down as leader of the Titans, and someone else – a kid named Jason Todd – had become the new Robin.
However, it was made clear from the start that Dick, despite turning in his hot pants and pixie boots, had no intention of giving up on costumed crime fighting for good, so the question was, once he finally finds himself, what will his new identity be?
This question, to give you an idea of how much of a nerd I am (as if you didn’t know), literally kept me awake at night.
So when I saw Protector, I thought, “Is this it? Is this the new identity?”
Of course it wasn’t, and eventually (a year later), Dick finally took on his new name and put on his new costume, a costume that was…incredibly gay.
That’s my view of the costume now. At the time, I thought it was cool as hell.
(Since that time his costume has been modified and updated and it actually is cool as hell.)
In any case, I was disappointed to discover that this comic did not contain the reveal, and was even more disappointed in the actual content of the story. I mean, okay, I get it, drugs are bad and they’ll kill you if you use them even if you don’t think that will (or perhaps especially if you don’t think they will).
And if I thought it was bad then, let me just say that it hasn’t improved after 24 years.
After the main story, the comic had a few pages of activities (which did feature Ernie Keebler) designed to help to reinforce the ideas presented in the comic.
I decided to scan in and complete one of the activity pages and post it here.
I hope I put down the right answers, because I don’t want to end up being addicted to drugs.
(Hey, booze is legal, so that addiction doesn’t count.)



I would suggest that those of you reading this post your own Choices in the Comments, but that’s pretty pointless because as almost no one but Scott posts comments unless it’s to insult me or to accuse me of not liking Rachel Weisz.
(I like Rachel Weisz. I like her a lot. Okay?)