Raven (comics)
Raven is a fictional character, a superhero in the DC Comics universe, specifically the Teen Titans comics.
In the Teen Titans comics
Raven has been a prominent member of The New Teen Titans, and is currently a member of the modern Teen Titans. She possesses psychic and telekinetic powers and the ability to heal wounds. She is also portrayed as an empath of some type.
A dark, moody character, Raven is the halfbreed daughter of a human mother named Angela (Arella) Roth and the demon overlord Trigon. She grew up in a pacifist place called Azarath, where she was taught to "control her emotions" in order to suppress and control Trigon's demonic powers that she was born with.
Eventually she learned that Trigon was planning to come to her dimension and vowed to stop him. She initially approached the Justice League, but they refused her on the advice of Zatanna who sensed her demonic parentage. In desperation, she reformed the Titans as the New Teen Titans to fight her father.
The team was eventually able to defeat Trigon and seal him in an interdimensional prison. However, Raven still had to fight her father's influence, as he was not completely destroyed. More than once, Raven nearly lost control in various high stress situations in her adventures and barely regained it before Trigon could reassert.
Trigon eventually escaped and came to Earth and took control of Raven. Azarath was destroyed in the process. The Titans came together and killed Raven. This allowed the souls of Azarath to possess her and use her as a channel to kill Trigon. Afterwards, Raven was presumed dead, but she actually rose from ashes of the battle, finally purged of Trigon's evil. She vanished, and her mother went looking for her.
Raven was then captured by Brother Blood's minions to control Nightwing as part of Brother Blood's resurrection. The Titans rescued them both and prevented Brother Blood from returning. Raven donned a new white cloak to represent her being free from her father's influence.
The Titans were eventually captured by the Wildebeest Society, but were rescued by a group of heroes. The leader of the Wildebeest Society was actually their teammate, Jericho, who was inhabited by the souls of Azarath. Jericho tried to use the Titans as vessels for the souls, but in the end was killed by his father, Deathstroke.
Later, another version of Raven appeared, this time, possessed by her evil conscience. She attempted to implant seeds of Trigon's children into new bodies. She crashed the wedding of Nightwing and Starfire, and implanted one of the seeds into her. However, she actually implanted the seed of the good Raven, which caused Starfire to leave Earth in order to escape from Raven. Raven then implanted seeds into several female superheroes. The Titans were able to defeat her with the help of Phantasm.
Raven returned later, still evil, in order to destroy her good self which she had implanted in Starfire. The Titans defeated her once again, for the last time. The good Raven was instilled into a new golden spirit body.
As a spirit, Raven wandered Earth, looking for her place in the world, when Brother Blood came to claim her. Her spirit was instilled into the body of a teenage girl by the Church of Blood. The Teen Titans (reformed again), discovered that the Church of Blood were worshippers of Raven's father, Trigon. They also found a prophecy which told of the marriage between Brother Blood and Raven that would result in armageddon. The new team interrupted the wedding, and Raven forced the cult to escape. She then joined the new Teen Titans and enrolled at a high school as Rachel Roth to honor her mother.
In the "Titans of Tomorrow" storyline, Raven became the Dark Raven and gathered Superboy (now Superman), Wonder Girl (now Wonder Woman), Robin (now Batman), Beast Boy (now Animal Man), and Aquagirl (now Aquawoman) to make the world a much better place, but they got a bit carried away.
In the Teen Titans animated series
In the Teen Titans animated series (2003-present), Raven (with a dry, throaty voice provided by Tara Strong) appears much younger (as do all the other characters) than in the comic book variants, though her costume is relatively unchanged. However, her skirt was changed to a leotard by the animators to avoid complications. She also has grey skin and short, violet hair. Raven's personality is also more child-like and emotional and more gothic. Raven, while being a very clever girl, is straightforward and moody, as well as sarcastic. However, she does show signs that she cares very much for her friends.
Her powers keep close to the original character's, except for the fact that she sometimes says "Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!" to help her focus her powers. She has to meditate often to make sure her powers remain at bay. When she gets excessively emotional, her powers tend to take a form, called her "soul-self" in the comic books (her soul-self is not recognized by name in the animation, but it is featured.) Her soul-self tends to take the form of demonic under-the-bed sort of creatures, like pitch black four-eyed baby birds or rats, or obviously, a giant raven. Her soul-self can also transform her body's appearance to a variety of demonic forms and sizes. Worst of all, when she can't control her anger, she transforms into a demonic Raven usually with four glowing, red eyes and sprouting black tentacles from under her cloak, also referred to by fans as “Red Raven”. The four eyes seem to symbolize her demon father, Trigon.
Raven often worries that her fellow Titans don't like her, possibly because she's the daughter of a demon and has a complex lifestyle that her friends don't understand too well. Her room inside Titans Tower is decorated with things from her past, as well as statues and pictures about of the creepy-crawlies her powers like to conjure up. Not surprisingly, she becomes highly offended when anyone sets foot in it against her will.
In the first season, episode 6 “Nevermore”: Raven is angered by a villain named Dr. Light and transforms into Red Raven, grabs the villain with her tentacles and drags him under her cloak, seriously traumatizing the villain. Later Beast Boy and Cyborg find a mirror in her room, which accidentally transports them into her subconscious. Here, they encountered the personified aspects of Raven herself (each aspect represented as wearing a different colored robe, including Green (bold), Gray (timidity), Pink (cheeriness), etc.). When Raven went after them, she tells them that her dark side was let out by accident and had taken over her angry side. Red Raven (complete with four glowing-red eyes) soon gathers herself and transforms into a huge hulking beast, at which point questions about what’s going on occur and Raven comments "Let's just say I have issues with my father," a hint in the animated series that the beast is a 'younger' incarnation of her father, and referring to a background story based off her comic book variant. The white cloak from that episode is seen in at least one episode of every season so far. In Season One's "Nevermore", her cloak turns white after she absorbs her other aspects to defeat her mind's view of Trigon. The cloak was next seen in the first episode of Season Two, "How Long is Forever", where Raven's future self dons the white cloak after losing control of her powers---and her sanity. In Season Three's "Spellbound", Raven dons her white attire as a result of her being attracted to the wizard Malchior. “Red Raven” was let loose briefly during Raven's battle with Terra in a giant mud pit (Season 2, Episode 25 “Aftershock [Part 1]”). After her furious personality was unleashed, she could have easily killed Terra if she hadn't remained calm and restrained herself.
Possibly the most powerhouse episode of all (at present) was "Birthmark" in season 4 where the plot moves on to Slade and how he has apparently made allegiance with Trigon and gained the ability to control fire (or even resurrected by Trigon, though in the comics Slade was immortal). In "The End Part II", she gets regressed back to her childhood form by her father, so that he may succeed in his plans of world domination. But upon seeing her friends in trouble and being hurt by her father , Raven managed to restore her age with her inner goodness and used this power to weaken and then defeat Trigon completely. Though her uniform and power were white when this happened, and her hair long, Raven had donned her standard black and blue outfit and sported a sarcastic attitude and cropped hair once again by the end of the episode.
Other Ravens in comics
The Raven, real name Tony Grey, first appeared in Feature Comics #60, a series that was published by Quality Comics in the 1940s. The Raven wore a bird-shaped costume and could fly. He was the partner and romantic interest of Spider Widow.
References
External links
Referenced By
List of DC Comics characters | T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents | THUNDER Agents | Teen Titans | The New Teen Titans | The New Titans | The Teen Titans | The Titans
|
