You can tell that a genre of movie has truly hit the big time and entered the public consciousness when the kind of in-jokes that usually would only be understood by a limited number of fans becomes the driving force of an entire movie, so if you needed any more proof that the comic book movie has reached maximum saturation of the masses, you wouldn’t have to look too far for the spoofy proof. Some examples of late have included both Spider-Verse movies, Deadpool & Wolverine and The Lego Batman Movie, which pounded audiences with deep cut comic references that bizarrely have gone over incredibly well.
However, arguably the most ferocious and dogged attempt to lampoon superheroes and all they stand for may actually be the big screen bow of the Teen Titans Go! show, a bouncy, energetic animated series that saw its gag count rocket in number thanks to a shift to the big screen. Nothing is sacred – not origin stories; not character traits; not even the sanctity of the Marvel/DC divide and if you’re looking for surprisingly cutting humour from a genre unafraid to laugh at itself, this is a good place to start.
As we visit Jump City, we find that the local banks are under siege by the giant, inflatable form of Balloon Man who is blowing away the local police with relative ease. However, arriving to deflate his ego is the Teen Titans, a grab-bag grouping of young heroes that’s led by Robin and includes the super powered space princess Starfire, shape shifter Beast Boy, the supernatural Raven and the uber shiny Cyborg. However, after an initial battle that includes one of modern cinema’s biggest fart jokes, the Titans get so distracted while engaging in an introductory rap song, Balloonman almost gets away until he’s finally popped by the likes of “real” heroes like Superman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern.
Finding themselves snubbed by the A-listers who dash off to catch the premier of the latest Batman movie, a disgruntled Robin finds that virtually every other hero in the DC universe are enjoying illustrious cinematic careers except him and his team. Pissed at being left out, the Boy Wonder starts to obsess and realises that if he and his buddies are going to be taken seriously, they are going to need to get themselves their own arch villain. Enter Slade Wilson, a supervillain proficient in twirling swords, making nefarious plans and (deep breath) MIND MANIPULATION and after the Titans catch him trying to steal a crystal from S.T.A.R. Labs, they adopt him as their nemesis.
However, when that fails to net them the movie they feel they deserve, they childish heroes take more drastic measures, utilising time travel to ensure that their chances of moviedom increase if they stop the other heroes from being created. Now, this might seem overly harsh, but what you have to remember is – it’s also very funny…
Fair warning. Despite the fact that Teen Titans Go! To The Movies has an unfeasibly keen edge when it comes to self referential and self deprecating humour that cuts like some sort of fictional, comic book elements slicing through butter. Sure, The Lego Batman Movie came with a sizable amount of irreverence, but Titans attacks the history of DC with the vicious distain of a disrespectful teenager, flinging side-eyes and sarcastic comments around with withering efficiency. There is literally no corner of the DC universe that doesn’t get an enthusiastic kicking – but despite the impressively mature cruelness the movie welds, this is still very much a movie intended for kids. Of course, we’ve being living in the days of Cartoon Network and Adult Swim for far too long to do something as stupid as writing off a kids movie for being written for such – however, even when taken on that level, there are times where Teen Titans Go! To The Movies feels like someone pumped way too much sugar into an episode of the Powerpuff Girls and then took cover before it exploded into a meta-humour mushroom cloud. If whiplash inducing shifts in plot focus isn’t your thing (the whole time travel subplot literally is a self contained gag that doesn’t really have anything to do with anything), you may find your nerves being tested – similarly, if you are one of those people who take comic book universes a bit too seriously, you may bristle at how brutally the film treats such iconic characters.
For the rest of us, the film is essentially a non-stop flurry of gags that have an impressively high hit rate, from repeated gags about Robin having little baby hands to the gang constantly forgetting they have infinite plot armour thanks to Raven’s portals; but while the characters aren’t hardly what you’d describe as fleshed out or refined (only Robin gets anything close to a solo arc), it’s that near-animalistic urge to punch holes in the very fabric of comic book culture that makes it such a must watch. In fact, some of the jokes here are legitimately world class and are made all the more funny by how scathing they are. In an effort to thwart the creation of superhero movies, at one pont the Titan travel back in time (to the theme tune of Back To The Future, naturally) to undo the origin stories of every single hero, be it saving Krypton from destruction to persuading the Waynes to take a safer alley. However, when they discover that their plan has serious drawbacks, they then go back in time again to cheerfully to allow multiple atrocities to ocurr with big smiles and thumbs up all round. Elsewhere there’s an absolutely stunning Lion King paradody and even a scene featuring Marvel’s main man, Stan Lee, who has become so cameo hungry, he hasn’t even realised that he’s wandered into DC territory. There’s a similar lack of respect dished out to Aquaman (chokes on a plastic six-pack ring as a baby), Hawkman (fed seed like an actual bird) and a killer call backs to near-forgotten hero team, the Challengers Of The Unknown whose continuing misfortunes only get funnier the more it’s referenced.
There’s voice cameos abound that see Nic Cage finally play Superman, Jimmy Kimmel play Batman and features Will Arnett leaping from voicing the Lego Dark Knight to providing the vocals for arch nemesis Slade and getting frequently pissed that people keep confusing him with Deadpool. But I have to wonder what the experience of the film must be like if someone doesn’t have an encyclopedic knowledge of DC – to be fair, the writers make sure that they explain some of the more complex references as they go, but all the best kids cartoons have multiple jokes that whizz over the heads of kids like Superman doing a flyby, so I guess it’s fine.
Faster than a speeding bullet and as acerbic as a dozen Deadpools, you wouldn’t think that the best commentary on the influx of superhero movies would come from a feature film version of a kids TV show. But the Teen Titans bust their animated asses to prove that they’re the Animaniacs of the superhero set and that superhero culture can indeed laugh at itself – even when it’s murdering the parents of Bruce Wayne.
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