Media Essays: Beast Boy and Raven: Individual Stories

Written by The Wandering Fox

Freddy and Teddy were snoozing away in bed, too tired to get up after spending the night getting a bit tipsy with the drinks. The Wandering Fox smiled as he closed the door on them.

I think we’ll let them be. Good day everybody. With the title you can see it’s about two of DC’s Titans. You know them, you love them, you know of their relationship with each other, it’s Beast Boy and Raven.

Yes, I ship them, so what? I ain’t the only one XD

But still, the title will have given it away already but this isn’t about them as a couple, although it does play a part in it, it’s about them as having their own individual stories. While Beast Boy and Raven are beloved as a couple and as characters, their solo stories or stories centred around them haven’t exactly been stamped in the DC books that well. Beast Boy’s own miniseries by Geoff Johns was hijacked by Nightwing, Raven’s story has been rinse and repeat with different bad guys with the whole crux of those stories being that Beast Boy is incredibly depressed deep inside but strives to make others proud and hide his pain. Raven is her fighting her darker side and those who wish to make her their tool. Now yes, we did have Beast World which saw Beast Boy turn into a Starro to stop Starro himself but was temporarily killed by Amanda Waller until he was resurrected through a Starro cell, and as an idea it was good, and the aftermath did have Beast Boy being feared by others and a villain obtained his powers for her own desires, while Raven was hijacked by her darker side and had to be defeated by Beast Boy, but that’s it, it’s boiled back to the basics: Beast Boy is incredibly depressed and Raven has battled her darker side again.

I will give DC credit, they have revealed Beast Boy and Raven have a big house together near New Orleans and take in children who need a place to recover from a fearful moment. It’s nice they made efforts to show that Beast Boy and Raven are content with living together which is a nice step up from either of them living in Titans Tower or in their own apartments.

But the matter of this is that I want to explore ideas that may be helpful to them as their own characters. With who they are and their powers, I think I have enough to explore what stories can be told. Now, to any DC writer who maybe looking at this, if you’re thinking of pinching my ideas, this essay is right here as living proof that I had these ideas, so if you want to copy something, go and do what you always do: rinse and repeat the stories I said above!

Let’s start with.

Beast Boy

As we know, Garfield Logan has gone through a story of his own. Lost his parents, trapped in a cage by his uncle, looked after by an African tribe, joined the Doom Patrol, killed Madam Rouge, was a film star, let go of his libido towards women and matured enough to be temporary leader of the Titans, lost an eye to Deathstroke, and found love with Raven. Now, notice a few things up there? He was looked after by an African Tribe and was a film star. That there is enough to tell you a good story with Beast Boy.

The African community can easily explore Beast Boy’s maturity as he uses his money to help out impoverished African communities as he knows there’s still those out there that need help, and he wants to give back to the people who helped him. There was Tawebe who took him in and looked after him. I can see as well Beast Boy would turn into various animals that can provide healthy water to several communities as well as finding fresh supplies. But of course with this being comics you need action, hence I think Beast Boy could battle the Red Lion, a warlord in DC, after he kidnaps a few children and men into working for him, Tawebe asks Beast Boy for his help in getting them back. This allows Beast Boy to infiltrate Red Lion’s compound and finds the captives and after he frees them he battles Red Lion, who tries to kill him but Beast Boy wrecks his tech and cars and then chomps on him, not enough to kill him but enough to leave him petrified. Beast Boy tells him he will never hurt these people again and paralyses him with snake venom to call in the authorities for help. Beast Boy is questioned by others like Nightwing and Cyborg of whether he was a bit brutal but Beast Boy says he couldn’t let that guy hurt them ever again and he’s still alive. He continues his charity work with him respected by the African communities and is told he always has a place among them. Beast Boy has to though also help the lions who Red Lion had under his control, helping shatter his implants on them to let them go back to be free. This shows you he can work alone and be smart enough with his money as well as giving him and his beloved girlfriend a chance to be on their own. Obviously Raven makes an appearance by helping out and gets to know those who knew him before she did. She sees how much he means to these people because they mean a lot to him.

With him as a former film star, Beast Boy is easy to have as a character to explore certain issues within the film industry and Hollywood, be it AI related matters or corruption within Hollywood or how Los Angeles is not the great city many think it is. What has him return to Hollywood is the fact that they are recreating his adopted mum, Rita Farr, through A.I for a special celebration of a tv show of hers. Beast Boy confronts the studio, angry that they went and done that without asking him as he’s the caretaker of Rita’s legacy and therefore they should’ve have asked him. He tells them the special isn’t going to be made and he wants to look at this AI. Cyborg joins him in helping looking into the AI and he’s surprised to find the AI isn’t of human origins which only has Beast Boy tell film critics of this, knowing well this would cause an outrage in Hollywood and forces the studios to cease production as actors go on protest. This allows Beast Boy to figure out who’s the owner of the AI, with it revealed to be an alien. The alien made the AI to “bring back” dead actors to serve his own planet’s conquest of Earth through making perfected AI duplicates of the dead to emotionally suppress the human race. Beast Boy smugly tells him that it was an idea best suited for the old days because with the Justice League and other superheroes the AI duplicates would’ve been defeated. This has the alien feel that though Beast Boy might’ve stopped his plans he at least can kill him, creating duplicates of Rita and his old Space Trek cast members. Beast Boy is horrified at first as the duplicates are almost perfect but he remembers the weaknesses of each character and uses that to his advantage, shocking the alien as Beast Boy realises that these duplicates believed they were the real thing and therefore their weaknesses work. The duplicate of Rita recalls memories of Beast Boy and helps him in defeating the alien but in doing so this has the AI killed. As she fades, “Rita” tells Beast Boy she’s proud of him. Though he knows she’s an AI he can’t help but feel touched by it and has a heart to heart with Cyborg and Dick of it.

Beast Boy uncovers corruption within Hollywood in which he finds out some studios are secretly trading money with criminal orgs in return for tech that allows them to brainwash extras or D Actors into obeying them in any way they want, finding out that these people are deprived of food or have been given cosmetic surgery to make them look “cute”. Beast Boy helps shatter the tech on them and a criminal org he finds in particular is in fact led by none other than Black Mask. This has Beast Boy work beside Batman and Red Robin in defeating him as they find out that Black Mask had gained a piece of Hollywood under his control in this. The last idea in regards to Hollywood is that Beast Boy uncovers a string of crimes that involve famous fictional characters of Hollywood who are expies of existing characters, often through robbery or injuries. It’s Control Freak who’s doing this as he wants to truly show everybody what these bad guys can do and that they aren’t things to make fun of. Beast Boy defeats him and says he gives fans a bad name and wants him to turn over a new leaf for a change.

There’d be a fun story in which Beast Boy is invited to a premier to his old Space Trek series which gets him a bit embarrassed but Raven goes with him which eases him. While there the lovers end up finding out some of the tickets weren’t given to a charity but were being sold out to big wigs to get more money. Raven humiliates them by taking their money and gives it to the charity while Beast Boy rides the children in on his big back upon turning into a green ape. Though Beast Boy blushes at the screening, he’s pleased the kids are enjoying it and Raven finds it rather clever. She kisses him and remarks that he never needed an Oscar to prove himself. It has him smile and kiss her in return, happy that she’s there.

With that done with, we now go to.

Raven

With her I’d make sure that we avoid the typical things they do with her. Raven here is more investigative as she looks into strange cases involving the supernatural. Raven is characterised more how she is in the comics, she’s far less grumpy or withdrawn. She’s quiet but is more friendlier though has a dry wit on her. Raven investigates a few folkloristic legends like the Blue Caps as she had heard of them but never saw them, going to Scotland to find that there is indeed others wanting to find the BlueCaps and turn them into living batteries for their robots. The bad guy here could in fact be to do with the Church of Blood, who are looking into turning all things magic into mere batteries for themselves and Trigon, wanting them as cleaner batteries without needing to make shady transactions that can catch them out. Raven saves the BlueCaps and even empowers them to fight back as they are a peaceful race but they have to fight, with Raven even protecting a younger Cap. With the Church defeated, Raven guides the BlueCaps somewhere safer and in return she’s given a piece of coal that has a blue material to it that has a blue flame in there, meaning she is regarded as a friend of the Blue Caps.

Raven then looks into the Headless Horseman after it’s said to have been seen roaming around the countryside and collecting heads, not just in America but in Ireland as well. Raven is wondering how this can be as while it is true the Irish have their own Headless Horseman, there surely can’t be two of them. Raven creates a portal which forces both Headless Horsemen to appear together, but she finds out it was a trap all along to capture her. The Horsemen are in fact demons who had arisen to try and decapitate Raven and absorb her powers to become all powerful and roam the Earth, with her beseeched by flying pumpkins. While she struggles, Raven gets the upper hand by forcing a pumpkin down the armour of a horseman and makes it combust, while the other horseman is defeated with Raven severing him in half with him and the other horseman reduced to mere wisps who she crushes. She remarks that it may not be the last she sees of them as they had to have been brought to life somehow.

There’d be a story for her and Beast Boy as both then look into a shape changing fish creature who was captured by an Irish fisherman, with both finding out this creature is in fact a Selkie. Because others are coming this forces Beast Boy to force them back while Raven frees it from the Irish fisherman and his friends, with the Selkie returned to its people. This lets Raven and Beast Boy enjoy a few days in Ireland with Raven teasing that he could set up shop here in the Emerald Isle, which has him say he can only do that if she’s willing to stay, ending with them kissing under the moon.

I’d have Raven fight an expy of Freddy Krueger because hey, he’s a bloody evil man who deserves a good hiding. His expy is basically a former craftsman who worked with a kiln and would often punish naughty children by burning their hands with a poker, then murdered a husband of a woman he was sleeping with then murdered her. He was killed a vengeful folk who threw him in his kiln. He has returned from the dead as an ashen like man with spikes sticking out of his limbs and has an iron poker often hurting children or young couples. Raven comes to the town and battles him, at first struggling until she enters a mental battle with him in which he tries to scare her by reminding her of her past but Raven overcomes that and then floods him with the mental force of all the children he had hurt, causing him to be weakened enough that Raven goes as far as drenching him with a sprinkler. He remarks he has seen the Unseen who wish to have Raven for themselves before he’s sent back to the ether, which makes Raven all the more weary.

There’d be a team-up between her and Starfire as they look into a supposed haunted house. Starfire was nervous of her friends going missing in the house and asked Raven for help. The story sees Starfire admitting to Raven she wanted to tear through the house to find them but felt that it just isn’t what is gonna help them, leaving her glad Starfire thought it over first. With nothing to be found but a book, Raven meditates and finds there is in fact a secret library underneath the house and bluntly tells Starfire she has the right mindset of tearing through things. The book has a miniature portal in there that sucks people inside but with the library underneath Starfire just has to tear her way in, finding themselves facing a book demon who has been capturing those who go into the house to live out his stories. Brute force isn’t enough as otherwise those trapped within the book will die, Raven meditates and catches all those abducted and tells Starfire to kill the book demon, which she does, everybody kidnapped appearing then. The book dies but Raven gets a drawing from it, that of a fairy. Though she figures out what it is, she assures Starfire she can do this alone.

Going to Scotland, Raven stands beside a Fairy Circle and meditates, of which an Unseelie appears to her, happy Raven has appeared at last. Raven isn’t happy with her asking why the Unseelie desire her, to which the Unseelie explains to make them stronger, grabbing Raven and takes her into her domain where the Unseelie fairies are all there with human children all looking unwell. Raven is almost bound and trapped by the Unseelie who want Raven to be their baby maker, the human children they’ve abducted aren’t what they were hoping for and want to have many children born of them and Raven to make themselves strong enough to battle the Seelie, having pulled some strings in the afterlife to get her to come to them. However, Raven had an ace up her sleeve: the Blue Cap necklace given to her stops the Unseelie doing anything to her. Raven battered their arses and rescues the children before crushing the fairy circle with her own magic lock, preventing them from escaping. Raven takes the children home where the parents thank her for her help.

Other stories involving Raven would be an uneasy team up between her and Zatanna as they look into a magician who is using demon bones for his performance, with Raven bitterly telling Zatanna she can’t forgive her for turning her away just because she had demonic blood in her. Zatanna is incredibly sorry for what she did and knows well she has to take that to her grave. Raven at least is thankful for the rejection as if it weren’t for Zatanna Raven wouldn’t have been with the Titans or with Beast Boy but even then it still hurts to be rejected over not being able to control who she is.

Ideally I’d end this series with Beast Boy proposing to Raven and she accepts. Obviously this being DC they wouldn’t let a marriage happen but hey, we’re I in charge I’d do that. Of all the Titans that should be married other than Nightwing and Starfire, it’s Beast Boy and Raven.

I hope you all liked this idea, tell me what you thought down below.

Freddy: Huh? Is it morning?

Teddy: Yeah! It is! Did we miss anything?

You did but you can read this! I better go guys!