Talk:The Return of Slade/@comment-26844345-20150801135007

I literally feel like my childhood was nuked by a bunch of corporate bastards...

I acknowledge the creative talent in this show. Honestly, it would have been much better off if they just dropped the Teen Titans theme and did their own thing. But I've found the episodes entertaining, and I can appreciate a good chuckle when they jerk the fans of the original around a little.

But when I first saw anything about this episode, it was from an ad on On Demand where Robin specifically holds up Slade's mask in victory. On Demand made this shameless bait-and-switch even MORE shameless... I rush to Teen Titans Go's page on On Demand to see an episode titled "The Return of Slade". Slade was everything in my childhood... EVERY. THING..... I kick myself every day over the fact that the villain's scheme from the episode "BRIAN" could have easily swapped out The Brain for Slade to put him in the show as the mastermind he was... But I knew in my gut that something was wrong... This show is INFAMOUS for dicking around with fans of the original series... I figured they would take this "clown" and dress it up as Slade to make him look "cooler".

Nope... I specifically told myself that Teen Titans Go's writers had pulled a lot of crap, but THIS was a line to be crossed... If they screwed this up after making THAT the title, there was going to be hell to pay... I get past the first 2 minutes and I nearly turn into the Joker... I was smiling widely in disbelief, promising myself to write them death threats... I was SURE that by the end of the episode, I would NEVER forgive them for this... It's one thing to mock us about an exciting battle that never happened, but for them to make our equally beloved childhood heroes say it with the voices we grew up with made it especially crueller...

But the episode rolled on, and as I paid attention to Raven's threats about messing with kid stuff and the progressively darker nature of the clown, it finally hit home when Beast Boy and Cyborg explained that age-appropriate entertainment was the only place that this character could have been cool, and that things change... We learned a long time ago when Teen Titans ended that THINGS CHANGE, but we've never come to accept it... Teen Titans Go has just force-fed us the painful truth that, if Slade were to be brought back in the show, they don't have the gall to mess with the character's dark personality - he psychologically tortures his victims and turns them against each other - he would make the show too dark for its intended audience of children. Just replace that clown with Slade, and you see the bigger picture put right in front of us... That's why, in my mind, they DID put Slade in this episode... It was all about him, metaphorically, and it was indeed a very serious plot that they had to turn around at the last second to keep their target audience.

That's why I'm going to forgive them for this... I can respect the symbolism and I feel like we weren't simply trolled, they also went out of their way to teach us a hard lesson. Yes, it's true that they COULD take Slade and modify his character to incorporate him in the show as a real character, but they simply don't have the nerve to do that... You can tell by the beginning of the episode that they REALLY don't want to mess up Slade's dark nature... and I have to say, I commend them for that. They also needed to get it through our heads that things simply change... we can't hold on to the past. Teen Titans is a kid's show now, and having the villain Slade as we remember him in THIS show would either ruin the show for the kids or it would ruin it for US because Slade would be screwed up, and THAT would be our most recent memory of him.

So I have to say... bravo, Teen Titans Go. While slightly hypocritical by saying "things change, you're older now so the villain you once thought was cool isn't cool anymore. Now watch what's REALLY cool: clowns and ponies!", I still got the message... This show is for kids, but we're drawn to it because it's from our childhood. They're careful... They either have great respect for Slade's character, or they fear the legions of fans who would riot if they were to alter his personality.

Either way, however hard it may be for us, it IS for the best... I'm sure we would all rather remember Slade as one of Cartoon Network's top 10, darkest and most diabolical villains... rather than a mucked up character in this zany show's crazy, infantile world...