Raven
Raven is a comic book character that first appeared in DC Comics Presents #26
Raven battles the forces of evil alongside her adoptive family, the Teen Titans, all while trying to control her baser, antagonistic instincts.
Origin
First Life
Raven is a veteran member of the New Teen Titans. A character with morbid past and origin, Raven is the half-breed daughter of a human mother named Arella and the inter-dimensional demon Trigon. She grew up in an alternate dimension called Azarath, where she was taught to "control her emotions" by the goddess Azar, a sworn pacifist, in order to suppress her inherited demonic powers. During this time, Raven rarely saw her mother and grew very detached from her. Upon Azar's death, Raven's demonic heritage was revealed, as she met her father face to face for the first time. Soon after her 16th birthday, Raven learned that Trigon planned to come to her dimension, and she vowed to stop him. Raven 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 consisted of Robin, Wonder Girl, Kid Flash, Starfire, Cyborg and Beast Boy. Kid Flash only agreed to let her be a member after Raven used her powers to coerce him into loving her. On another meeting with the Justice League, Zatanna revealed this information, which caused the other Titans to turn away and mistrust Raven. This separation didn't last long when Trigon kidnapped Raven to his home dimension. The team defeated Trigon and sealed him in an inter-dimensional prison with the help of Arella, who stayed at the inter-dimensional door as Trigon's Guardian. Raven continued to fight her father's influence, as he was not completely destroyed. For a period of time, Raven lost control several times in high-stress situations, but managed to regain control before Trigon could assert himself. Popular story-lines such as " The Judas Contract" took place during this period. Eventually, however, Trigon escaped his prison, came to Earth and took control of Raven, destroying Azarath in the process. The Titans came together and were forced to kill Raven, thereby allowing the souls of Azarath to possess her and guided by the spirit of Azar, who was acting through the body of the Titans' ally Lilith, used her as a channel to kill Trigon. After this battle, Raven rose again from the ashes, purged of Trigon's evil, and vanished. Even during Crisis on Infinite Earths, Raven was still absent to the point that Anti-Monitor could not detect her whereabouts. Raven was actually in a non-parallel dimension which is the reason Anti-Monitor could not detect her, because he can only see everything in all the parallel universes.
Second Life
Raven returned years later donning a white cloak. Some time later, after being free to feel, Raven found she was able to not only sense, but control others' emotions; a power she learned to handle only after unintentionally forcing Dick Grayson/Nightwing to love her for a brief time. It was during this incident Starfire and Raven became close friends. Raven also fostered a relationship with technopath Erik Forrester, who was using the life force of women he seduced to regain some of his lost humanity, a result of interfacing with computers. Forrester knew that Raven's soul-self could help him to permanently retain his humanity. This attempt was cut short by the intervention of Joseph Wilson ( Who helped Raven overcome her love for Forrester by destroying him and saving herself.
Raven's life went on without change until she was kidnapped by the Wildebeest Society during the Titans Hunt storyline. The Wildebeest, lead by the Trigon-possessed souls of Azarath, were going to use several Titans to bring about the return of Trigon. During a massive battle in the remains of Azarath, Raven was possessed by the evil souls and once again became the evil doppelganger of her father. Arella, along with Danny Chase, used the power of Azar's soul to cleanse Raven; however, through the battle, her body was destroyed, and Arella and Danny joined the cleansed souls of Azarath to become Phantasm. Now free of its bodily prison, the evil energy that was Trigon's in Raven's soul took on sentience and possessed a meta-human with a resemblance to Raven. Raven appeared possessed by her evil conscience, and attempted to implant Trigon's seed into new bodies.
She arrived at Nightwing and Starfire's wedding, and implanted a seed into Starfire. Instead of corrupting her, she actually implanted the soul of the good Raven. This caused Starfire to leave Earth in order to escape from the evil Raven, who implanted seeds into several other superheroes. The Titans were able to defeat her with the help of Phantasm. Raven returned later, still evil, in order to destroy the good version of herself implanted in Starfire. The Titans defeated her once again, for the last time. The good Raven became a being of golden energy without a physical body.
Third Life
While Raven was still wandering the Earth in her spirit form, a cult that worshiped her father Trigon found Raven’s spirit. They reincarnated Raven with a body of a teenage girl at the. The leader, Brother Blood was going to marry Raven, but the newest Teen Titans discovered that if Brother Blood married Raven, it would result in Armageddon. The Teen Titans would break up the wedding and Raven made everyone in the cult run away. After wards, the Titans would reunite with Raven in which she would join the new team if Teen Titans. Raven also started a normal life by enrolling in a high school under the name of Rachel Roth, which was the name of her biological mother. During her time with the Teen Titans, Raven began to fall in love with Beast Boy. The two of them connected romantically and began dating (Geoff Johns admitted that he planned this relationship before the animated series .
After Brother Blood's defeat he came back this time with an undead Lilith Clay as his mother. Brother Blood then tried to drink Beast Boys blood but Raven pushed him out of the way and teleported them to safety. Once out of danger Raven told Beast Boy it was her fault he was still alive, and that the eleven worlds (Heaven, Earth, and Nine Levels of Hell are messed up. Gar then told her it was really his fault they were ambushed. Raven then tried to heal Gar's wound from Brother Blood but instead started to kiss.
Later after they called the other Titans Brother Blood then summoned the dead bodies of other fallen Titans such as the First Hawk and Dove, Phantasm, Kole, and Aquagirl from the dead to be his own Titans. Seeing as they have no way of defeating the dead Raven then decided to go to the cross roads of the afterlife. Gar also came with her to help once they got there they find a giant wood door saying Life and Death which was strange to both of them. Once they heard someone near the door they found Kid Eternity chained up. He told them the reason the dead are coming back to life is because the door is open. Raven then decide to free him but the dead bodies of Grant Wilson, Gizmo, and Madame Rouge come to attack them. After grabbing Grant Wilson's sword, Beast Boy freed Kid Eternity and he got rid of them. They then teleported back to where Brother Blood was and destroyed his army of dead Titans. Annoyed with Brother Blood for chaining him up Kid Eternity then summons all the past Brother Bloods to kill him.
Infinite Crisis & 52
Due to the effects of the Spectre's destruction of magic during the Day of Vengeance storyline, Raven's powers have weaken and slip out of her control. She continues to fight, helping the Titans both in evacuating the shattered city of Blüdhaven and battling Superboy-Prime.
During the missing year, Raven assists Steel in launching an attack on Lexcorp when Natasha was captured by Lex Luthor. The Titans (consisting of Beast Boy, Raven, Young Frankenstein, Hawk, Dove, and Terra fight Black Adam in Greece and the Himalayas. Raven attempts to stop Black Adam, but he shatters her soul-self, and causes her to experience psychic backlash from the deaths of Young Frankenstein and Terra.
One Year Later
Raven attended school sometime during the missing year, following her attempts at living as a normal teenage girl and attending high school. She made a few friends but unfortunately, she gets inadvertently drawn into a mystical fight with an item called the Medusa Mask. Raven quits the team after she and Beast Boy end their relationship. She tells the unconscious Cyborg that Beast Boy was stressed by being team leader, and she even compares him with Nightwing.Letting the others think she's leaving because of Gar, Raven actually leaves because she's uncovered a secret of one of the other Titans. After teleporting a whole night long, Raven runs from unseen pursuers, with a book of unclear significance. Raven has a diskette containing Jericho's soul. She performs a cleansing ritual over his soul and transfers it into a new body before returning to the team as a full member.
Raven is later approached by Robin and Wonder Girl, in the hopes that she could resurrect Superboy like she did Jericho. Unfortunately, Raven declares that impossible since Superboy's soul had moved on to the afterlife, while Jericho's soul was kept on a computer disk. Without warning, the Titans are captured by the villainous Titans East and transported to the original Titans Island in New York, where Raven is placed in the "care" of Enigma and Duela Dent, who took to torturing her psychologically.
Raven manages her escape by offering Duela membership into the true Titans group. After knocking Enigma and Risk unconscious, Raven, Duela, and Cyborg get reinforcements in the form of Nightwing, Troia, Beast Boy, and Flash (Bart Allen . After beating the East Titans, she reveals hints that she still loves Garfield, but he refuses to dwell on the matter, leaving their relationship uncertain. Following the death of Bart Allen, Raven along with the other adult Titans, decides to leave the team. Raven decides to pursue her chance at attending High School, having never gotten the opportunity before.
Titans
In the latest relaunch title, Titans, Raven and a group of classmates are attacked by a demonic creature, sent by Raven's resurrected father Trigon. She soon joins Beast Boy, Donna Troy, Red Arrow, Starfire, Flash and Nightwing at New York's Titan's Island where Cyborg and his Titans team were attacked by the Deathstroke and the villainous Titans East. These events lead to the creation of the newest team of Titans, which consists of the original New Teen Titans, and Red Arrow. In the following issue, Raven discovers that Trigon had more than one child, and that a trio of children devoted to her father are behind the attacks. She is affected along with many of the other Titans by these three beings, who prey on the strongest emotions present in the group at the time (such as Nightwing and Starfire giving in to long suppressed longing for one another, and Flash and Donna Troy's mild envy taken to extremes in a usually calm social interaction . For Raven and Beast Boy, the emotion used against them is their subdued rage and insecurity towards themselves and each other.
Raven is attacked at one point by an incensed Garfield, but their fight is broken up by the remaining Titans when they begin to gradually recover from the attack. Raven's three half-brothers then use her and Beast Boy to act as keys to open a portal to Trigon's realm. Raven uses her own power to influence greed in others to make her half-brothers steal what little power Trigon had left. The portal is closed, and Trigon's sons, believing they have gained great power, leave the scene. While on a date of sorts with Beast Boy, Raven informs him that since meeting her half-brothers, she's felt herself being tempted by her father's evil power and fears she will once again turn evil. Although Beast Boy rejects the idea, Raven fear is made reality as her half-brothers later return, and provoke her demonic side, causing to her leave the Titans and join them. Together with the sons of trigon they are the seven deadly sins. raven is meditating when the titans come to this realm to rescue her. The sons of trigon take the titans out quick, then raven attacks sloth, saying that she is the original sin, pride, and that the titans will take their place. She then knocks out the sons of trigon, she starts turning the titans into the deadly sins when, from donna's belt comes a ruby with part of ravens soul in it. Raven then tells "pride raven" that she is facing her greatest fear, herself. Raven beats herself and they are teleported home. Raven then tells the team that she is afraid of what she is and the only way she will stay on the team is if they keep a magical artifact that will kill her. Then match shows up at the base saying that it's Jericho and match is in charge. Raven and the titans battle match, raven uses her powers to separate match and Jericho, then she tells the team that Jericho was in charge all along. Jericho is hiding inside dick and the titans are arguing about what they should do, then rave tells them that they have other problems, that the justice league is there to take Jericho. Raven and the titans have an extensive battle with Jericho until he appears to disappear.
Recently, Beast Boy has tried to go on a date with Raven numerous times, and has she has turned him down every time often saying "it is over between us".
Powers
Empathy
Soul-Self
This ability allows Raven to project an astral version of her and it usually takes her shape and size, or can be as big as she wants. Raven usually uses this ability to help her in her meditations or to travel through other dimensions and teleport long distances, but it can be used to fight opponents. In which Raven would be able to render an opponent unconscious without harming them.
Precognition
Raven has limited precognition which allows her to predict future events that are about to happen. She displays it when she was able to predict that Trigon was going to invade Earth-Two. However, she cannot control this ability and use it whenever she desires, which is why it is only limited, as it only happens randomly.
Force Emotion (Second Life only
When Raven began her second life, she discovered she had the ability to force emotions that did not belong to someone, on them. Such as how she made Kid Flash fall in love with her in order to reform the Teen Titans. She also used it again with Nightwing in which she was still confused about her own emotions, and accidentally forced Nightwing to fall in love with her.
Flight (Third Life)
Raven has the ability to fly in her third body.
Apperances in Other Media
Teen Titans Animated
Instead of having normal human coloration, Raven is depicted with light gray skin, violet-blue eyes and shoulder-length violet-blue hair. The animated Arella had distinctly Asian facial features, suggesting Raven is partially of Asian ancestry, but this is debatable. In the Teen Titans movie Trouble in Tokyo, Raven states that she knows English, German, Latin, Romanian, Ancient Sumerian, and Sanskrit.
Raven is often portrayed as the most mature member of the group, often giving sage advice to the others about various subjects. She is, however, also the most emotionally-restrained of the Titans, appearing secretive and distant; she initially does not allow any of her fellow Titans into her room and hangs out all by herself, usually meditating or reading some book. In the course of the series, however, she gradually, if only slightly on the outside, warms up to her teammates. In several instances throughout the show, however, contrary to her usual behaviour, she does show more emotion - such as making sheep's eyes along with Starfire at Aqualad in "Deep Six" -, though this is mostly used for comedic effect.
Raven is often easily annoyed with Starfire and Beast Boy, as these Titans' personalities differ drastically from her own. But despite her solitary nature, she depends on the emotional support from her friends, as she seems to lose her sense for reality after the Titans disband in "How Long is Forever?" While her relationship with Beast Boy is on the outside usually antagonistic, they come to each other's side in emotional moments ("Nevermore", "Spellbound", "The Beast Within", "The End" . The only clearly established romantic relationship Raven has in the series is with the dragon Malchior, who later betrays Raven and breaks her heart.
During season 5 of Teen Titans she was seen battling the Brother Hood of Evil.
| Super Name: | Raven |
| Real Name: | Raven |
| Aliases: |
Raven Rachel Roth Trigon's Daughter Evil Avatar Dark Raven Pride |
| Publisher: | DC Comics |
| Gender: | Female |
| Character Type: | God/Eternal |
| 1st Appearance: | DC Comics Presents #26 |
| Appears in: | 426 issues |
| Birthday: | |
| Died: |
|
Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo
The Titans go to Tokyo to fight living manga characters.
|
a list of 143 items by scottman
a list of 38 items by Sipsi
a list of 47 items by Talon/X23
