With Superman Returns having somewhat fizzled and Batman Begins currently its only major franchise, DC Comics needs to get back in the movie game - and they're planning to do it in a big way. Yes, Teen Titans, the superhero team composed (originally) entirely of sidekicks, is headed to a cinema near you.
Now for those of you who avoid smelly comic stores like the plague, let's break it down. The Teen Titans started off in 1964 as, more or less, an association of the sidekicks of DC's biggest stars (and an equivalent to the grown-up Justice League of America, but that's another story). The Titans included Robin (of Batman fame); Aqualad (sidekick of, er, Aquaman); Wonder Girl (Wonder Woman's lesser half - a slightly later addition to the roster), Kid Flash (you guessed it - the kid who hangs with The Flash) and Speedy, the Green Arrow's hanger-on.
As the series progressed into the 1980s, the whole lot were changed from kids to college-age teens, enabling them to get just a tiny bit cooler, with Robin renaming himself Nightwing (although out of those names, frankly, he's got one of the less awful ones). New characters called Cyborg, Starfire and Raven also joined the crew, and the series suddenly found success at last, going through the inevitable (in comic books) name changes that accompany high sales (The New Teen Titans, The New Titans, The Titans).
There's no word yet on which incarnation of the group will be featured on film, but rumour has it that Nightwing will appear which would place them at college age rather than adolescence. Mark Verheiden, a regular writer on young-Superman show Smallville, is writing the script, with Akiva Goldsman and Kerry Foster producing.
Goldsman has said that the tone is consistent with recent hits like Batman Begins, Superman Returns and the upcoming Watchmen (hang on, those three have a consistent tone?) which at least suggests that it won't be quite as day-glo as Fantastic Four.
But let's face it, the elephant in the room here is X-Men - that's the superhero team to beat, the one that (let's be honest here folks) Titans was set up to compete with. Can Titans beat mutants? Only time will tell - but let us make DC one suggestion: no one whose superhero name is "lad" is really going to be taken seriously in the 21st century.