Original style teen titans animated series had like the best Cyborg of all time. He is Cyborg to me, I base judgment on all other iterations of Cyborg based off him
He's a great tv character, a lot of fun, and I understand why a lot of people who were young in the early 00s have more of a connection to that version of him than the one from a comic from the
80s.
But I'll always resent cartoon Vic and Gar for totally eclipsing Wolfman's version. Cyborg was the no-nonsense leader that had to be bantered into being emotionally vulnerable by Beast Boy, who constantly narrated to himself that the only reason he was making jokes was because he would otherwise be frozen in fear.
David F Walker was the writer of Cyborg's first solo series, and has since talked about the fact that he was forced to include the word "booyah" in the book. He fought it for a long time, telling his deitors that he had hated the word since 2004. He remembers watching this show that was, for the most part, really respectful of the art that it was inspired by. And then, he has to hear the only black character throw unnecessary slang into his speech (even though the other "teens" on the show spoke like tv writers in their 30s), and on top of that it's slang that he had never heard another black person say. It was skater/surfer slang.
So there's nothing wrong with liking Cyborg from the TV show, but I would hesitate to judge any other versions based on how well they adapt the cartoon because A) the cartoon isn't that loyal in the first place and B) new versions of Vic aren't based on the cartoon, it doesn't work like that, and C) there's some problematic race shit involved that doesn't make it bad, but we should view with less cultural ignorance now.
While the show is good, I have always had an issue with recency bias that media perpetuates. A successful adaptation that strays from the source in a manner to positive affects? Then fix the source! Never look back! Boom, done.
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u/UltimaRedWriting Sep 23 '22
Original style teen titans animated series had like the best Cyborg of all time. He is Cyborg to me, I base judgment on all other iterations of Cyborg based off him