Childhood experiences plant the seeds of our life and provide the foundation for us to grow and evolve into the people we are today. These experiences are not always positive, and some catastrophic childhood traumas might alter one’s entire life path. Raven is a young girl who has been plagued by demonic powers since she was a child.
Raven embarks on a mission to discover the true potential of her abilities as she grows older, eventually joining the ‘New Teen Titans,’ a group of teenage vigilantes. Raven is a formidable character created by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez who might be considered one of DC’s fiercest superheroes. Let us have a look at her beginnings.
The first comic book appearance explored
Raven first appeared in the Superman and Green Lantern Comics, where the New Teen Titans were introduced in a flashforward. When Robin arrives at the scene of an emergency terror situation at S.T.A.R. labs, he finds himself in the vicinity of a new building called ‘Titan Towers’, set in the distant future. Besides Wonder Girl and Beast Boy, he also notices the presence of unknown superheroes and is introduced to the new ‘Teen Titans’ that include Raven, Starfire, and Cyborg.
Just then, a breach at S.T.A.R. labs calls for the Teen Titan’s help as an unidentified creature breaks into the labs. Robin accompanies the young Teen Titans and finds that the creature is an alien from a different dimension who seems to be turning the lab’s oxygen into high levels of toxic methane.
As the Titans follow the escaping creature, they find it hovering in the air and brainstorm ways to eliminate it. Raven decides to switch to her astral form to investigate the shapeless blob, and her dark astral form dives head-first into the creature. They battle mid-air, and the creature eventually ends up attacking Raven. Her human form slumps to the ground as she informs them that the beast took away her soul.
Robin assures her that he will save her soul one way or another when he finds his reality starting to crumble again. He gets transported back and forth between his present-day. and the flash-forwarded future.
As Robin makes sense of his surroundings, he once again finds himself with the Teen Titans, who are trying to send the creature back to his dimension through S.T.A.R. labs. ‘Starfire’ suggests that they decrease the oxygen supplies in the lab, as it will make it difficult for the creature to fight back. As the creature weakens, the Teen Titans work together to contain it as well as restore Raven to her original form at the same time. They probe the creature towards the computer and manage to contain him within the device.
As they close the rift between the two dimensions, Robin finds himself back in his present-day reality. The terrorist situation has been handed, and a confused Robin wonders if he was experiencing a nightmare. Raven lurks in the shadows as she explains that Robin just experienced a glimpse into the future. As the story ends, Raven walks away while pondering about nightmares and reality.
The strange origin of Raven
Raven’s life has been full of struggles, right from the moment of her birth. She was born to a human named Angela Roth [Arella], who was raped and impregnated by a demon lord, Trigon. Terrified that her child would inherit demon powers from her father, Arella migrated to the Azarath dimension, where she raised Raven.
Here, the monks in Azarath and the Azar herself taught Raven to suppress her demonic powers, and she received all her initial training from them. However, a few years later, they learned that Trigon had plans to attack Azarath. Raven was determined to stop him and sought the help of the Justice League, who refused to help her.
With no one to ask for a helping hand, Raven created her own team of ‘New Teen Titans.’ The group defeated Trigon, and he was sent off to an inter-dimensional prison. However, Raven still felt the influence of Trigon on her and often found herself losing her grip on her powers as Trigon interfered with them. The demon lord soon escaped from the prison and traveled across dimensions searching for Raven.
Soon after, the Azar goddess who looked after Raven passed away, leaving Raven without any support. In Raven’s weakened state, Trigon manages to take control over her being and use her as a means to destroy the Azarath. The Titans try their best to contain Raven and Trigon, but the scale of damage is too large, and they eventually have no option but to kill Raven. Once Raven was dead, the souls of the Azarath possessed her dead body and used her as a medium to reach Trigon, who still had a hold over her. The Azarath kill Trigon, but Raven manages to rise from her ashes and is reborn.
Her new life of freedom from Trigon doesn’t last long, as she is captured by the followers of ‘Brother Blood,’ a supervillain who runs a cult that worships Trigon. The followers intend to resurrect Brother Blood, but the Titans intervene and save Raven as well as put an end to the cult’s activities.
After having been through so much trouble, the Raven is possessed by her own demonic conscience and takes an evil form. She discovers she has the ability to implant Trigon’s seeds into other creatures and embarks on a journey to create an army of Trigon’s evil children.
However, she mistakenly implants a ‘good Raven’ seed into Starfire instead of the demonic ‘bad Raven’ seed. Starfire then escapes the planet to stay out of Raven’s radar, while the other Titans come together to put an end to Raven’s schemes. Raven pursues Starfire, but the Titans corner her, and she is defeated once again. Though Raven was destroyed, her good seed from Starfire’s implant was then transferred to a new spirit body.
In her spiritual form, Raven then travels across the dimensions when she gets into trouble with Brother Blood yet again. He gives her a human form in the body of a teenager and intends to marry her to fulfill a dark prophecy that will lead to the end of the world. However, this time, Raven is rescued by the New Teen Titans. In her new form, Raven joins the group of the reformed Titans and even starts attending a high school under the alias ‘Rachel Ross.’
As a part of the New Teen Titans, Raven went on many adventures across the timelines. She once traveled to a dystopian future, wherein she fought along with future versions of Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman, among other superheroes. When the Hell’s gates were broken open, she came across Brother Blood once again and also suffered an attack from the supervillain known as ‘Kestrel .’
During this period, Raven was seeing ‘Beast Boy,’ who was another one of the New Teen Titans. However, she ended their relationship once she began to lose her powers as a direct result of the Infinite Crisis. Not wanting to worry the other Titans, she uses her falling out with Beast Boy as a reason to leave the group.
Over the next year, Raven traveled across the Earth from Beijing to Moscow and the United States, searching for an object stolen from Titans Tower. Eventually, she finds a computer disk hidden in a book that contains the spirit of her old acquaintance Jericho .’Raven frees his soul from within the disk and resurrects him. Robin and Wonder Girl then approach Raven for help in reviving more superheroes when they all get attacked by the ‘Titans East.
‘Raven is held captive along with other Teen Titans such as Cyborg and even tortured by ‘Enigma’ and ‘Duella .’However, she breaks free after offering Duellla a place among the New Teen Titans. With some help from the Teen Titans, especially Nightwing, Beast Boy, and the new Flash; Raven manages to escape with Duella and Cyborg.
Later on, the New Teen Titans face a new threat when a resurrected Trigon sends his demonic creatures to attack Raven. She learns that Trigon had more children besides her when a trio of her half-siblings attacked the New Teen Titans. This trio uses the strongest emotions felt in the surroundings, such as insecurity and anger, and then weaponizes these emotions to attack their opponents. As the New Teen Titans fight off these half-demons, Raven uses her powers to convince her half-brothers to leave them and go after Trigon instead.
Over the next few years, Raven questions the evil within her and is tempted to join the demonic side. Demonic powers even influence her into joining forces with her half-brothers, but she eventually stays with the New Teen Titans at the end.
Raven as portrayed in the Titans T.V. series
Raven [aka Rachel Roth] also had an extensive storyline in the Titans T.V. series, where she was portrayed by Teagan Croft. In this version, Rachel was adopted by a lady named ‘Mellisa Roth’ in order to keep her away from the clutches of Trigon. As she grew up, Rachel led a seemingly normal life with Melissa until a stranger hunted her down one day. The stranger demands to know the truth behind Rachel’s heritage and ends up shooting Mellisa. Determined to find the truth that cost Melissa her life, Rachel seeks the help of Detective Dick Grayson.
As she navigates her way in the world, Rachel struggles with her powers and tries to control them with some help from Dick Grayson and his acquaintances, who together form the Titans.
She also runs into trouble with the ‘Nuclear Family,’ a brainwashed group that tries to make Rachel one of their own but is saved by a Titan named ‘Kory Anders .’Kory and Rachel soon become friends, and they also befriend ‘Gar Logan’ along the way.
As they continue their adventures, Rachel gets in trouble with Dr. Caulder, who wishes to conduct experimental procedures to test her strength. At this point, Rachel feels the full force of her powers as she throws him across the room amid his attempt to contain her. Rachel is then rescued from the doctor’s lab by Dick Grayson, and they escape along with the other Titans: Gar and Kory.
The group decides to lay low and stay together, and even reveal their powers and abilities to each other. They keep coming across the ‘Nuclear Family’ but manage to fight them off once again. Grayson also tracks down ‘Dr. Adamson’ who only wishes to talk to Rachel and reveals that Rachel’s birth mother ‘Angela Azarath’ is still alive and resides in an asylum.
Along with her group, Rachel decides to visit her mother, but they run into trouble with Dr. Adamson’s men, who imprison Gar, Grayson, and Kory. Meanwhile, Adamson holds Rachel captive and asks her to summon her demon father. She uses her powers to attack him and then single-handedly rescues her friends and mother from the asylum.
As they return to her mother’s home, Kory and Rachel get into a fight that ends with Kory leaving the place along with Dick Grayson and his childhood friend, Donna Troy. Meanwhile, Gar begins to feel uneasy, and Rachel soon realizes that he is on the verge of dying.
As her powers fall short, Rachel summons Trigon on Earth and begs him to save Gar’s life. Trigon complies, but his presence unleashes chaos as he possesses the minds of the Titans, who now begin to attack Gar themselves. Somehow, Rachel wields enough power to attack her father and also snap the Titans out of their current state. As she fights off her father, he rips her heart out and transforms it into a jewel that latches onto her forehead.
The Titans return to their base at ‘Titans Tower’ where they begin their training in earnest. Rachel starts to lose control over her powers, causing purple and black puffs of energy to be manifested around her while the gem on her forehead lights up.
She believes that her father is causing these incidents and even explains that her last clash with her father resulted in this ‘gem’ on her forehead, as he gave her some of his dark energy. Rachel worries about her future and is concerned that the demonic sides of her powers will get the better of her. Though Kory and the other Titans try to console Rachel, she still fails to contain her powers and almost kills a Titan called ‘Rose.’
Rachel continues to work alongside the Titans in their missions and even uses her powers to heal the Titans injured in combat. Though she sometimes loses control, Rachel primarily uses her powers for good and even saves a young girl, Dani, from her abusive father. She also has strange visions at times and develops the ability to foresee events in the future. Once, she also reveals that she has been having visions about Dick Grayson, who seems to be facing imprisonment and requires their help. With her growing powers, she also attempts to revive Donna, who seems to have died in a mission while trying to save civilians.
She even relocates to Donna’s resting place, ‘Themyscira,’ the home island of the Amazon warriors. Here, she uses all of her abilities to resurrect Donna. We can see her character development as she continues to do good for others despite her half-demonic origins.
Throughout the show’s three seasons, Rachel only gets stronger as she learns to control her powers, and we see immense character development in her arc. Of course, her story is far from over, and an upcoming season also hints at the return of Trigon in Raven’s life!
Why is Raven so powerful
Raven has unmatched powers and is one of the strongest among the New Teen Titans. Her ability to the astral project makes her a pretty formidable opponent to fight, as she can use her consciousness to weaken her opponents or even render them unconscious. Raven can also travel in her astral form, known as her ‘soul-self,’ wherein she takes the form of a dark raven to go against her opponents.
Along with astral projection, she can also travel across dimensions using teleportation. She even has the ability to perform telekinesis and move around things with her mind. She mainly uses this power to rescue individuals from life-threatening situations and emergencies.
As a half-demon, Raven has superhuman strength and is a tough opponent in any fight. Additionally, she is also trained in martial arts, giving her an added advantage in physical combat.
Along with physical strength, Raven also has the mental ability of empathy, and she can read, absorb or even steal emotions from others. She uses these psionic abilities for good, by absorbing the pain of injured individuals, and at the same time also as a weapon against her enemies by stealing their thoughts or affecting their subconscious. Raven can also use telepathy to alter others’ dreams, erase their memories or even make her opponents fall asleep.
After her rebirth, Raven had newer powers that enabled her to fly and channel her energy into powerful bolts that hit objects and her opponents.
She can also foresee certain events in the future and perform magical spells to bend reality at her will. Raven can warp reality to the extent where she can create or even destroy entire cities. Though she can revert these alterations right away, her powers are strong enough to destroy the heavens or the whole universe. She can also cast illusions to trick her opponents and even reconstruct molecules and structures.
Her abilities and powers altogether make her a mighty being, and defeating her is no easy feat.
Conclusion
To wrap it up, Raven has managed to rise above many life-or-death situations and amassed a significant number of powers and abilities. This Teen Titan is one heck of a fighter, and it is safe to say that she is one of the most powerful superheroes in the mainstream D.C. universe.