Teen Titans: Trouble In Tokyo marks the end of an era - at least around the Fortress.

Since its debut in 2003, the cartoon was a Saturday evening fixture in the Keeper family View-O-Scope. ™

Fortress Boy, in particular, enjoyed the toon for its goofy humor and kick-butt battle sequences. Plus, unlike the Keeper’s beloved Justice League Unlimited, the main characters were kids.

The animated Titans were characters children could get behind, since the heroes’ emotions and travails were similar to their own. (Not that many kids face off against super-soldier assassins and 50-foot-tall demons, but you get the point …)

Fortress Boy especially rooted to the animated Robin, a hero who possessed no super-powers but still led the team because he was just that d@mn good. Makes a jaded comix fan realize that Bill Finger and Bob Kane had the right idea when Dick Grayson first popped up in 1940.

As for the Keeper himself, the cartoon scored points by drawing upon the Haney/Cardy Titans as much as the more heralded Wolfman/Perez iteration. To be frank, we always preferred the Silver-Age team - corny dialogue and all - because the characters basically got together out of friendship.

As much as the Wolfman-Titans talked about “family,” their lives were always soap-opera serious. The original team simply kicked butt and had fun while battling colorful villains like the Mad Mod and Ding Dong Daddy.

(Who, it must be noted, were masterfully updated for the Titans toon along with Deathstroke and Trigon.)

The cartoon Titans also presented the definitive Raven and Starfire, freed from Bronze-Age cliches to emerge as amusing and well-defined characters in their own rights.

(As cool as both characters seemed back in the day, the Bronze-Age Raven never quite developed much beyond the standard mystical rigmarole while Starfire found herself confined to the role of sweet - but vapid - sexpot. Since the cartoon however, both have received more interesting treatments in the comics themselves.)

Finally, and this is especially big to the nostalgic Keeper, the cartoon managed to bring the Doom Patrol to our television screens! Adding insult to injury, the animated version was also far superior to John Byrne’s limp revival.

So as this iteration of the Titans makes way for a more “adult” treatment in the upcoming Judas Contract movie, let’s take a moment and show our appreciation for a team that tirelessly fought for truth, justice and a slice of pizza.

Titans go!