Regardless of specific comic book continuity, Victor Stone, aka Cyborg, became the symbolic embodiment of the future's promise to overcome the challenges and tragedies of today through the continued advancement of knowledge and technology. Even though he was created in 1980, it's apropos that a character born of state-of-the-art technology has really come into his own in the twenty-first century. Two years before the real world's Jarvik 7 artificial heart was implanted in a human, Marv Wolfman used cutting-edge technology to reconstruct over half of Victor Stone's body following a catastrophic lab explosion at S.T.A.R. Labs. Now, in a world of routine artificial hip replacements, cochlear implants, and voluntary embedding of microchips in the human body, a character like Cyborg seems more prophetic that fictional.
Even though he has been associated with other superhero groups, like the Doom Patrol or more recently the Justice League, Cyborg will be forever linked with the New Teen Titans. Cyborg lengthy tenure with the began with the team's revival, putting him squarely on a collision course with the original Ravager, Grant Wilson, and his father, Deathstroke the Terminator. In fact, Grant's first ever act as the Ravager from New Teen Titans (1980) #2 was an attack on Cyborg, from which he needed an unexpected assist from the Terminator to avoid defeat. This event made Cyborg the first Teen Titan to cross figurative swords with Deathstroke. Posted below is a scan from Cyborg's 1985 Who's Who entry from issue #5 (V) featuring art by both Deathstroke's and Cyborg's legendary co-creator, George Pérez, and Romeo Tanghal.
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| Art by George Pérez and Romeo Tanghal |
