Cover: Eduardo Barreto

The New Teen Titans #40

Feb 1988 · DC · 1.75 USD; 2.30 CAD

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“Round Holes & Square Pegs”

★ 1st appearance — Danny Chase

About this Issue

New Teen Titans (Vol. 2) #40 is a character-shuffling done-in-one that carries genuine indexing weight: it delivers the first post-Crisis appearance of Silver Age Hawkman villain I.Q. (Ira Quimby) in the new DC continuity, and introduces a second-generation Silver Fog (Edward Arling) who exists nowhere else in the published canon. The issue also marks Danny Chase's first mission alongside the full team since his debut in the annual, giving the Wolfman era's most divisive addition a proper initiation. As a late entry in the second New Teen Titans volume — a series that would give way to the renamed New Titans just nine issues later — it captures the post-Judas Contract team working without its Pérez-era visual identity, showing how Wolfman sustained the book through a transitional creative period.

In "Round Holes & Square Pegs," the New Teen Titans face a puzzling case as they pursue three mysterious suspects—Gentleman Ghost, Silver Fog, and I.Q.—whose motives and alliances remain unclear. Written by Marv Wolfman and brought to life with sharp, expressive art by Eduardo Barreto (pencils and cover), inks by Romeo Tanghal, and vibrant colors by Adrienne Roy, this 1988 issue delivers a tense, character-driven mystery that tests the team’s instincts and unity.

writer Marv Wolfman · artist Eduardo Barreto · inker Romeo Tanghal · colorist Adrienne Roy · letterer Albert DeGuzman · cover Eduardo Barreto

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History

Published with a cover date of February 1988 and distributed October 27, 1987, the issue was written by Marv Wolfman and edited by Barbara J. Kesel (Randall), working within the second New Teen Titans volume that DC had launched on higher-quality paper in 1984 after the original series transitioned into Tales of the Teen Titans. By this point George Pérez had departed the book as regular penciler after issue #5 of the second volume, and Eduardo Barreto — inked by longtime series collaborator Romeo Tanghal — handled both interiors and cover, giving the issue a somewhat different visual register than the Wolfman/Pérez peak years.

Trivia · 8 facts

Story title: 'Round Holes & Square Pegs!' — written by Marv Wolfman, pencils and cover by Eduardo Barreto, inks by Romeo Tanghal, colors by Adrienne Roy, edited by Barbara J. Kesel (Randall).
Cover date: February 1988; on-sale date: October 27, 1987 (New Teen Titans, Volume 2, #40).
First post-Crisis appearance of I.Q. (Ira Quimby), a Silver Age Hawkman/JLA villain originally created by Gardner Fox and Carmine Infantino in Mystery in Space #87 (November 1963).
First and only appearance of the second Silver Fog, Edward Arling — the lab assistant of original Silver Fog Sam Toth, who replicated the accident granting his predecessor metahuman powers.
Danny Chase makes his first active team mission since his introduction in New Teen Titans Annual (Vol. 2) #3, paired with Nightwing in the field.
The Gentleman Ghost (Jim Craddock), a classic Robert Kanigher/Joe Kubert creation from Flash Comics #88 (1947), appears as one of three independent villains whose heists coincidentally overlap — the story's central twist being that the criminals were never coordinating.
An in-story newspaper reference to a diamond chalice previously stolen by 'the famed French jewel thief Lupin' is a deliberate literary nod to Maurice Leblanc's Arsène Lupin novels.
The issue has been reprinted in the Brazilian Os Novos Titãs #41 (August 1989), the New Teen Titans Omnibus Volume 5 (March 2021), and The New Teen Titans (2014 series) #13 (May 2022).