Kami Garcia Talks Teen Titans: Starfire, EDS, Cyborg, and What's Next in DC YA Graphic Novel Series

Kami Garcia is an American writer known for her work in the young adult fiction space: From her original stories as part of the Caster Chronicles with Margaret Stohl, teaming up with Mico Suayan for Joker/Harley: Criminal Sanity from DC’s Black Label, to her incredibly popular YA graphic novels featuring Titans characters with fan-favorite artist Gabriel Picolo.

Teen Titans: Starfire is the latest story coming from Garcia and Picolo focused on a member of the Titans. I spoke with Garcia about the new story, what makes Starfire such a great hero, bringing Cyborg into the overarching series, and so much more! Check out our full conversation below.

Regarding Starfire’s alien origin, was it intentional to change things up? Was that to keep things grounded?

It was tricky because the whole premise of the series is for the Titans to be normal teens and as relatable as possible. I don't really address her alien nature. She definitely appears like a regular teen; she doesn't have orange skin or anything like that. We want her to seem human, but I also purposely don't mention much about their past, where they're from, or anything like that — to allow for the possibility. But my intent definitely was like the other kids. She's a human teenager who has these kinds of inexplicable powers.

So, when you strip away the origin, what elements did you absolutely want to keep with this character?

So, the thing that's really special about Starfire is that she obviously has these big, larger-than-life powers. I also love the complexity of the relationship with her sister, Blackfire. So, the idea of having this sister, who is like your polar opposite, and someone that you are literally butting heads with not just as a sister, but with powers, trajectory, and morality. So coming off of Dick and Damien, which is very much a brother story, this was perfect because Starfire and Kori and Kira, there's a lot of parallels.

Kori is much more like Dick. She’s sweet and really wants to have a close relationship with her sister. But the difference is she really believes they're close. She believes her sister is like her best friend and vice versa. Whereas Blackfire loves her sister, but she is out for number one. And she's very focused on what she wants: popularity parties and her new boyfriend. Her sister takes very much a backseat.

So it was fun to juxtapose this brother story of the kind of adoptive brothers who find each other versus these two sisters who've grown up together but also have all this strife and stress between them.

How did you land on the name Kira for Blackfire? 

Oh, we really wanted to use just the abbreviations of their names. But Koma is not a particularly fantastic name. So we wanted another short name that began with a K so that they sounded similar again. And Kori and Kira were as similar as I could get. Gabriel and I played around with doing something else, but it did not sound quite appealing on the page. So we just figured Kira was close enough. And I wanted and liked the juxtaposition. I like their names, you know, kind of being similar but a little different.

Gabriel worked very hard to make them look very similar to sisters in their features and things. Blackfire has black and purple hair, and Kori has red hair, and you know they dress really differently. So, they are opposites in a lot of ways.

What was it like to explore Kira/Blackfire more in this story?

She's really interesting in this story because, like many sisters, you can pick on your sister and be a pain with your sister. But it's different if other people are harassing your sister. So Blackfire is a really complicated character because, in the beginning, we see she cares about her sister. She's protective of her. She's worried about her physically. You know, Starfire/Kori has this invisible disability; a real disability is something I have called EDS (Ehlers–Danlos syndrome). And so she's worried about her taking care of herself physically. But at the same time, she criticizes the way she dresses and the fact that she thinks she's too nerdy. She needs to go out more and make friends with people at this new beach club where they will be working and going to parties. So she's both protective and sisterly but also Starfire's worst critic. So it's like an adversarial sister relationship. But at the core, she loves her sister, which complicates the story because as it goes on, she makes some questionable choices that are not as great as a sister.

Damien is sort of the same type of character where he lets his emotions and insecurities about Dick and him having this previous relationship with Bruce, the father that he's never had. And he also flies off the handle and makes some poor decisions. So I really want them to seem like real teenagers, where part of being a teenager is making choices that aren't great or messing up and trying to figure out how to fix that with friends and family. Because that's a very real thing like that, we all go through that kind of balance between what are my interests, you know, versus, like, you know, me lashing out at the people around me because I am all about number one.

I know, before you've mentioned on social media that you have EDS, and that it can serve as like an invisible disability, kind of how important was it to have the representation in this book? And how did it help humanize a larger-than-life character, at least how we've seen her previously? 

Yeah, for sure. Because I mean, Starfire does have these huge powers, and again, I wanted to limit them in a lot of ways. Now, her disability isn't directly linked to her powers. But I wanted to show many different types of teens out there in the world.

And my daughter has the same invisible disability and also has POTS. And I have EDS. It’s a connective tissue disorder, and you can't look at someone and see that they have it. But it very much affects you day to day. And emotionally because you're constantly trying to balance things. Can I go to the beach with everyone? Is there going to be too much walking? Am I going to be in pain? Is it is it going to make me feel self-conscious? There are all these kinds of factors that play all the time in your life and things that you have to weigh and balance in a way that somebody who doesn't have any physical disability doesn't have to do. We’ve tried to explore, you know, Gar had some body image issues—Raven's a foster kid. I'm always trying to find ways to have our characters represent more of who is out there in the world as far as teens.

So, it was really important to me that she had this invisible disability because there are so many teens who have physically visible and invisible disabilities. Some kids have other types of child life challenges like dyslexia and ADHD. I suffer from depression and anxiety. So, I always want to be mindful of that and keep that in the story. But I also didn't want it to be the story. I didn't want her story to just be about a teenage girl who has this invisible disability. And that defines her in every way. And the whole story is about that.

The other interesting thing was that I realized during the story before I started that I wanted to bring Cyborg into this book. And he and Kori were going to form this friendship despite him being an apprehensive character who doesn't trust many people. And she seemed like the kind of person he would trust because she was so pure, kind, and sweet.

That also creates another unique parallel because he is visibly disabled. He has all these prosthetics. And I loved as I was outlining and brainstorming, I loved being able to have them connect, not just on this kind of “we're both kind of quiet and introverted,” but also on this level of like, “I understand what it's like to have these differences.” And his allows him to do amazing things; if anything, they're not limiting.

But it's still yours; you can still be self-conscious out in the world as a teen, even if it allows you to do something cool. So I just wanted them to connect on those different fronts and help that to be a way that he trusts her enough to open up and become a real friend with her.

I love those two. I think they naturally make such a good team and good best friends. I was going to say it felt very natural.

What about bringing Cyborg into the overarching series?

Initially, when I pitched the series, he wasn't in my series because I wasn't sure if other creators were working in this new kids’ space with DC. And I wasn't sure that there wasn't going to be another person, preferably always for me, who would have been a black creator/writer, to take him on and do kind of a first-person story of his. But since that didn't happen, as our series was going on, there was no way I was going to leave him out. I didn't want to write a first-person POV, where he was the entire star of the book. I feel like there are black writers who could do a better and more legitimate job of that. But also, I wasn't going to have the one black hero in the Teen Titans not get to be in the group. He's one of my favorites. So I was like, we can't leave him out.

But how do I find a way to respect how I feel about him and include him? And what I realized kind of early on, as I was playing with this story, I knew I was going to bring him in. But then I was just like, what if he is the person that Starfire meets when she goes to this new place? And what if he's sad that she's not getting to hang out with her sister all the time, as she hoped in the summer, because she's got this new boyfriend? Kira is like running around with this guy all the time. So I was like, this would be a great opportunity for her to actually, like, make a friend because you see that she goes to college locally. But you don't hear that she has all these friends; her sister seems to be the one out there making friends.

How lucky does it feel to work with Gabriel on these books?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. When I initially saw his work way back when, I was like, “This is it,” because it was exactly what I wanted: Teen superheroes looking like teens. I knew from the beginning. And he was pretty young to be thrown into the world of DC Comics, but I never doubted him. Like, I 100% knew he could do this and would kill it.

He’s also grown a ton. So his style looks the same. But at the same time, it's almost like if you read the books from the beginning, you watch him get more and more talented with every book.

And as we head towards the Titans team up, what can you say about that? Will we see more Titans like Donna, Wally, or Karen?

I can't talk about anything that we might do later. At DC, we're only allowed to talk about the very next thing. But I mean, I love a lot of the teen heroes in the DC Universe. They've always been my favorites because they're more fallible. You'll have to read the sixth book, which I'm writing as we speak.

Is Titans the end of the series, or is there more in store?

I obviously would love to keep working with Gabriel. In terms of Titans, I always tell readers we definitely feel like this arc is like this six-book arc; this is what I always planned. But that doesn't mean that we might not revisit Titans. That doesn't mean we might not continue Titans. But I would not like to start tacking on books onto this randomly. I envisioned this set as a box set. Do you know what I mean?

This interview has been edited for clarity.