'70s Fun: The Teen Titans Battle a Slave-Hunting Ghost (in 1971)!!!!

 Fate brought my attention to this Comic.
$7.99 brought this Comic into my life.

I might as well share this bizarre oddity with you!

In the 1970s, the Teen Titans weren't selling that well on the newsstands.  The Writer- Bob Haney- was writing weird and wacky NON-SUPERHERO Tales with the Characters in an attempt to be hip.

As such, they fought foes like an evil Sorcerer, Aztec Warriors and demons!
As teased, they must battle an evil, racist ghost from the Civil War!

At this time, the team is working for a Mr. Jupiter.
He once had them fight crime without their gear, but that is a thing of the past.

He takes them to his old Home to see his Aunt before she dies and...

So, look, Bob Haney (seen here) was a 46 year old White Guy when he wrote this.  
As someone who is closer to that than he wants to admit, he probably shouldn't write Stories like this if he's going to write Mal like this.

Anyhow, Mal is out that night and is chased by something.

It leaves no evidence, so he makes a big stink about nobody trusting him.

As it turns out, he's being targeted by the Ghost of a local Slave Catcher, since he bears a more than passing similarity to his last victim.

That one escaped when he drowned in the icy river.

Robin and Mr. Jupiter realize this and seek out a magic doll to save him...

It was this or call Batman, so...

Wonder Girl tried to pull Mal to safety once, so she's out.
Speedy shot three arrows...that didn't work, so he's out.

Thankfully the now-giant Doll is up to the task.

It breaks the ice and drags the Ghost Dogs with it.

It also breaks the ice up so much that the Ghost falls into the icy waters again.

You see, the Ghost can only be stopped if THE EXACT SAME THING happens again.

How convenient.

They leave the Doll on the Aunt's grave.
The End.

This was....pretty much what I expected and was hoping for.

This whole thing is just odd.  You have the Teen Titans, so let's have them...fight a Ghost?  The 70s were a weird time, but there had to be some limits.

To be fair, Batman started to deal with this stuff too...also in Bob Haney Books, mind you.

The dated stuff about this is REALLY dated.  Even so, I like to think that this was done sincerely.
This was truly a 'How do you do, fellow kids' situation...just with extra cringe because Race was involved.

The whole Story is just so strange and so bizarre.  It also makes such a poor use of most involved, hinging 100% on a single-issue Ex Machina.

I guess our Heroes helped by calling it to do all of the work though.

Teen Titans Delegate!

Look, I'm trying to find weird and obscure stuff- not all of it will be a Classic...unlike these sweet Records you can get for less than $3

Comics are usually a fun bit of escapism.  In this case, escape to a time where things were...quite different!