I didn't say 'DC didn't chase fads'. I said Marvel tended to do it more.
Marvel also tended to go off the deep end with these things. Both DC and Marvel might get interested in movie monsters (for example), but where DC would put out one book and see how it goes, Marvel would put out twenty.
All such characters are obsolete and dated, regardless of how much Silver Surfer fans refuse to acknowledge their fave is based on a long gone 60s phenomenon.
While the Surfer isn't my favorite, I do enjoy reading him when he has a decent writer. I think the reason why Surfy works (IMO) is because he didn't go too far with his trend. Yes, he uses a surfboard as a prop, but that's it. He doesn't wear jams, and he doesn't talk like a surfer. "Whoa! Radical, dude!" Had they written him like that, he probably would've fared about as well as the Dazzler.
GL/GA must have done something right to win the awards it did for best writer, best artist, best inker, and I don't know what else. It was a critical success even if the sales figures didn't pan out. What was that before about actual quality of the books vs sales figures? Green Arrow developed his defining character instead of being another mayonaissey copy off the assembly line. Hal/GL's character grew the most in this series too. And a Guardian becoming closer to humanity, and the overpopulation problem on Maltus brought the high-and-mighty immortals down to Earth.
I think
GL/GA was a pioneering work. The problem with venturing into new territory, of course, is that sometimes you take wrong turns -- in this series' case, they had a tendency to deliver the message with the subtlety of a nuclear blast. But there never would've been a
Watchmen without
GL/GA or something like it.
Wolfman's Teen Titans worked and resonated with the fans using both existing and new characters. That's something that previous several incarnations and creative teams had failed to accomplish.
It's hard to believe
Titans wasn't inspired by
X-Men. Not that I think anybody deliberately decided to follow a trend or to rip Marvel off -- more likely it's just a case of imagination being the sincerest form of flattery. Unfortunately, Wolfman isn't the writer Claremont is.