One of the strongest themes of DC’s Titans is that consequences have actions. Things the Titans have done are constantly coming back to haunt them and we get to see the way those events shape and transform them. With the upcoming Titans season 3, though, we’re going to see the results of the Titans’ modern behavior. Light (and very broad) spoilers follow for Titans season 3.
Push a man far enough…
Today during DC’s Fandome event, we got a peek at what the next season of Titans will look like. Not with trailers, mind you; filming hasn’t yet started. Instead, we got this:
Old friends and new threats await the Titans in Gotham for season three of TITANS, with DC characters Red Hood (played by series star Curran Walters), Barbara Gordon (to be cast) and Dr. Jonathan Crane (to be cast) confirmed to appear in the season.
Discussing the tone of the season and of the characters, one of the panelists quoted the proverb about how a child not embraced by their village will burn it down to feel its warmth as a way of describing Jason Todd. Todd is a frustrated, lonely kid who was pushed away by his adoptive father, Bruce Wayne, to go live with who is essentially his stepbrother, Dick Grayson. Grayson resents Todd and the two fight throughout the two seasons of Titans as Jason makes poor decisions that put the rest of the team in danger.
This seems like a smart way to push Todd toward the Red Hood character. In the comics, Todd was famously killed by the Joker, who beat him to death with a crowbar as a result of a fan vote. Ra’s Al Ghul recovered Todd’s body and dipped him in a good ol’ Lazarus Pit to bring him back to life as a really mean guy with guns. Here, the turn doesn’t come from a deus ex machina thought up years after the fact to service a plot twist. Instead, it comes directly from the actions of Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson and most of the rest of the Titans.
Now execute on it
The only consistent thing about the Titans show so far, unfortunately, has been to have a killer idea and then just do five episodes of flashbacks instead of executing on it. So I’m reservedly excited. Seeing a new live-action take on Scarecrow is exciting, too, as is seeing, quote “Commissioner Barbara Gordon.”
Thanks to coronavirus delays, the show clearly hasn’t started filming yet or is, at best, in the very earliest stages. That means we can only guess at when we might actually see it hit HBO Max and if it still exists by the time Titans season 3 drops, DC Universe.
