DC Titans (Season 2 Extended Review)

Decided to publish this post. It was my original reaction to the second season, so there's a lot of attention to details.

In essence, Titans is a story about a group of misfits coming together to fight crime. The team started with 'sidekicks' of superheroes and added others along the way. Their founding members include Robin (sidekick to Batman), Wonder Girl, Aqualad, Hawk and Dove.

MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

There were quite a few clues throughout the season hinting at Dick Grayson's transformation from an ex-Robin to Nightwing. There was a fight where Dick's bo staff was split into two, shorter sticks that resemble the superhero's dual-wielded weapons. The Titans multiple encounters with Doctor Light might be a reason why the weapons were later imbued with electric charges. Conversations with team mates such as Jason Todd and Dawn Granger seemed to be questions to these (If I'm Robin, then who are you?). If Titans Season 1 (plus Season 2 Episode 1) was the origin story of Rachel Roth (Trigon was disappointing. I think his human form was more menacing), Season 2 is the origin story of Nightwing. 

The main antagonist is a bit of a letdown at first. After Priest's Deathstroke, this Slade Wilson came off to me as a weaker version. Slade is always a well-prepared assassin, much like Batman as a detective. Probably he did not consider Starfire, an alien, as part of his elaborate plans (Starfire was away on an 'interruption' for the earlier part of the season). But, it would seem that I was wrong, this Deathstroke live up to his character from the comics, a master of mind games.

One of my favorite episodes has to be 'Conner', a little origin story of Superboy. A clone of both Superman and Lex Luthor, he is a conflicted character from the lot. With the superpowers of the Last Son of Krypton and the intellect of the king of Metropolis, Conner is a wild card on a quest of discovering who he is while struggling with developing his own moral compass. But then again, it does seem like the Titans are made up of characters with internal conflicts.

The Titan who seems to be sure about what he's doing is Jason Todd. Although it looked like he always takes action without thinking through, he's the one who seems to get things moving, from my point of view. 

So the remaining of the Titans series would probably be about the others trying to solve his or her own issues, all while battling super villains at the side. We'll see. Season 3 might be focusing on Starfire.

This might be a good approach as this season felt more interesting when the characters are apart dealing with their own issues, giving some focus to the story. Each of the Titans in the comics are center characters of his or her own right, it's difficult to treat them as secondaries. They can come together at the end, though I felt like the season finale was a bit rushed. It could have been extended into a two-hour episode.

I like the involvement of Bruce Wayne this season, giving the team pushes here and there. This is indeed a Titans story, not Batman.

In my opinion, there were too many characters and stories happening at the same time to fit into an hour per episode season. Maybe a revision of how superhero series should be made is due. Maybe a single focused story is a way to go like Arrow, Flash and Supergirl as opposed to, say, Legends of Tomorrow. 

Here's the link to my first published review.
https://fictrav.blogspot.com/2020/02/dc-titans-season-2-review.html