Some Thoughts on Titans and the New DC Universe Streaming Service

I bought our daughter Emma a subscription to the new DC Universe streaming service for her birthday.  She is a monster comic book fan and a superfan of the DCU’s Young Justice animated show, and it’s been great because we’ve been watching a ton of TV together since getting the subscription.

Source: "Why Wolfman and Perez's THE NEW TEEN TITANS Is a Must-Read"

Totally worth it from that standpoint.

The DCU streaming service is $74.99 + tax for a year.  That put us at $79 total in Connecticut, or roughly the same cost as five original graphic novels.  I mention this because DC Universe comes with a substantial catalogue of comic book back issues, and that’s important for the service’s overall value proposition.  Indeed, the DCU’s main competitor isn’t really Netflix or Amazon Prime, it’s Marvel’s Unlimited service, which will run you maybe $10 less per year but which includes just comics, not movies or original shows.  DC Universe apparently launched with a fairly small comics library available online, but in the year or so that it’s been a going concern, they’ve added tons and tons of books.  That trend is continuing, though they’re not putting new issues on the site.  It’s mainly back issues that have been out at least a year, so as not to completely canibalize their existing core business model.

The biggest read to subscribe to the DC Universe is that you’re a monster fan of the Wolfman & Perez run on NEW TEEN TITANS back in the early-to-mid 80s. pic.twitter.com/XetFmSqFKQ

— Danno E. Cabeza (@Dan_T_Head) March 25, 2019

As I wrote on Twitter, the DCU leaned hard into New Teen Titans at launch.  They have the complete Batman: The Animated Series archived along with The Batman and Batman: The Brave and the Bold, plus the animated Justice League and Justice League Unlimited shows that followed Batman: The Animated Series.  There are also at least a dozen animated Batman and/or Justice League movies, a bunch live action Batman movies, and thousands upon thousands of individual issues of Batman, Justice League, Detective Comics, etc.  But they launched the DCU service around a live-action show called Titans, based very loosely on the iconic Marv Wolfman/George Perez run on New Teen Titans that kicked off in 1980-81, such that if you’ve followed the press around the service, this is the show you’ve heard about.  I should note, too, that they also have the complete Wolfman/Perez run archived and available on the site.  I didn’t read it when it first came out, but I’ve been enjoying it quite a bit these past couple of weeks and have every intention of reading all of it.

It really is that good.

Nightwing, as seen in Teen Titans.

They called the new show Titans, but really, they could just as easily have called it Nightwing.  Former Batman protege Dick Grayson is the main character, he gets twice as much screen time as any of his theoretical co-stars, and the spectre of the Batman--and Grayson’s relationship to him--hangs over the show like a shroud.  To an extent, this mirrors some of what happened in some of the original issues--before Nightwing got his own book, he was mostly just in The New Teen Titans--but the original issues tended to focus more on Starfire or Raven.  The new show is all about Grayson.   

As in the books, the former Robin spends a good bit of time trying to figure out who he is.  If he’s not going to be Robin, if he’s not going to work with the Batman, then what does that make him?  Moreover, my man has a serious problem controlling his anger.  He comes across like a version of Daredevil animated by the Punisher’s moral compass.  They have a point to make with it, but it’s also way over the top.  I kinda liked it, but we’ve taken to calling them “The Murder Titans” when we talk about the show at our house.  It’s unclear whether these guys are actually heroes.

The shows other plotlines also tie into this idea of finding oneself.  This is a not-uncommon theme with Raven and her demonically-inspired powers in the books, but they tied Starfire into it as well by having her lose her memory, and they made Gar Logan (Beast Boy) a quasi-homeless teenager.  So all four of our leads are trying to figure out who they are and where they fit in.  The answer, obviously, is that together they are a quasi-family, but the show puts us through its paces as they slowly figure this out.  Robin is the leader, but he also has the most baggage, so that makes him as likely to pull the group apart as he is to put it back together again.

Brenton Thwaites as Robin in Titans.

All of that worked for me.  I really enjoyed the show, and so did Emma.  Egregious season one cliffhanger notwithstanding, Emma and I both had a good time with it.  

I’ve also been watching Teen Titans the animated series, a much needed break from the Nolanesque tone of Titans.  Coming from the same source material, Teen Titans has many of the same basic plot points, but they’re told in a sunny, kid-friendly way, even if the material itself--as in the Judas Contract storyline--occasionally gets darker than you might otherwise expect.

The cool thing about Teen Titans is that it’s not a wholesale reimagining of the original issues.  It’s a retelling in some ways, but it’s also a slower burn than the comics provided with a tighter overall storyline.  I love the show, but then, I’m happy just to have some fun cartoons available on demand.

Truth is, I just really like cartoons.