Warning: SPOILERS for the Titans series finale, “Titans Forever,” are ahead!
Well, Titans fans, we’ve reached the end. In January, it was announced that both Titans and Doom Patrol would end with their fourth seasons, and today, the former reached its conclusion with “Titans Forever.” The series finale saw the title heroes (including Tim Drake as the freshly-minted new Robin, albeit without any contact with Batman) joining forces to defeat Brother Blood, with Starfire ultimately fulfilling the prophecy of killing him. With their stories now over, Titans showrunner Greg Walker chatted with CinemaBlend about a specific DC hero and some villains he would have like to use, as well as why certain characters weren’t brought back during Season 4.
During my interview with Greg Walker on May 1 about the Titans series finale, I noted that were a few notable Teen Titans from the comics who never made their way into the show, specifically mentioning Roy Harper and Wally West, and was curious if during its run, he and the other writers came up with any significant ideas for bringing people like that in which simply didn’t pan out, Walker specifically highlighted Roy as a superhero he would have been interested in exploring on Titans, saying:
When I was in the room, no. They may have riffed on it, [writers] Rich and Jamie and Tom and Bryan and Mel and Prathi and Josh could probably tell you better, because you never know what they said in that room when I wasn’t in there, other than planning what we were going to have for lunch. And I do think, though, that Roy Harper would definitely be a character that we would have really asked for to see, because we allude to him and we say he’s in our world. He’s mentioned in Season 2 and mentioned in Season 3. He’d be somebody I’d like to explore.
Thanks to a DC Comics retcon in 1978, Roy Harper, known back then as Speedy, was cemented as a founding member of the Teen Titans alongside Wally West/Kid Flash, Dick Grayson/Robin, Donna Troy/Wonder Girl and Garth/Aqualad. Roy was previously played by Colton Haynes in the Arrowverse, and the character was briefly seen alongside Green Arrow as a member of the Seven Soldiers of Victory in Stargirl, and as Greg Walker pointed out, he was mentioned a few times in Titans’ middle two seasons. So had the show gone one for another season, he would have been game to bring Roy into the picture, although at that point in his life, the archer likely would be going by Arsenal or Red Arrow instead of Speedy.
Speaking of ‘what if’ scenarios for Titans Season 5, I also asked Greg Walker about if there were any specific villains he and the other writers had discussed bringing in, with baddies from past seasons including Trigon, Deathstroke and Scarecrow. The showrunner answered:
We’d just started talking about it. Fearsome Five, we talked about with Geoff Johns. Terra, if we could figure out a way to make it VFX-friendly. There were discussions. We hadn’t locked into a villain yet. Early on in the process of every season, determining who the villain was was a huge part of us moving forward, and we weren’t there yet.
Although the Fearsome Five never appeared on Titans as a fully-formed unit, some of its members did appear in the show on their own, including Lisa Ambalavanar playing her Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.-inspired Jinx in Season 4, Michael Mosley appearing as Doctor Light in Season 2, and Dov Tiefenbach cameoing as Gizmo in the Titans Season 3 premiere. As for Terra, she’s well known for being the Teen Titans recruit who was eventually revealed to be a double agent working for Deathstroke. Given that Titans’ version of Slade Wilson died at the end of Season 2, with his zombified self causing some trouble in “Super Super Mart,” it’s hard to say if he would have been resurrected had Terra been brought in or if here storyline would have been appropriately tweaked, but either way, her earth-manipulating abilities definitely would have eaten up a lot of the show’s VFX funds.
Finally, while there were plenty of familiar faces in Titans Season 4, including Curran Walters’ Jason Todd appearing in the penultimate episode to train Tim Drake, there were certain important characters from seasons past that we never got to reunite with in the final season, like Conor Leslie’s Donna Troy, Minka Kelly’s Dawn Granger and Iain Glen’s Bruce Wayne. As such, I inquired with Greg Walker about if there’d been talk of including any of these people in the final season, or if he was comfortable with where they were left off. He responded:
Well, I mean, I always wanted to bring them back, but one thing we found out about Titans is more is definitely not better. If we stripped down to a manageable number of characters, we could tell more meaningful stories, and I think Season 4, if it’s anything, is evidence of that. We were able to focus on characters’ arcs in a way that become less about the battle of the day. There weren’t major episode stretches, or in the case of our season stretches, where we weren’t able to service a character. So it helped us focus on the character stories that we needed to do, but it came at a cost because we couldn’t get some of these other great people involved.
For those keeping track at home, Donna Troy was recruited to join A.R.G.U.S. at the end of Season 3, which also saw Dawn Granger leaving the Titans after Hank Hall died and Bruce Wayne retiring from being Batman after killing The Joker. Given the way Season 4’s storyline unfolded, it makes sense why they weren’t part of Season 4, especially since, as Walker mentioned, Titans found its groove when it wasn’t focusing on a ton of characters. So while we now know how things end for Dick, Kory, Rachel, Gar, Tim and Conner, you’ll just have to imagine what happened to your other favorites following their last appearances.
All of Titans can now be streamed with an HBO Max subscription. Not to worry though, as along with Doom Patrol’s final episode left to hit the streaming service at some point, there are numerous upcoming DC TV shows to look forward to in the next few years, and we’ll continue passing along updates on how they’re progressing.
