'Titans' Iniitial Reaction Round-up

Welcome Back to another edition of Comic Relief! where we talk about all the goings on in the world of nerd!

As Venom is busy floundering due to all of it's negative reviews (our own review will be up here soon, expect it Sunday), New York Comic Con has begun, and two days ago during a press conference release at NYCC, the DCU panel shared the first 3 episodes of their launching exclusive show: Titans. Now Titans has been a subject of great controversy since the first set photos were released almost a year ago. The aesthetic of the team has been criticized for it's cheap look and it's little regard to follow ANY piece of source material for the team in existence. Because of this a lot of people, myself included, were not willing to give Titans a fair shake. Yesterday, the reviews for Titans came out, and those of us who doubted the series found our worlds turned upside down as the response to those 3 episodes were mostly positve. However, while I was reading these positive reviews, I found something very interesting that seemed to be recurring throughout every official review I read.

When I first noticed it, I was reading the Forbes review. I wanted to read a positive review of Titans from a magazine I know has critically panned pretty much anything DC has done lately outside of Wonder Woman. While Forbes definitely sings the show's praises, there was one note that drew my attention:

Titans is a dark and gritty series very far removed from the image the Teen Titans have garnered through a variety of animated outings over the last decade...It’s an image of these heroes many are going to find jarring and possibly even failing...Put bluntly, this is not a show with broad appeal. Not everyone is going to want to see what became of the likes of Robin and Raven through this lens. That doesn’t mean it’s bad, but it does mean it’s different, and it’s hard to judge how far outside the lines fans wanted DC to go for not only their first original program on the streaming service but also the first project to bring many of these characters into the world of live action.

Essentially Forbes' comment can be simplified to this. This show isn't Teen Titans, at all. In fact if you go into this show hoping for any semblance of the Teen Titans you knew from the books, or the the animated series, there is a very good chance you will hate this show. That doesn't mean it is a bad show, it's a promising first few episodes, but it almost seems this would have been better suited  for a completely original IP with no strings attached, or that with it's direction it would have better suited a Red Hood and the Outlaws show (preferably following the most recent iteration of the Dark Trinity). What I found super interesting was that I found that pretty much every review I saw or read said the same thing.

The youtuber Beyond the Trailer, who also sings the show's praises, literally opens their review with the same thing (video above). She literally opens with: 

This show changes so much about the Titans, often at a fundamental level that it's really only these characters in name only. In fact while I was watching the first three episodes of the show, I wondered what drew Akiva Goldsman, Geoff Johns, and Greg Berlanti to adapt this comic since apparently none of it inspired them and they felt was worth bringing over to the DC streaming show

In addition comic media outlet, CBR, had the same commentary in their review of the show's first three episodes, which they gave the rating of 7/10:

It’s dark, just as the trailers indicate, with a level of violence that races past anything on The CW’s Arrowverse and teeters into Zack Snyder-era DC Extended Universe territory. Heroes maim and kill, with some frequency, in the three episodes provided for review, although not always on purpose. It goes without saying, then, that Titans isn’t suitable for young viewers, who aren’t the target audience for this streaming service anyway. However, neither is the series aimed at fans of DC’s classic New Teen Titans, who will undoubtedly bristle at the tone and quibble with the characterizations, to say nothing of the lineup (a later episode is titled “Donna Troy,” which may salve that particular wound). Yet, for all of those caveats, there is something enjoyable about Titans.

It appears that Titans, though it may be a good show, is not an especially good Teen Titans EXPERIENCE, and that if you are a fan of these characters and expect them to be brought to life in a way that you would want them to be, you're in for a rough ride. This is only further vindicated by the one not only negative, but scathing review of the show that I have found so far done by Collider, where it was very clear that the author had done just that as he opens the review with this:

In DC Universe's 'Titans', Dick Grayson (Brandon Thwaites), stabs a guy in the balls with garden sheers. Unfortunately the powers that be say I have to write more than that sentence about 'Titans,' but I do truly think every aspect of this show -its tone, its aesthetic, its story, its themes- boil down to the image of Dick Grayson, the original Robin, Boy Wonder, charming vigilante do-gooder, plunging a gardening tool into a man's crotch... All put together, 'Titans' lands just about as gracefully as the Flying Graysons

 The author of this collider review continues to go on about the essential character assassination of these beloved characters. In particular he mentions Starfire's arc in these first three episodes:

Meanwhile, in a completely different show, Korriand'r wakes up bloody in a car outside Austria with no memory of who she is other than A) she has the ability become living flame, burning people to a crisp, and B) she is searching for Rachel (Raven). If you ever wanted to watch beloved DC comics character Starfire cut a bloody, amnesia-fueled killing spree across Central Europe, this is portion of the first few episodes of 'Titans' that will interest you. 

 All in all it seems that while the Collider may have hated the show, there is one thing that once again comes up in his review that is a constant in the other three:

The most baffling aspect of 'Titans' is the question of who exactly it's for. If you're a fan of the comics, or  -maybe even more likely- the animated series 'Teen Titans', or 'Teen Titans Go!', I can't see you enjoying 'Titans,' unless you ever felt compelled to accompany these characters to therapy during their downtime. 

Based off of everything I have seen in these reviews, the consensus is clear. Good show or not, I don't think that most people are going to actually enjoy this series. Teen Titans are beloved characters. People have wanted a live action rendition of them for so long. The fact that the producers of this show felt it wasn't especially important to keep these characters true to form is a slap in the face to the people who fell in love with these characters. Now, I have discussed this show with a lot of people, and a lot of people have accused me of wanting this show to fail. Well I honestly cannot deny that there is certainly a part of me that does. However, the thing that really irks me about this show is that I deserve better as a fan, WE deserve better. These characters are some of the most beloved in comics and they deserve to be treated with a measure of respect, and it's very clear that this show doesn't do that. Dick Grayson should NOT be murdering people, Starfire should NOT be burning people to a crisp. Raven should be controlling her abilities to show her inner strength as a character. Beast Boy should be green and be transforming into a lot more than a tiger. This is far from the best that DC can do with these characters, so I refuse to give it a pat on the back when I have seen the best of these characters on shows like Teen Titans and Young Justice.

This has been another edition of Comic Relief! we will see you again soon!