Netflix, Season 1
Scary good
Horror and superheroes might sound like a strange combination, but it works like a charm in TITANS, and rarely have a binge watched a first season as fast as this.
If like me you were sad to hear that two of the Marvel super hero series won't be picked up by Netflix for additional seasons, then don't be.
The TITANS are here, and they are honestly way better than their Marvel counterparts, so goodbye Iron Fist and Luke Cage hello TITANS!
The first scene of TITANS starts off rather strange and not very interesting, and then they do the flip. Robin goes on a child molester hunt and you are pushed back into the seat and continue to be so for the reminder of the series.
The two main things in the first series are following Dick Greyson’s struggle with his identity as the violent Robin and Raven, a good person, struggling with and discovering a terrible dark power inside herself.
Those two parts of the plot really work. The plot with Starfire discovering who she is, could have been s bit better. Especially it is confusing that in the beginning of the series she hits a man, so he flies away like a rag doll and she burns a hole in a house, and then for the remainder of the first season it’s like every time she tries something it fails.
If you have a really tough superhero on the team use her powers.
The only part of the series which are weak is the subplot with "Gar the tiger boy" who just happens to meet raven in an arcade and then joins the team, and who lives with hopefully the strangest assortment of medical experiment people in the DC universe. I fear there are anyone odder than them.
That any plot involving demons and horror as a major theme works well with the superhero theme is not an easy thing to accomplish, but the team behind TITANS pull it off to such an extent that I end up binge watching the show. This really pulled it off.
You have to understand that horror and the supernatural series are not really my thing. Yes, I did watch and liked the first seasons of Supernatural and a few other series in this genre, but I'm not someone who is really into scary things, and zombies, ghouls and chainsaws tend to bore me after a while.
What could have been
I follow most superhero series and in my view the Marvel tv-series are typically a bit better than their DC counterparts, but just think if S.H.I.E.L.D season 4 had taken a similar approach to Ghost Rider like TITANS did with Raven. It would have been so much better!
Not that S.H.I.E.L.D season 4 was a bad season. In fact, actor Gabriel Luna did a fine job portraying the Ghost Rider but was let down by writers who did not use the fact much that Ghost Rider, at least in my opinion, is a horror character first and a super hero second (or enhanced individual if you like).
When we portray horror characters like just another alien or dimensional traveler it becomes dull. It is not that I have any problem with gods or devils potentially being aliens or dimensional travelers, but horror is a cool spice you can use to make the viewer question whether the normally invincible heroes are really going to come out of this encounter mentally and physically intact. A way to make them vulnerable.
Ghost Rider was actually one of the first Marvel series I ever read (I was six or seven years old and had no idea at the time what the Marvel universe was). The occult however was big in the seventies and I saw Ghost Rider strictly as a horror comic book. I remember visions Johnny Blaze had of occult symbols, a devil in the sky talking to him, the four horsemen, embodiments of the zodiac signs, Native American shamans and spirits and so forth. Yes, he fought heroes and villains from the marvel universe also but the setting was definitely horror.
The underdog DC vs. Marvel
I admit that I seldom review superhero series here though, as few are good enough that I feel I need to review then (I tend to only review stuff I like a lot).
I watch DC tv-series like The Flash, Supergirl, Green Arrow and Guardians of Tomorrow, and while they are all right, meaning they go from embarrassingly bad (think some of the episodes of Guardians of Tomorrow) to good they are rarely something I get excited about. Season 4 of The Flash was actually an exception, the writing was surprisingly good, and I would review the series if the prior seasons had been better.
My past impressions of the TITANS
I admit that I have not followed comic books since back in my youth, and the few cartoons I looked at for one minute staring the Titans, were probably meant to be funny but were in fact just bad.
When I bought my first copy of The Incredible Hulk, I think I was eight, I fell in love with the Marvel universe.
I was used to reading DC's superman and batman, I liked them and continued buying them, but I have to admit I ranked titles like Spiderman, x-men, and fantastic four higher.
Marvel at its best was simply better than the best of DC, no DC title could compete with for instance x-men by John Byrne - the dark phoenix saga, wow, beautiful and cool drawings and great storytelling!
Way back when in 1983…
Then one day when I was thirteen I bought a seemingly modest comic book called the New Teen Titans. As this was a DC comic (by Perez og Wolfman), I thought it would be all right but not great. I mean the only team member I knew beforehand was Robin, the lame sidekick of Batman.
Boy was I wrong, it was absolutely fantastic and one of the very best comic books I ever bought as a kid. It could compete with John Byrne's X-men any day.
The new TITANS first season on Netflix is the same.
You think it is not going to be very good, and then it blows you away. I look forward to the second season, and hope you enjoy watching the TITANS.
/Rune S. Nielsen