S03.E01: Barbara Gordon

[paulvdb]

Quote

Desperate to leave his mark, Jason Todd confronts the Joker once and for all. But when fatal consequences ensue, Dick Grayson is forced to step away from the Titans and return to Gotham City.

Premiere date: August 12, 2021

[Jenniferbug]

I'm glad they dove right in with Jason. It was good to see him and Bruce have a conversation. I never really understood how their personalities worked together or why Bruce recruited him and I feel like that was somewhat answered. Kind of bummed that the Titans don't seem that upset he died. He was a pain, but still. 

I'm glad they're going all in on how messed up it is that Bruce keeps recruiting teens into his "war". I know I mentioned that last season when it seemed that all the Justice League was weaponizing children (Dick, Donna, Garth, Roy) but didn't actually expect DC to allow the show to portray Batman as that twisted. The fact that he was already lining up replacements for Jason is sick. Previous seasons felt like we were seeing 2 Bruces- the mean one in Dick's head and then this rather benevolent seeming one in reality. This season feels like they're actually merging those Bruces into a character. 

Barbara seems cool. I wonder when her injury and climb to Commissioner happened. I assume she was injured before Dick left (maybe the final wake up call to him to leave), but then she also talked about Jason as if she had worked with him. Maybe she worked with him closely at times as Commissioner, but the scene didn't really make that clear. Also I wonder how long ago her father died and it sucks he was killed by Mr Freeze. 

Show, lampshading the fact that Gar is underappreciated and underutilized does not fix it. Give him an actual story. At least they finally addressed that he turned into a snake once. 

I'm hoping Kori's story is actually given attention it deserves. It seems like they're setting it up well so far. 

[KittenPokerCheater]

Thoughts:

They have a much bigger budget to Do Things.  Yay!

LOVE seeing the Titans fight together.  And Robin having a little more fun.  Gar is great.  When the actress who plays Rachel is older, I hope they will put those crazy kids together/

Starfire is awesome. 

Barbara's not wrong, but I'm not sure I like her character.

I'm sorry the episode was only 42 minutes long.

[cdnalor]

Every time I come back to this show, I'm distracted by how gratuitously they seem to drop f-bombs.  Except for the story about Jason and the Mad Hatter, the writers just seem to be trying too hard for that "mature" rating.  I'm not prudish when it comes to salty language, but this just seems to cheapen the dialogue.

So the Joker's really dead?  About time, Bruce!  I never saw this actor as a believable Batman, his physique seems too slight, but I can see him as a hero in decline.

"Muddy Duck" magazine?  What?

[BK1978]

On 8/12/2021 at 5:08 PM, cdnalor said:

 I never saw this actor as a believable Batman, his physique seems too slight, but I can see him as a hero in decline.

 

I guess they are going for the Batman Beyond  version, but even there he is more buff (For lack of a better term) than he is on this show.

[blackwing]

I truly despise Iain Glen, especially in this role as Geriatric Bruce Wayne.  His American accent is still abysmal, why couldn’t they have gotten someone to dub his lines?  I guess he thinks “American” means growling lines in a menacing manner.  I really hope this is the last we see of Bruce Wayne in this show.  This series is called “Titans”.  I want to see Titans.  Not Geriatric Bruce Wayne.  I also don’t believe that a 60 year old Batman could kill Joker when he’s been trying and failing for the past 25 years.

[Delphi]

To be fair Bruce had never been trying to kill the joker before.   He literally broke into arkham and killed him because he snapped. 

[Primal Slayer]

Finally starting 3x01 and wow....this show really does not know how to "kill" characters do they? Jasons death by Joker was so bad and quick...I almost had to laugh because it lacked just about everything. Jason gets hit and appears fine and just lays there....then gets hit again and comic booked. No fight....no back and forth....which is something I noticed in this episode in general. All the fight scenes are one sided with the targets just standing there as if they couldnt bother choreograph them properly. 

But on the bright side....Gar turning into (sigh) a tiger didnt look nearly as bad as it has in S1/2.

I like that Barbara called Bruce out on being a glorified lunatic but this show does storylines so poorly that it would've been a lot better had Bruce/Batman been a better character overall. 

The Titans themselves.....I guess now they are actually doing some superheroing which is nice. The Starfire look is good but would've been better had the hair color be red. They've already humanized Kory to the 9th degree that all that remains of her outward appearance is her eyes. 

[Chicago Redshirt]

So did the show ever deal with the notion that Dick Grayson is a convicted federal criminal who should be serving a seven year sentence or thereabouts, plus some extra for escaping from prison?

Or that Kory had lost her powers late last season?

A problem with the show is that Superboy is too OP. There is no need for the rest of the team to take on most of the enemies that we are likely to see them fight. Unless the introduction of Gizmo suggests that we will get an entire Fearsome Five or something....

[Affogato]

21 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

So did the show ever deal with the notion that Dick Grayson is a convicted federal criminal who should be serving a seven year sentence or thereabouts, plus some extra for escaping from prison?

Or that Kory had lost her powers late last season?

A problem with the show is that Superboy is too OP. There is no need for the rest of the team to take on most of the enemies that we are likely to see them fight. Unless the introduction of Gizmo suggests that we will get an entire Fearsome Five or something....

Well, no, they didn't explain. I'm assuming Bruce pulled a thing out of his hat. Bribed the assaulted officers, then claimed it was an undercover operation. Once Dick was in solitary, treated poorly, he escaped and now can testify to the bad conditions in the prison... But if you actually had to explain it it would get messy pretty quickly. He was put away pretty quickly, though, if the tv ad we saw was any indication, so maybe a due process thing.

When she's working properly Kory is pretty overpowered for street level crimefighting and Raven as well. At least Donna had/has more range--and that can be said of Conner, too. Maybe they will keep him in the lab as their science guy?

 

Edited August 22, 2021 by Affogato

[Affogato]

On 8/14/2021 at 12:42 AM, BK1978 said:

I guess they are going for the Batman Beyond  version, but even there he is more buff (For lack of a better term) than he is on this show.

this is the right age for Batman if Dick is around 30. Maybe a little old but in the possible range of ages.

It also explains why he needs a Robin on the street with him. Batman could compensate a lot with his toys and experience to keep fighting crime, of course, but realistically at some point he would have trouble keeping up.

[Chicago Redshirt]

1 hour ago, Affogato said:

When she's working properly Kory is pretty overpowered for street level crimefighting and Raven as well. At least Donna had/has more range--and that can be said of Conner, too. Maybe they will keep him in the lab as their science guy?

 

This Kory doesn't seem to be at the bad-ass level at hand-to-hand fighting as original comics Kory. Plus she can still be knocked out or killed by normal weaponry, plus she (presumably) will be reluctant to blast normal humans because she doesn't want to kill people.

Raven also has vulnerabilities plus her powers aren't dependable.

Outside of Kryptonite weaponry, nothing seems capable of stopping Conner, and so far, they don't seem willing to put him up against a villain that could make him break a sweat. 

[Primal Slayer]

This version of Kory just seems to be able to shoot fire and nothing else. Sure she can crisp you to death but she seems to try to avoid it. 

[MarkHB]

I hope this was the right episode... what was up with using the Pre-Viz for the Batcave trophies? It's awesome that, for the first time in live action that I know of, they acknowledged the mechanical dinosaur and giant penny, but just showing them as the Pre-Viz because they ran out of time &/or money to render them properly???  WTF were we supposed to be seeing? "Not the real trophies, but projected holograms?"

[Affogato]

18 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

This Kory doesn't seem to be at the bad-ass level at hand-to-hand fighting as original comics Kory. Plus she can still be knocked out or killed by normal weaponry, plus she (presumably) will be reluctant to blast normal humans because she doesn't want to kill people.

Raven also has vulnerabilities plus her powers aren't dependable.

Outside of Kryptonite weaponry, nothing seems capable of stopping Conner, and so far, they don't seem willing to put him up against a villain that could make him break a sweat. 

Welp, raven and kory are limited. If their powers are  lethal and prone to failure. Yes. But what do they then actively do? Why bring them to an eskrima fight? Just in case everyone needs to be barbequed or cut to ribbons.  

conner got beat by the barbed heart tech. And he’s a baby so far, not experienced in fighting. 
 

if the titans win at this point, blame Dick. He has a hard group to deploy  .

on the bright side someones been trainng krypto!

 

[Chicago Redshirt]

10 hours ago, Affogato said:

Welp, raven and kory are limited. If their powers are  lethal and prone to failure. Yes. But what do they then actively do? Why bring them to an eskrima fight? Just in case everyone needs to be barbequed or cut to ribbons.  

conner got beat by the barbed heart tech. And he’s a baby so far, not experienced in fighting. 
 

if the titans win at this point, blame Dick. He has a hard group to deploy  .

on the bright side someones been trainng krypto!

 

First of all, Conner didn't get beaten by the barbed heart tech. He managed the difficult and came up with a solution within 4 hours. It's just that Dawn screwed things up by not trusting that he could do it/wanting to kill Jason/foolishly taking Jason at his word that pulling the trigger would deactivate the device. 

Had it just been Conner with no outside interference, he would have had a 50/50 shot at beating the device early on and been able to get it to low risk in time, plus to 100 percent success within the time frame. That's pretty darn good, especially considering he literally knew nothing about the device or bombs in general a few hours before he tried to deactivate it. 

But I was talking OP in terms of fighting. He has just one weakness that is extremely uncommon, and with the combination of heat vision, super-strength, super-speed and flight, the only one of the Titans' adversaries that could beat him is Trigon. The Nuclear Family from S1, Dr. Light, Deathstroke, the Red Hood, Gizmo, Blackfire, and everyone else who has been shown on screen is basically no match for him. 

[Affogato]

3 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

First of all, Conner didn't get beaten by the barbed heart tech. He managed the difficult and came up with a solution within 4 hours. It's just that Dawn screwed things up by not trusting that he could do it/wanting to kill Jason/foolishly taking Jason at his word that pulling the trigger would deactivate the device. 

Had it just been Conner with no outside interference, he would have had a 50/50 shot at beating the device early on and been able to get it to low risk in time, plus to 100 percent success within the time frame. That's pretty darn good, especially considering he literally knew nothing about the device or bombs in general a few hours before he tried to deactivate it. 

But I was talking OP in terms of fighting. He has just one weakness that is extremely uncommon, and with the combination of heat vision, super-strength, super-speed and flight, the only one of the Titans' adversaries that could beat him is Trigon. The Nuclear Family from S1, Dr. Light, Deathstroke, the Red Hood, Gizmo, Blackfire, and everyone else who has been shown on screen is basically no match for him. 

I think we are shown Dick is trying to train  everyone. Superboy needs guidance right now because if his relative youth and inexperience. raven will become a better fighter. Gar will learn how to turn into bears and gerbils. 

yes you are right. I’ve no idea how they will work him in. maybe he will play a part in the blackfire saga where i can see someone capable of space travel and withstanding blasts of fire might prove useful. After that I wonder if he doesn’t go off on his own for a while. With superman?
 

However,  this is a problem with superman also and leads to a lot of struggles to find relatable villains that aren’t natural disasters or o other kryptonians or tons of pieces of krypton (sigh). Superman can be a pretty dull hero in my opinion. 
 

[Ottis]

I don’t understand why Barbara, and Dick, think Bruce will see anything wrong with what he is doing (fighting crime and recruiting kids). Bruce thinks he is doing what he has to do. His quitting at the end was less an admittance he was wrong than giving in to badgering and to reality.

Meanwhile, Super Boy can pretty much handle anything. 

The one thing I liked about this ep was it picked up the theme from the Nolan movies that once Bruce created Batman, it was inevitable that a Joker arose, and the morality of that. 

[Unclejosh]

Is there a thread for Episode 2? I can't see one.

 

Nvr mind.

Edited September 16, 2021 by Unclejosh