‘Titans’: Who Are the Nuclear Family?

Titans introduced some new characters in this week’s episode — including a very curious supervillain family.

Spoilers for this week’s episode of Titans, “Hawk and Dove”, below!

The episode saw Dick Grayson/Robin (Brenton Thwaites) take Rachel Roth/Raven (Teagan Croft) out of Detroit and, ultimately, to Hank Hall/Hawk (Alan Ritchson) and Dawn Granger/Dove (Minka Kelly) where he felt she would be safe. However, while Dick is trying to keep Rachel safe, there are new threats for the young woman just getting started.

The episode takes viewers to a very retro “Atomic” style ranch home in St. Louis, Missouri where the family living there truly feels like something straight out of the past. Two teenage siblings are playing Monopoly at the table, the father is reading the paper, and mom is being a domestic goddess, making everyone’s breakfast in a decidedly Stepford Wife meets June Cleaver sort of way. An unexpected visitor disrupts this idyllic retro scene, however. The visitor informs Dad that they’ve been activated and warns him that Rachel is more dangerous than she seems. Dad goes back inside and announces a family road trip which prompts the opening of a locked cabinet. Some strange syringes are produced, each one labeled “Mom”, “Dad”, “Sis”, and “Biff” and everyone soon injects themselves.

For DC Comics fans, those names may be familiar as the Nuclear Family. Created by Jim Aparo and Mike W. Barr, the Nuclear Family first appeared in 1985’s Outsiders #1. The comics version was a “family” of androids created by a nuclear scientist named Dr. Eric Shanner who built them after his own carelessness caused his real family to die after being exposed to nuclear radiation. Later, he built the androids to have powers similar to the stages of an exploding nuclear bomb and planned to have them “educate” the world about the effects of radiation and nuclear poisoning by having them destroy Los Angeles. In comics, the Outsiders manage to defeat the Nuclear Family and Dr. Shanner dies from his own radiation sickness.

With the Titans version having just been introduced it’s not clear if they are androids or something else and it appears that they have different powers — one would assume that the nuclear powers from comics wouldn’t require the use of mysterious injections. It’s also worth noting that there are two members of the family that appear to be missing in the Titans version, youngest son Brat and the family pet, the very directly named Dog. Whatever direction the show ends up taking this iteration of Nuclear Family, one thing is clear: Rachel has all sorts of people after her and audiences will have to keep tuning in to find out why.

New episodes of Titans debut Fridays on DC Universe.