Doctor Who Star Joins Titans Cast as Lex Luthor's Bodyguard Mercy Graves

It looks like Titans is going all in for the Superboy origin story, as the DC Universe series just casted a key ally of Lex Luthor for the upcoming second season. While we've yet to hear anything about Lex himself, a new report from Deadline confirms that his bodyguard Mercy Graves will be making an appearance in the new series.

According to the report, Graves will be played by actress Natalie Gumede who is known for her role as Ashley in the Doctor Who Christmas Special from 2014. On Titans, Gumede will be a recurring guest star that will likely play a role in the storyline involving Superboy, teased at the end of Season 1.

DC Universe producers described the character thusly:

"Mercy Graves is the ruthless, cunning, right hand and bodyguard to the notorious Lex Luthor – serving her boss with unquestioned loyalty. Her connection to the Luthors runs deep, as Mercy has been a friend of the family and in Lex's life since they were young."

Gumede joins newcomer Joshua Orpin on Titans, who is playing Conner Kent / Superboy. As the clone of Superman and Lex Luthor, Conner struggles to find his place in the world until he is aided by a new group of friends, likely to be Titans themselves as they embrace their heroic identities.

Showrunner Greg Walker teased Superboy's role in Season 2 after the finale last year.

"It's still brewing," Walker replied. "What I can say is that we still want to take the same dimensionalized and psychologically grounded approach that we do with the other characters and apply that same pressure to Conner Kent and see what shakes out when you put a character like that through that test. You know, questions of identity, questions of powers, questions of your place in the universe. These are all questions that are interesting for any kind of Superman character, and are really interesting for Conner."

Walker also said that this ending has been in the works for quite some time, possibly as early as the conception of the series.

"It wasn't totally planned from day one — or maybe it was in [Geoff Johns and Akiva Goldsman's] heads, but they didn't tell me," he said. "It definitely wasn't something that we thought of until the very end. I think we knew that would be a direction that would be exciting for the fans and a tease that would be interesting for us as well, and that was the best spot to put it in."

Titans Season 2 is rumored to premiere later this year.