DC Releases First ‘Titans’ Clip of Jason Todd for Batman Day

Titans, an inaugural title of the DC Universe streaming service, celebrated Batman Day with a clip featuring Dick Grayson (Brenton Thwaites) meeting Batman’s replacement sidekick: Jason Todd (Curran Walters), the new Robin.

“Nice to meet you, bro. I’m the new Robin,” a swaggering Todd says to the out-of-costume Grayson, bewildered by his mentor’s choice of replacement.

The rough-and-tumble Robin calls being one half of the dynamic duo “the dopest gig ever,” praising the perks of being a famous ass-kicker and driving the suped-up Batmobile — maybe with or without Batman’s express permission.

“He lets you drive the Batmobile?” Grayson asks, earning only an unimpressed shrug from Todd.

“What I really love about [Jason] as a character is the unbridled sense of self that he has — there’s a lack of… maybe self-awareness, but for sure self-consciousness in terms of how he comports himself and how he moves through the world,” showrunner Greg Walker told IGN.

“He’s completely seemingly unaffected by darkness — he kind of embraces it or walks right through it. He’s a breath of fresh air and that’s what I love about him, he’s got a punk rock, no-holds-barred attitude that’s massively unburdened. There’s a lot of energy that comes with that.”

Grayson — who has since distanced himself from Gotham’s protector, famously saying “f—k Batman” before performing a brutal and bloody takedown of a pack of thugs — finds himself partnered with the new Robin, who in classic DC Comics lore is doomed to suffer a brutal fate at the hands of Batman’s most vicious foe: the Joker.

Walker described the pairing as “kind of like one of those classic covers of the books, original versus number two,” which will be expressed in the series as these not-at-all-alike characters suit up as two wildly different Robins.

“This encapsulates the tension, the energy between these two guys. It’s like running into your ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend, minus the sexual tension,” Walker said.

“You get to watch Dick Grayson struggle when he sees another Robin and how that Robin is different and has a different relationship with ‘dad.’ And the second child gets away with stuff the first child would never get away with in a family, and ours is really a family show.”

Grayson’s unresolved issues with Batman will play out in his interactions with Todd, who doesn’t have the personal hang-ups with Bruce Wayne as his more tightly-wound counterpart.

“The whole thing is a study in contrasts between the two Robins and the the ways that they were raised, or how the shadow — or lack of shadow — hangs over the two of them individually,” Walker explained.

“It’s so frustrating to see someone who isn’t bothered by someone else the way you are… like, ‘How are you not bothered by that? Why doesn’t that screw you up?’ There’s something confusing and challenging and unsettling about that for Dick.”

Titans debuts exclusively on DC Universe October 12.