Titans Premiere Features the Debut of Deathstroke

The new season of Titans has finally premiered, bringing the flagship superhero series back to the DC Universe streaming service for another round of grim-and-gritty teen drama and action. And the first season ended with Dick Grayson succumbing to the influence of Raven's evil father Trigon, all while his friends Wonder Girl and Starfire waited in the wings as Hawk, Dove, and Robin attempt to make a rescue. But while the demonic emergence of Trigon remains at the forefront of this first episode, it seems like another enemy is simply biding his time.

The Season 2 premiere of Titans features the debut of Slade Wilson AKA Deathstroke, who has been heavily teased as being the Big Bad of the new episodes. And based on how the show introduces him, it looks like Deathstroke will have a major impact on the new season.

In the series, the legacy heroes of Dick, Wonder Girl, Hawk, and Dove all reference their time together in a previous iteration of Titans. And at the midway point of the episode, when Jason Todd celebrates the crew's victory over Trigon and interrupts a news broadcast by screaming "TITANS ARE BACK, BITCHES," he catches the ear of the retired enemy of the team.

Slade Wilson, played by Esai Morales, is leading a humble life in the woods, only heading into town to pick up essential supplies and otherwise living off of the land. But when he sees Robin's declaration, he immediately returns to his abandoned safehouse and accesses a hidden supply room containing his surplus of weapons as well as his iconic costume.

Deathstroke is back, bitches.

There are a lot more heroes and villains entering the fold in Titans Season 2, and showrunner Greg Walker told ComicBook that he has a difficult balance to maintain — but he's up for the challenge.

"We have like a cast of thousands here, so servicing everybody, it's been an interesting and welcome challenge," Walker explained. "The core four are definitely there, but then you've got Jason Todd, you've got Wonder Girl and we brought in Superboy, we brought in a bunch of other characters. It's about getting all this together in a big room and then going about the world in different ways."

He added, "I think that we try to give everybody really specific emotional arcs through the season and challenges, some of them have to do with the sins of the past and some of them have to do with more present day challenges and struggles. There's a lot of story to 13 episodes and you can't have 13 people in a room looking at each other, playing Chutes and Ladders. So at some point, they go out in the world and they have to face their own challenges, only to come back to Titans, or not come back to Titans, or come back to Titans broken. That's kind of how we use it as a home base."

Titans Season 2 is now streaming on DC Universe, with new episodes being released every Friday.