Titans Showrunner Greg Walker Talks Shaking Up Season 4 With Lex Luthor, Metropolis, and Horror

Titans season 4 is finally here, and those who have watched at least the first of the two-episode premiere know that this season is not afraid to jump into some darker themes. Dealing with darker themes is normal territory for Titans, though season 4 looks to take that up a notch while still keeping the family dynamic of the Titans themselves front and center. Throw in Lex Luthor and you’ve got quite the mix, and ComicBook.com had the chance to talk to Titans showrunner Greg Walker all about the season, including the debuts of Lex Luthor, Mother Mayhem, and Brother Blood, changing up the setting, and more, starting with how season 4 shakes things up in general and how it takes certain elements back to season 1.

“Well, we want to go back to a couple of things we did before in season one. I mean, the road trip, we loved the idea of putting the Titans back on the road and encountering difficulties as opposed to staying in one place. We wanted to wash our hair of all things Gotham and get on the road and face new challenges. And also by doing that, move past a lot of the character encumbrances that Gotham represented, Dick’s struggle with his father and Jason Todd and kind of moving into new territory for the Titans,” Walker said. “So it was a fresh start and it really allows us to explore by going on the road and encountering new villains.”

“We get to move into the worlds of horror, of the supernatural, as we encounter both Brother Blood and Mother Mayhem. And then we really, largely, loop back to some themes of season one, about destiny and why this team, why they found each other, why they became a group. And is it random, or is there a larger hand guiding,” Walker said.

One of the best scenes early on showcases how fun the dynamic between the Titans has grown to be over the course of these past three seasons, and if the entire series could live there forever there’s a part of Walker that wouldn’t mind.

“Yeah, Rich Adam wrote that bowling scene and Nick Copus did a great job directing it,” Walker said. “It just comes to life and makes … I want the series to live there all the time in a way. But of course, we would grow old there, but it is fun while we … The sick truth about the Titans is fun can only last for so long before some baddies show up and spoil the party.”

Titans season 4 takes a trip to Metropolis, and in doing so encounters Lex Luthor, who makes his Titans debut. Luthor is played by Bosch star Titus Welliver, who brings an unquestionable presence to the role, and Luthor is one of several antagonists throughout the season that can go toe to toe with a group as powerful as the Titans.

“Well, kind of looking at a larger level, a lot of these big bads in literature and in real life, they go through this accumulation stage in life where they’re amassing power and doing so in kind of illicit ways. And then when mortality runs through them and they’re aware that this won’t last forever, they shift and their focus shifts to legacy,” Walker said. “And that’s where we find Lex Luthor on our show. Someone not focused on building up his power and his wealth, but rather leaving behind something that matters to him, and that’s why his attention shifts away from Superman and onto Clark Kent,” Walker said.

While Luthor is as unshakeable as ever, Brother Blood and Mother Mayhem pose a different sort of threat to not just the Titans but so many others, and they deliver some of the creepiest scenes in the series to date.

“Well, we wanted to make people feel for sure, and we wanted to give our Titans worthy adversaries. This the problem about a team of crime fighters where you have supers, that you just can’t have kind of more, Terrestrial villains don’t work, a series of bank heists, or art thieves, or even somebody trying to steal a nuclear weapon. And you’re like, ‘Well yeah, but then we have Kory, and we have Connor, and we have Rachel, and we have Beast Boy. And then we have Dick Grayson kind of masterminding them all. So you lose.’ Whereas when you deal with people who have supernatural forces driven by a kind of maybe a deeper prophecy that feels inevitable and impossible to stop, then you give the Titans a real challenge,” Walker said.

The villains definitely get their time to shine, but not at the expense of the Titans themselves, and early on there’s a renewed focus on several longtime members of the team, including Starfire.

“Well, she pushed the big red reset button on her life last season,” Walker said. “At the end of it, she understood her place vis-a-vis Blackfire and the Tamaran power structure, why she was sent to Earth, what she did, where her powers are, what her new emerging powers may be and the mystery that lies ahead about that. I think she feels like she has a blank slate in front of her, that she can write her own future. When in fact, I think she’s going to discover it’s already been written, and she’s now acting out a destiny that she now sees for the first time what it truly is.”

You can catch the first two episodes of Titans season 4 right now on HBO Max, and new episodes will drop every week afterwards.

What did you think of Titans season 4 so far? Let us know in the comments or as always you can talk all things Titans and DC with me on Twitter @MattAguilarCB!