Blood's not usually associated with London. At least not in this century. In the comics his homebase was Gotham City,
Spoilers Titans - DC Universe Series
- Thread starter dahj
- Start date
There's always Willoughby Kipling.
He's a more of a Doom Patrol character. There's no reason to think Nightwing knows him.
But then, Cyborg is a Titans character and he's a regular on Doom Patrol.
Anyway, I suspect Mr. Adventure was referring to the fact that Kipling was created to be a Constantine stand-in when the creators of DP couldn't get permission to use Constantine. So they're essentially the same character.
Oh! I didn't know that! Thanks.
Or at least a guy in a rumpled trenchcoat...
This week's episode didn't hold together for me. I couldn't see the throughline between the Conner who chose on his own volition to torture and slowly execute a man, crossing a moral event horizon without any sign of reluctance, and the Conner who showed up minutes later saying he'd been secretly good all along and acting contrite and haunted about the dark things he's done. That was so incongruous and abrupt that I thought it was going to turn out that torture/murder Conner was Mother Mayhem in disguise or something. But no, apparently they're trying to have it both ways, and that just doesn't make sense. If he was just faking being evil, why did he actively encourage Sebastian to do more evil things? Why did he help Sebastian get his powers back if he intended to dispose of Sebastian later? Isn't that self-defeating?
Also, what the hell was the deal with Project Starfire? I thought Dick was trying to talk Kory out of killing Sebastian because he wanted to find a better way than killing. But the logic here seemed to be "I don't want you to kill Sebastian with your own hands, but it's fine if you charge this device that will kill him indirectly with your stored power." How the hell is that any different????????? That's akin to saying that it's wrong to shoot someone but perfectly okay to pay a hitman to do it. As moral calculus, it flunks grade-school arithmetic.
And it was so obviously a way to pad out the story and chalk up another failure for the heroes so that things would escalate to the point where Kory has to kill him as prophesied. This is one reason I'm sick of serial-arc storytelling. Any time something is set up as an undesirable option that the heroes want to avoid, it's inevitable that they'll be forced into a situation where it has to happen. Okay, that's inevitable in a standalone story ike a movie too; things have to get as bad as possible for the heroes so their victory is more impressive. But when it's dragged out over a season of episodes, it just creates a pattern where everything the heroes do is guaranteed to fail until they eke out a single success at the end, and that does not make them come off well.
Also, it was completely obvious all along that Dick sent Tim to Gotham on a red-herring mission so Jason would train him. The fact that Tim never saw through the paper-thin ruse makes him come off as a pretty terrible detective.
Also, what the hell was the deal with Project Starfire? I thought Dick was trying to talk Kory out of killing Sebastian because he wanted to find a better way than killing. But the logic here seemed to be "I don't want you to kill Sebastian with your own hands, but it's fine if you charge this device that will kill him indirectly with your stored power." How the hell is that any different????????? That's akin to saying that it's wrong to shoot someone but perfectly okay to pay a hitman to do it. As moral calculus, it flunks grade-school arithmetic.
And it was so obviously a way to pad out the story and chalk up another failure for the heroes so that things would escalate to the point where Kory has to kill him as prophesied. This is one reason I'm sick of serial-arc storytelling. Any time something is set up as an undesirable option that the heroes want to avoid, it's inevitable that they'll be forced into a situation where it has to happen. Okay, that's inevitable in a standalone story ike a movie too; things have to get as bad as possible for the heroes so their victory is more impressive. But when it's dragged out over a season of episodes, it just creates a pattern where everything the heroes do is guaranteed to fail until they eke out a single success at the end, and that does not make them come off well.
Also, it was completely obvious all along that Dick sent Tim to Gotham on a red-herring mission so Jason would train him. The fact that Tim never saw through the paper-thin ruse makes him come off as a pretty terrible detective.
I think the point of Project Starfire is because The Prophecy said Kory would die (or at least they interpreted it that way) when she stopped Blood.
Oh, so it's only about saving her own skin, rather than standing up for a moral principle? Dick is fine with murder as long as he doesn't lose his girlfriend? That doesn't make it any better.
And good point about "at least they interpreted it that way." That stood out to me right away -- the prophecy said it would be the end of Starfire's life "as you are now," or words to that effect, which is obviously ambiguous. So having the characters just assume it means her death, ignoring that rider, just makes them artificially stupid for the sake of contrived drama. It's easy to predict where this will go -- Kory will choose to sacrifice herself, everyone will get oh so dramatic about her impending death, and then it'll turn out that she's just transformed in some way and it was all a fakeout. Meh.
They can’t afford to alter skin colours here for long term. It’s the reason why Gar isn’t green as wellWel, if she gets orange skin, then it will all be worth it
Huh? Altering skin colors is easy enough to do with makeup. Actors always wear makeup anyway, and I doubt changing the color adds that much to the cost. If they could do the Incredible Hulk in the '70s, they could do a gold-skinned Starfire today, if they wanted.
For that matter, digital color correction is pretty routine these days. Star Trek: Discovery was able to do green Orions digitally. So I think it's more a matter of choice than budget -- they just want the characters to look more natural most of the time.
And Starfire's skin is gold, for X'Hal's sake, not orange. In the original comics, she was frequently described in dialogue as gold-skinned. Cyborg called her "Goldie." Terra once insultingly called her "Miss Golden Globes." And as long as she hid her eyes with sunglasses, she was able to pass for a well-tanned human woman with a Mediterranean or Latin complexion, which an orange-skinned person could not do. Okay, the limited color palette of '80s comics made her look orangish to some eyes (though she looked gold to me), but she was explicitly described as gold-skinned so regularly in the Wolfman-Perez comics' dialogue that I'm amazed this myth of her being orange-skinned ever caught on.
And there are plenty of cosplayers, especially Afircan Americans, who have made it work. If they had hired CutiePieSensei, there would have been near-zero criticism of Starfire's appearance (well, assuming they also dropped the fur coat too)
Well, i think THAT would have been expensive, at least on Titans' budget? Discovery, i think they sprung for as it was a Flagship show for the new streaming service.
Myth?? Have you actually looked at the comics?
a reasonable person would say Starfire is olive-skinned in the comics or cartoons, and every Starfire cosplay i have seen has clearly orange make up and not gold. Ain't none of them could pass for Mediterranean or Latin.
The comics explanation, let's be honest, is pretty silly. First of all, a cover model who never takes off her sunglasses for a photo shoot? It's a comics conceit, just like her hair becoming propulsion energy to make her fly. And they didnt say it regularly... like maybe two or three times. Enough for a Trek fan to noticed and take to heart. But not for a "normal" person.
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I only saw a bit of the 1st episode and the Stargirl "crossover", which was hugely disappointing to me.
For regular viewers, would you say this episode exemplifies how TItans is, or is it somewhat unique? It definitely didn't want me want to go seek out any or all of the 4 seasons...
Well, if an orange-skinned person can get away with being president...
Probably typical, I throw it on as background noise but the series isn't exactly great.
The crossover was unique. The first episode was relatively typical. I enjoy the show but it's definitely not for everyone.
Okay, so the series finale was this week, not next as I thought. The climactic action was pretty silly. A screen on the wall with star animation is supposed to be a wormhole? It requires the power of 10,000 Suns, but Starfire alone is able to generate that energy? (She'd vaporize the whole Earth if she could.) Gar is tasked with pulling out the heavy cables, but he doesn't shapeshift into a gorilla or something? You have to pull out all four cables to shut down the navigation? Wouldn't just removing one be enough? If not, why do you need four?
The fakeout about Starfire's sacrifice was silly too. I thought they were going to call back how the prophecy said it would be the end of her life in this form, and have it transform her somehow. Instead, she just survived, without explanation, which reduces it to a total cheat, a dishonest and lazy way to manufacture artificial tension and drama. You have to play fair with the audience. The danger has to be real, not a complete damn lie. Surviving it has to be earned.
All in all, this show had its moments, and I liked some of the actors and characters, but mostly this has been a pretty bad series, especially in the last two seasons. Although at least season 4 wasn't as terrible as season 3 was.
The fakeout about Starfire's sacrifice was silly too. I thought they were going to call back how the prophecy said it would be the end of her life in this form, and have it transform her somehow. Instead, she just survived, without explanation, which reduces it to a total cheat, a dishonest and lazy way to manufacture artificial tension and drama. You have to play fair with the audience. The danger has to be real, not a complete damn lie. Surviving it has to be earned.
All in all, this show had its moments, and I liked some of the actors and characters, but mostly this has been a pretty bad series, especially in the last two seasons. Although at least season 4 wasn't as terrible as season 3 was.
Also, the whole "Brother Blood wants to destroy both Earth and Tamaran" thing was kind of out of the blue, as was the existence of the wormhole tech. They should've seeded that tech in earlier episodes rather than just springing it on us out of the blue.
Additionally, since when was Trigon such a chump? He went down ridiculously easily for an ultimate cosmic force of evil. He was more like "Try, Gone."
Additionally, since when was Trigon such a chump? He went down ridiculously easily for an ultimate cosmic force of evil. He was more like "Try, Gone."
