The following contains major spoilers for Titans Season 4, Episodes 1 and 2, "Lex Luthor" and "Mother Mayhem," now streaming on HBO Max.
One of the more exciting bits of pre-release casting news for Titans was Titus Welliver joining as Lex Luthor. However, by the end of the Season 4 premiere on HBO Max, Lex lay dead on the floor of his apartment. It turns out that the studio cleared the use of Lex for only a single episode, indicating Warner Bros. Discovery is repeating mistakes of regimes past.
Inexplicably, Warner Bros. doesn't like using their marquee characters in television. The Flash and Superman & Lois are outliers. For example, Arrow made Deathstroke a key antagonist played by Manu Bennett. He was taken off the series for Joe Manganiello's single scene as Slade Wilson. Similarly, Arrow had to kill its version of Amanda Waller and the Suicide Squad around the time of David Ayer's film. Even Superman has appeared minimally in film since Tyler Hoechlin's debut on Supergirl. Grant Gustin and Ezra Miller were cast as Barry Allen within about a year of each other -- yet Gustin will complete his final nine seasons playing the character, before Miller's The Flash will debut. Most of DC's characters are decades old. They can support multiple iterations in film and on TV.
Even the Most Popular DC Characters Aren't Near Oversaturation
The youngest Titan isn't newcomer Tim Drake -- it's Connor Kent's Superboy, introduced following Superman's first comic book death 30 years ago. Dick Grayson celebrated his 82nd birthday in 2022. Oversaturation may indeed be possible with these characters, but Warner Bros. should want robust versions of their most popular heroes on TV and the big screen at the same time. Even with all the Batmen swinging through big-screen Gotham, Superman remains DC's most-adapted character.
While 11 actors have donned the "S" shield in live-action, the two most recent are Henry Cavill and Tyler Hoechlin. Because of the different universes that they are placed in, Cavill's performance as Superman is markedly different from Hoechlin's. Both are equally adept and entertaining portrayals of a very familiar figure. Similarly, Jesse Eisenberg and Jon Cryer presented two distinct takes on Lex that made them entirely different from the one Welliver delivered.
Given some more time with that character, Welliver might have been a fan-favorite Lex on the level of Gene Hackman. He could have provided a modern redefinition of who Lex is on a fundamental level. Warner Bros. snatching that opportunity away from the show after a single episode was a mistake. Rather than protect the character, it further undermines the confidence DC fans have in the caretakers of characters they love.
Warner Bros. Discovery Should Embrace DC on Television
Warner Bros. Discovery executives want to keep their marquee DC Comics characters in the movies. They should keep making those films. However, like the AT&T-appointed executives and the Time Warner executives before them, they believe this means those characters can't be on TV. Goodwill built up from The Flash on The CW is only going to help the movie at the box office. If Gustin had been given a role in the film, he would have been a major asset for that upcoming press tour.
Aside from Batman's complicated TV rights, DC should have all their Justice League-level characters on TV in one way or another. When Constantine debuted in 2005, fans of the character were disappointed. Yet Matt Ryan's more comics-accurate turn as the character on multiple series and in animated films reinvigorated interest. Now Jenna Coleman plays Constantine on The Sandman while Keanu Reeves' Constantine is getting a sequel, finally. It was more Constantine, not less, that satiated fans. As viewers have demonstrated with Superman, if you give them a close to comics-accurate version, the version that takes chances becomes more palatable.
Warner Bros. Discovery's rise has not been a smooth one. Yet the company has a deep bench of beloved characters that they should not be afraid to use. Including those characters on television isn't taking away from their big-screen potential -- it's enhancing what they can do in any medium.
New episodes of Titans stream Thursdays on HBO Max.