so, i’ve been watching a lot of teen titans recently (great show btw, if you haven’t seen it, check it out. if you like cartoons though. and awesomeness!!!!). anyway, the basic premise is 5 teenage superheroes who fight crime, their leader is robin (like, batman and robin, yeah, that robin). and in the show there are a lot of references to other DC stuff, like gotham city or metropolis and there’s even a fight scene on top of a Wayne Enterprises building. but what i didn’t realise until recently is there a quite a lot of connections to the green arrow.
for those who don’t know who the green arrow is, he is another DC superhero (who’s real name is Oliver Queen) and is an archer (hence the arrow in the name). i first saw him in the series smallville (tom welling anyone??? such a good clark kent) and now the CW has an awesome new series called arrow which is, you guessed it, about Oliver queen and his adventures as the green arrow, or, as they call him in the show, “the hood guy”.
so, i hear you ask, where am i going with this? well… teen titans features various random baddies (with some very odd superpowers might i add. like a guy who just shines light at people, or a piece of tofu from outer space that kidnaps cows) but the big bad of the first two seasons was this super evil dude called “Slade” who was robin’s arch nemesis and was hell bent on controlling the city and destroying the teen titans. you know, your average evil guy stuff. and he’s a brilliant fighter. like, he’s the first guy you see in the show able to take down robin. so anyways, not really sure what brought it up but i was just in my random, obsessive show phase of looking up everything and anything about a show i watch and i came across the wikipedia for slade where it said that in the comics he was originally called “deathstroke” but they changed it for the cartoon coz it was too dark. and that name sparked some little flicker of recognition. where had i heard deathstroke before?? (i’m sure you see where this is going).
and then i remembered!!! in Arrow, about a third of each episode is spent in flashbacks showing Oliver’s time that he spent stranded on a supposedly deserted island. but, as we, and oliver, soon learn, the island is in fact some kind of crazy prison/war camp or something (i’m still not quite sure yet) but all we know is there are some very ruthless baddies
on this island who posses incredible fighting skills and brutal strength. and of course, oliver manages to get himself tortured by the worst one of them all. and what was his name? you guessed it…Deathstroke!!! omg i felt so proud of myself for picking up on this connection.heres a pick of death stroke, you can see the similarities between the two characters.
but oh no, my curious brain didn’t stop there!! because then i remembered another character (and if you don’t want arrow spoilers, stop here) who oliver meets on the island. he was deathstroke’s partner in the army before they reached the island and deathstroke became a baddie. and what was his name??? right again…Slade!!. and they have matching creepy masks. (i’ve put a picture of slade below too, holding his mask, just incase any of you were interested. and he’s aussie too! well, the character is, i’m assuming the actor is too).
so there you have it!! crazy teen titans references in a current US tv show. although i guess really they’re all just from the DC world, not necessarily teen titans. but just a weird coincidence that i’m watching both at the same time i guess. oh, and another one i never picked up on when i first watch the titans series as a kid, but there are often episodes where the titans work with other heroes and one of them who appears a few times is this kid, very similar to robin. his name is “Speedy” and, yup, he’s an archer. turns out he is the green arrows side kick and they already cast someone to play speedy in the upcoming season of arrow!! ah, so much intertwiningness (that should deff be a word). anyway, hope you enjoyed that, although i’m probably like the only person in the world who really cares, i still think its cool. my one piece of advice, if you’re not watching arrow, you should be!!!
