You can’t move these days for superhero cinematic universes, but one of the most promising has got to be the newly established Titansverse. Despite Titans looking absolutely terrible in pre-release materials, it turned out to be a compelling, original and surprisingly violent take on established DC lore. Now, we’ve got the surreal adventures of the Doom Patrol to enjoy, and this week a throwaway line revealed that Aquaman exists and is widely known to the public.
The episode just dropped today, so I don’t want to spoil it too much, but the line comes when Robotman’s teasing Cyborg. In his debut in episode 2, it was established that Cyborg’s father has aspirations for him to one day join the Justice League. In episode 3, Cyborg’s searching for his keys, causing Robotman to comment: “I bet Aquaman doesn’t lose his keys.”
It’s easy to see why Robotman finds Cyborg so annoying. After all, Robotman’s merely a brain stuck inside a clunky and unwieldy metal body, while Cyborg has the latest in cybernetic implants that take him way beyond a normal human’s capabilities. Still, this is a particularly harsh tease, especially as Cyborg’s very much feeling the paternal pressure of having to be Justice League material.
In addition, lines like this hint that the DC Universe may have big plans for future shows. With the Justice League movie a non-starter, it stands to reason that Warner Bros. may one day allow the superhero team to appear in their own live-action show on the network.
After all, we’ve already seen Batman and the Wonder Woman-related Wonder Girl in Titans (and Superboy’s coming in season 2). Now that we can add Aquaman to the mix, it may only be a matter of time before the classic Justice League line-up turns up on the streaming service in some form. Let’s just hope they get the budget to do the League justice…