According to early reports, DC Universe‘s ‘Titans’ walks the line between gritty realism and comic book fantasy. Characters like Starfire and Raven will be larger than life and retain their incredible abilities, but they will be balanced by Robin, who is as down and dirty as his mentor. But Robin won’t be the sole non-metahuman of the bunch. It turns out that on this series, Hawk & Dove won’t be super-powered either.
Dove herself, Minka Kelly spilled the details when she was recently interviewed by iHeartRadio:
“I have a background in ballet, in gymnastics, and jiu-jitsu, so I’m pretty talented. So I can fight, and I have a super suit, and I have wings. I have 30-pound wings that I wear that — I can’t fly because they try — it’s realistic as possible. I can’t fly, because that would be not realistic, you know? I’m a real person. I have wings, but they’re my shield, they’re my weapon, so I take people under my wing and I protect them, and I slice people with them when I fight. The fighting — we all have our own individual specific style of fighting, and mine, in particular, is like a dancer.”
In all honesty, Hawk & Dove have never been the mightiest superheroes around. Hawk has super strength but he’s never really been in the same category as Superman, etc. And Dove’s powers have traditionally been her danger sense and super agility in order to avoid attacks and use her foes’ strength against them. In recent years, however, their abilities have been tinkered with and Dove has also displayed super strength, the ability to fly and under some circumstances, she can channel white light energy.
Hawk (Alan Ritchson) & Dove are only recurring characters on the first season of ‘Titans’, but there is the possibility that they will return on a more regular basis in upcoming seasons or even spin-off into their own show. (That seems a bit unlikely as DC Universe has already ordered one spin-off for the ‘Doom Patrol’, but who knows what the future holds?)
Kelly and Ritchson will debut as these avian crime fighters in the second episode of ‘Titans’ when it premieres on the DC Universe streaming service this fall. ‘Titans’ is the only original project that will premiere this year.
Are you disappointed that Hawk & Dove won’t be metahumans on ‘Titans’? Or do you think depicting them as ordinary human vigilantes is a better approach?