If you watched all of the eleventh and final episodes of ‘Titans’ Season One, you witnessed the post-credits stinger featuring a hulking naked male figure stalking through a Project Cadmus facility, amidst a sea of dead bodies. At the end of the clip, the camera zoomed in to show that Test Subject 13 had a barcode tattoo on his upper arm, in the familiar shape of Superman’s House of El “S-Shield.” Obviously, this teased the introduction of Superboy, a clone crafted from the DNA of Superman and Lex Luthor. While the figure that appeared in the tease was a body double, whose face was not shown, ‘Titans’ has found an actor to actually portray the character also known as Kon-El and Conner Kent– Joshua Orpin.
On ‘Titans’, Superboy will be an “angsty teenager of steel searching for purpose and the truth about his past.” Fans of ‘Young Justice’ and readers of DC Comics should already be familiar with this characterization. In joining the ragtag ‘Titans’ family, he will discover “revelations that carry more complications” than he imagined.
While the first season of ‘Titans’ was reportedly inspired by Marv Wolfman and George Perez’s early 1980s ‘New Teen Titans’ run of the comic, Superboy was added in 2003, during a period written by Geoff Johns, who happens to serve as executive producer of the ‘Titans’ TV show.
Australian actor Orpin was most recently seen in the TV movie ‘The Blake Mysteries: Ghost Stories’, which aired on Australia’s Channel Seven. He also co-starred in the movie ‘The Neon Spectrum’.
This version of Superboy first appeared in 1993’s ‘The Adventures of Superman’ #500, part of the famous ‘Reign of the Supermen’ storyline that followed ‘The Death of Superman’. The character had been sidelined in recent years, replaced by the biological son of Superman and Lois Lane, but is being restored in Brian Michael Bendis’ new ‘Young Justice’ series as part of the Wonder Comics imprint.
Superboy returned in animated form in ‘Young Justice: Outsiders’, the third cycle of that beloved series, which previously aired for two seasons on Cartoon Network.
In addition to Superboy, the ‘Titans’ post-credits scene also introduced Krypto, his pet dog that also has the powers of a Kryptonian, including heat vision, as teased by his glowing red eyes.
No word has been given for when ‘Titans’ will begin production on Season Two. The first batch is available to stream on DC Universe in the US and on Netflix elsewhere.
