'Titans' Season 2 may begin with Aqualad already killed by Deathstroke, causing the original team to break up
'Titans' Season 2 is introducing a host of new characters to the DC Universe show but it seems at least one of the new cast members may already be dead when the season begins. The trailers for Season 2 gave us our first look at Drew Van Acker's Garth/Aqualad but they also suggest the founding member of the team may not have survived to the present day of the show.
MEA WorldWide (MEAWW) spoke to Acker about how his character fits into the world of 'Titans' and he said, "Aqualad’s story starts with an already established relationship to the Titans. You get to see how he fits into this newly formed unit."
The trailers tell us just as much but suspiciously enough, we never get to see Aqualad interacting with the younger members of the team like Teagan Croft's Rachel Roth/Raven and Ryan Potter's Garfield Logan/Beast Boy. All of Acker's appearances in the trailer are in what appears to be flashback scenes to the time of the original Titans team led by Dick Grayson/Robin (Brenton Thwaites).
We catch a glimpse at the line-up of the Original Titans early on in the trailer and we know the members included Robin, Aqualad, Donna Troy/Wonder Girl (Conor Leslie), Hank Hall/Hawk (Alan Ritchson) and Dawn Granger/Dove (Minka Kelly). Later on, we see the same team, minus Aqualad, confronting Esai Morales' Deathstroke the Terminator while the mercenary stands over a corpse.
There are a lot of other hints in the trailer that seem to point towards Aqualad's demise. "Slade Wilson is why we shuttered this place," Donna is heard telling Dick while talking about Titans Tower, the team's HQ. Hank makes things even clearer by asking, "He's going to kill how many more now?"
The implication is obviously that the Original Titans team had a bad run-in with Deathstroke that ended with one of them dying. The other members seem to have gone their separate ways mainly so as to be rid of the assassin but now that there is a new team out in the open, it looks like the Terminator will be continuing his vendetta against the team.
The evidence we have isn't conclusive and there is a chance someone else may have been the one to die. But considering we don't know of any other Titans members who have been added to the cast, it seems like a safe bet to assume Aquaman's eager sidekick was the one to bite the bullet.
Even if we're right, there are still a lot of questions we don't have answers to, like why does Deathstroke hold such a special hatred for the Titans? How do his children Rose Wilson/Ravager (Chelsea Zhang) and Joseph Wilson/Jericho (Chella Mann) fit into this? And can the Titans hope to beat the Terminator even with the added firepower of Raven and Anna Diop's Starfire?
'Titans' Season 2 premieres on DC Universe September 6.