Titans Season 3: Barbara Gordon set to join the show

Titans season 3 is bringing a fan-favourite DC Comics character to life. We have the details about the newest hero’s imminent arrival on the show.

Two seasons in and DC Universe’s Titans is set to welcome beloved DC Comics character, Barbara Gordon. io9 reported the news following a streamed conversation on CBR between Titans cinematographer Brendan Steacy and director Boris Mojsovski.

Barbara is the latest member of the Bat-Family to join the show—Dick Grayson (Brenton Thwaites) leads the show first as Robin, and now as Nightwing. Jason Todd/ Robin 2.0 (Curran Walters) had a few appearances in season one of Titans before being upped to season regular for the second installment. Bruce Wayne/ Batman was heavily alluded to throughout the debut season of the show before making memorable appearances in the second season, played by Iain Glen.

The Titans team will return without Wondergirl, who was killed in action in the season 2 finale, and without Raven or Robin, who went their separate ways from the team. The group was shored up by the end, however, with Nightwing leading a team that includes Starfire, Ravager, Hawk, Dove, and Superboy. Will Barbara be the latest to join them? And what will her superhero avatar be—Batgirl or Oracle?

Barbara has been referenced on Titans and we may have a clue as to which superhero version we will see—in the season one finale, Dick was sent into a nightmare where Jason was injured and where Barbara’s father, Commissioner Gordon, had been attacked by the Joker.

This was clearly a reference to the seminal—though problematic—The Killing Joke where Barbara was shot and paralyzed and Commissioner Gordon was terrorized and humiliated by the Joker.

However, was this storyline simply part of Dick’s nightmare, or was it rooted somewhere in Dick’s reality? If Dick merely imagined that scenario, then Barbara could appear as Batgirl. If the events of The Killing Joke have already taken place in the Titans universe, then we could meet her as Oracle.

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According to Steacy and Mojsovski, Titans season 3 will be heading back to Gotham City and to the darker elements of the first season. During the streamed interview, Mojsovski said: “Things are going to go back to [being] seedy and dark in every way.

Our Titans are going to be challenged greatly by external forces, but also internal ones. The season should have—in a good way—many resemblances [to] the first season and some cool emotional stuff from the second season.”

Fans might be a little bit concerned by this news—Titans’ premiere season was decidedly dark, too much so, but the second installment brought much-needed moments of levity that made the show more relatable and enjoyable. Hopefully, the creators of the show will continue to include some of the humor to balance the darkness.

The addition of Barbara could also bring some romantic tension to Titans—in the comic books Dick Grayson has been romantically linked to Starfire and Batgirl at different points in his life. Could that be a potential plot point in the upcoming season?

But including Barbara solely as a romantic foil would be a massive misstep for Titans—Barbara is beloved for being a superhero in her own right, saving Gotham City and fellow heroes solo and in teams like the Birds of Prey.

What would really make Titans season 3 memorable would be if Barbara took on the form of Oracle, not just Batgirl. Oracle, one of the rare disabled superheroes to grace comics, was a triumph for inclusion.

Titans has severely lacked diversity in its ranks—the cast is overwhelmingly white, save for Anna Diop’s Starfire and Ryan Potter’s Gar Logan, straight, and non-disabled (aside from Chella Man’s handful of appearances as Jericho). Oracle would be a much-needed injection of diversity in a show that is aggressively conservative in so many aspects.

Details are scarce at the moment but the addition of an iconic character like Barbara Gordon will make the next season even more exciting for viewers.

The first two seasons of Titans are available on DC Universe and international Netflix.