The animated show Teen Titans was a classic that introduced a whole new generation to the eponymous group of superheroes from DC Comics. Created by Glen Murakami, the show aired from 2003 to 2009, spanning five seasons and multiple spinoffs and movies. The show has been regarded as a classic among other DC animated media such as Batman: The Animated Series.
The show was known for its treatment of Robin as a solo hero rather than a sidekick to Batman, its anime-inspired tone, and its mature treatment of the characters. One of the major changes that Murakami made with the show was to not give any secret identities to the superheroes as he wanted children to identify with their characteristics rather than their identities.
Why Didn’t The Teen Titans Have Any Secret Identities?
While hardcore DC fans were aware of the Teen Titans, the characters only came into the view of the mainstream when the show Teen Titans began airing 21 years ago. Glen Murakami, who was working on the show Justice League, was reportedly tapped to develop the show by Cartoon Network’s then-VP and current President Sam Register.
Murakami mentioned that Register was the one who first initiated the idea of developing the show when the former gave the idea to make it more anime-inspired. He said in an interview with Titans Tower,
“So he said, ‘Here’s something I really want to develop, and here’s some stuff I had in mind.’ And I said ‘Well, do you want to do something really different with it? I think you should go in this direction with it.’I thought the direction they were going was really different from the Wolfman/Pérez comic, but I thought it could be even weirder than say, what we were doing on Justice League.”
Murakami then went on to serve as a showrunner while collaborating with Register and David Slack. While the show took many creative decisions that have made it stand apart from other DC animated shows, one important aspect of the show was that none of the superheroes had a secret identity.
The show’s co-creator mentioned how he wanted the viewers of the show i.e. children to associate themselves with the personality of the characters rather than their place in the world. Since, most of the superheroes such as Robin, Beast Boy, and Raven hung out in the Titans Tower, there was no need to show a separate home for them. He said,
“It was really important to me that little kids watching it could identify with characters. And I thought that the minute you start giving them secret identities then kids couldn’t project themselves onto the characters anymore. And that was important to me. I know it’s kind of important to have secret identities and stuff like that but we wanted everything to be really, really, iconic.”
Murakami reportedly drew inspiration from Star Trek to make sure that the characters were simple and relatable to the audience. He also mentioned that he did not want to needlessly complicate things for the story and make it more confusing than necessary.
Which Robin Is In Teen Titans?
The creators of the show Teen Titans decided to not give their superheroes any secret identities as they did not want the children in the audience to disassociate with the characters on screen. However, this also meant that the Robin shown in the series could be any of the iterations of the popular Batman character.
In the comics, Bruce Wayne a.k.a Batman has had many iterations of his trusted sidekick Robin. While Dick Grayson has been the most popular, with the character even getting a cinematic portrayal in Batman Forever and Batman & Robin, other characters such as Jason Todd, Tim Drake, and Damian Wayne were also extremely popular.
Glen Murakami mentioned that he wanted a fresh take on the character and to keep him away from his identity as Batman’s sidekick. He mentioned that one of the reasons why the show did not focus on the character’s secret identity was to give a sense of autonomy to him. He said to Titans Tower,
“My big concern is just trying to make Robin cool. And just really set Robin apart from Batman. So if it seems like I’m avoiding the question, I sort of am. Because I don’t think it’s really important. My concern is how do I make Robin a really strong lead character without all that other stuff. And I feel that way about all the characters. How can I keep all the characters really iconic and really clean.”
Despite the lack of explicit mention of his secret identity, it is widely considered to be Dick Grayson. Many hints in the series reportedly point to Robin being Dick Grayson’s iteration, with his other alias Nightwing also making an appearance in an episode focusing on an alternate reality.
