DC Universe’s Titans Adds Drew Van Acker As Aqualad
by Erik Amaya
Seems like the whole Titans team is getting together.
TVLine reports actor Drew Van Acker will play Aqualad in the DC Universe series’ second season. Created by Robert Bernstein and Ramona Fradon in 1960’s Adventure Comics #269, the character was one of many sidekicks to appear in comics following the debut of Robin the Boy Wonder a few decades earlier. These sidekicks, Robin, Aqualad, Kid Flash, and Speedy, eventually became their own team, the Teen Titans, in a long-standing DC Comics title.
That initial team also featured Wonder Girl, but her origins are fair stranger than a teen sidekick.
The first season of Titans featured most of the characters made famous during the New Teen Titans run by Marv Wolfman and George Perez in the 1980s — Robin, Starfire, Raven, Beast Boy and Donna Troy — and it seems the second season will see much of the classic group and even some extended members of the family, like Ravager and Jericho, put in some appearances.
It almost makes you wonder if there’s room for Roy Harper and Wally West in the mix…
The Titans version of Garth (Aqualad’s civilian name) is described as a native Atlantean “trained under Aquaman to be a protector of life in and out of the ocean.” Presumably, he will feel the call to rebel and join up with Dick (Brenton Thwaites) and Donna (Conor Leslie). Well, we’re also assuming they both know him because of the Justice League connection.
Either way, Titans seems to be a much bigger affair this season, with character appearing out of the woodwork to join the core team and parental figures popping up to oppose them.
Titans returns later this year on DC Universe.