Warning: SPOILERS for Titans season 3, episode 1, "Barbara Gordon"
Titans season 3 episode 1, “Barbara Gordon,” finally breaks Iain Glen’s Bruce Wayne and has him leave behind his role as Batman, declaring that he is “finished.” His departure from the role might be necessary to let Grayson and the Titans grow without his shadow hanging over them. It also highlights how dark Titans’ portrayal of Gotham is and helps to up the stakes for the remaining cast.
Seasons 1 and 2 of Titans strove for a darker, grittier vibe, setting themselves apart from the animated shows Teen Titans and Teen Titans Go. Season 3 opened on one of its darkest moments yet: Joker beating current Robin Jason Todd to death with a crowbar in an abandoned amusement park. After Dick Grayson, a.k.a. Nightwing, and Barbara Gordon chastise Bruce Wayne for the way that he has treated the Robins and how he has acted as Batman, Wayne takes matters into his own hands. Returning in the middle of the night with a bloody crowbar, Wayne tells Grayson that he has ended it, caving in Joker’s skull, and that he is done. He asks Grayson to be a better Batman than he was and then flees Gotham.
It is rare that an adaptation has Batman break his golden rule: no killing. It makes sense that crossing that line makes Wayne realize who he has become and step away, hanging up his cape and cowl. But Titans laid a lot of groundwork for it to feel believable that Bruce Wayne was finally pushed to his breaking point.
Bruce Wayne Has Lost Every Ally
The Dark Knight might portray himself as a man who works alone, but his cohort of allies is almost as well-stocked as his rogues gallery. Titans has worked to strip those allies away to a point where Bruce Wayne feels truly alone and no longer believes he has anywhere to go for support. Alfred Pennyworth, Batman’s butler and quasi-father figure since his parents’ death has died and is buried in the family plot. Alfred was often a grounding force for Bruce Wayne, and his removal was essential to allow Bruce Wayne to snap.
Commissioner James Gordon has been killed by Mr. Freeze after being frozen and suffering a heart attack. Bruce mentions that Gordon understood that fighting crime in Gotham was a war, and Barbara Gordon’s pushback on the idea makes it clear that Wayne feels he is now alone in this toxic, but perhaps necessary, ideology. As Barbara Gordon and Dick Grayson critique the way that he has behaved as Batman, Bruce clearly interprets it as a rejection and feels abandoned on his quest for vengeance.
This removal of his allies echoes the events of former Robin Dick Grayson’s hallucination at Trigon’s hands in the final episode of Titans season 1, “Dick Grayson.” In the episode's vision, Dick heads back to Gotham when he hears that Bruce has snapped after the Joker killed James Gordon. Worse, Jason Todd has been paralyzed, Alfred has died, Barbara Gordon is missing, and Batman is estranged from Superman. Dick fails to snap Bruce out of it and Batman kills the Joker before killing multiple police officers and finally being killed by Dick. Having already explored what it would take to break Bruce Wayne, Titans is able to set their season 3 course of events up as believable, but also demonstrate how Grayson is able to help stop Wayne from going on a full rampage.
Batman As An Addict
Titans has played extensively with themes of addiction amongst its crime-fighting vigilantes. In Titans season 1, Dick Grayson has left Gotham and tries to leave behind the mantle of Robin as he dislikes who he becomes when he puts the suit on, noting that he hurts others. However, he struggles with this cold turkey approach, still finding himself using the suit regularly until he finally burns it and spends some time rediscovering who he is. Similarly, and more directly, Hank tries to step away from being Hawk as he finds that it's a gateway to him drinking and using drugs. He is shown to relapse several times throughout his timeline, and his partner, Dawn, finds that she can’t stay away from wearing the Dove suit. The addiction elements with Hawk and Dove are emphasized in the second season when Hank is coaching a teen through addiction recovery and Dawn takes down a local meth lab to stop the supply of drugs in the community.
In season 3 of Titans, these themes become more overt. Jason Todd has been working to create a chemical substance that he inhales and seems to be dependent on to suppress his fear. When Grayson explores Jason Todd’s lab he is met by a drug dealer to help sell the addict imagery.
Batman is shown to be an addict in his own way, relying not only on his suit but also on having a Robin sidekick. After Jason’s apparent demise, Grayson tries to assure Barbara Gordon that Batman has learned his lesson and won’t recruit another child to take on the role. Barbara is doubtful, explaining that Bruce Wayne recruited Jason only a week after Dick left Gotham. She is proved right when, shortly afterward, Dick finds that Bruce has been searching for a new recruit as if looking for his next fix. In a final act of desperation, Bruce even asks Dick to return as Robin, much to the latter’s disgust.
Hiding Behind The Batsuit
The final part of completing Batman’s story in Titans season 3 is Bruce Wayne realizing that the Batsuit has helped him to hide from what he is really doing and the reasons why. Titans only shows Bruce in his Batsuit during the end of season 1 and only in brief glimpses, allowing the character of Bruce Wayne to be separated from those actions. Instead, Bruce Wayne is most often portrayed as a more direct mentor figure who uses dry, sardonic humor, one that Dick Grayson is trying to forgive for past actions.
In his final confrontation with Joker, however, Bruce Wayne steps out from behind the Batsuit to acknowledge who he has really become: a murderer, just as dark as those he hunts. When Titans shows Batman returns from killing Joker, he is wearing a dark shirt and pants, bloodied and still holding the bloody murder weapon, suggesting that he has not changed clothes since returning. When he went to kill Joker he did so not as Batman but as Bruce Wayne, hence Joker laughing at Bruce even as he died because he knew he had finally won and broken The Bat.
