Warning: The following contains SPOILERS for TItans season 4.The premiere episodes of Titans season 4 highlighted a number of Metropolis locations new to the world of Earth-9, including LexCorp Tower and STAR Labs. Despite being firmly set in the reality of DC Comics, the early seasons of Titans did not draw deeply upon the unique setting of the DC Universe. That changed with Titans season 3, when the team traveled from their base in San Francisco to Gotham City so that they could help maintain the peace in the wake of the Joker's apparent death at the hands of Batman.
The action of Titans season 4, episode 1, "Lex Luthor," brought the team to Metropolis so that Conner "Superboy" Kent could finally meet Superman face to face. The trip also allowed the scientists with STAR Labs' Special Projects team a chance to analyze some of the Titans' powers and give them some gifts to thank them for saving Gotham City in Titans season 3. Thankfully, the team wasn't confined to the lab for too long, allowing the show a chance to show off these other locations from the pages of DC Comics.
Metropolis
Also known as The Big Apricot and The City of Tomorrow, Metropolis is most famous as the city of Superman. Artist and Superman co-creator Joe Shuster modeled Metropolis on his hometown of Toronto, but later comic creators primarily took inspiration from Chicago and New York City. In this, Metropolis is similar to Batman's hometown of Gotham City, but the difference between the two cities is literally night and day. DC Comics editor Dennis O'Neil once described the two cities by saying "Gotham is Manhattan below 14th Street at 3 a.m., November 28 in a cold year. Metropolis is Manhattan between 14th and 110th Streets on the brightest, sunniest July day of the year."
Like New York City, Metropolis is made up of a number of boroughs spread across several islands, with New Troy taking the central place of Manhattan. Metropolis is situated in the state of Delaware in most of the Earths making up DC Comics' multiverse. It is unclear, however, precisely where Metropolis might be located on Titans' Earth-9.
STAR Labs
Fans of the Arrowverse are familiar with STAR Labs from The Flash, but Titans season 4 introduces the Earth-9 equivalent, which is based in Metropolis rather than Central City. Reportedly built in 1971 by Garrison Slate, Scientific and Technological Advance Research (STAR) Laboratories was meant to operate as an independent center for scientific study, with no dependence on government funding or corporate sponsorship. This history is a subtle Easter egg regarding the STAR Labs of the comics, which first appeared in Superman #246 in 1971 and was created by writer Len Wein and artist Curt Swan.
In the comics, STAR Labs is one of the largest scientific organizations in existence, with nearly 20-30 international branches apart from the original STAR Labs in Metropolis. These include a weapons development lab in Gotham City, a facility devoted to extraterrestrial studies in Fawcett City, and a lab specializing in dimensional travel in Star City. Cyborg's father, Dr. Silas Stone, was famously employed by a STAR Labs branch in Detroit, where his research allowed him access to the advanced technology that saved his son's life.
LexCorp Tower
The design of LexCorp Tower varies across the multiverse, sometimes taking the shape of a giant letter "L." The LexCorp Tower of Earth-9 appears to be a standard corporate skyscraper, save for the pyramid at its top, which is decorated with a rune-like "L." This is fitting of Lex Luthor, who sees himself as a modern-day pharaoh, cut from the same cloth as his namesake, Alexander the Great. In addition to housing his many corporate enterprises, LexCorp Tower holds a luxurious penthouse suite on its top floor, where the villain Lex Luthor can survey the city he largely owns and look down on everyone else in comfort.
The Daily Planet
Marked by a distinctive golden globe atop its building, the Daily Planet is best known as the employer of Clark Kent and Lois Lane in most of their incarnations across the DC Comics multiverse. Publishing their first daily edition on November 2, 1775, the Daily Planet is one of the longest-running newspapers in the world of DC Comics and, under the leadership of Editor-in-Chief Perry White, one of the most respected. When Conner Kent seeks to learn about Lex Luthor's history in the public record, he turns to the archives of the Daily Planet, where a helpful young man named Jim (who might be Titans' version of Jimmy Olsen) helps him with his research.
Temple of Azarath
Earth-9's Lex Luthor sought the Temple of Azarath, an ancient site of great mystic importance, for some unspecified but undoubtedly nefarious purpose. The woman he employed to find the temple, May Bennett, thought he wanted to perform a ritual that would make him more powerful than Superman. Yet Lex Luthor spoke in private to Superboy about his untreatable Kryptonite poisoning and how "death may no longer be the foe I once thought it to be," while handling a book full of mystic writings seemingly tied to the temple. Whatever Lex's plans for the Temple of Azarath, it was revealed to be a place of power to the Church of Blood, who performed some manner of ritual in the closing scene of Titans season 4, episode 2 under the direction of May Bennett, who was revealed to be the villain Mother Mayhem.
The Temple of Azarath depicted in Titans season 4 is vastly different from the one in the original Teen Titans comics, where the Temple of Azarath is not connected to the Church of Blood. It is also not on Earth, being instead a city-sized compound located within the magical realm of Azarath. Once upon a time, Azarath was an idyllic land, where a cleric named Azar guided her followers in living a peaceful life, free of sin. Unfortunately, their efforts to magically rid themselves of evil influences gave birth to the demon Trigon. Since that time, the inhabitants of the Temple of Azarath have devoted themselves to fighting Trigon's influence on other planes, particularly by helping Trigon's daughter, Raven, to control her powers and deny her father's influence.
New episodes of Titans premiere Thursdays on HBO Max.