DC Universe: all the updates for DC’s streaming service

At San Diego Comic-Con last night, DC Universe made a slew of programming announcements for its slate of original content, including that it was renewing its live-action TV series Doom Patrol in a partnership with WarnerMedia’s forthcoming streaming service HBO Max.

WarnerMedia largely skipped San Diego Comic-Con this year, opting not to bring news or previews for some of its big projects, like Wonder Woman 1984 or Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Dune. Instead, DC Universe revealed that Doom Patrol’s second season will debut simultaneously on DC Universe and HBO Max sometime next year, and that HBO Max will carry the show’s first season when the platform launches next spring.

DC Universe has announced that it has canceled its latest live-action TV series Swamp Thing, just after the show’s first episode premiered last week. It’s the first of DC Universe’s slate of shows to get the axe.

Launched last year, DC Universe is designed as a one-stop shop for all things from DC, providing subscribers with a massive library of existing comic books, films, and TV shows, along with a whole bunch of live-action and animated original dramas. The first live-action series, Titans, premiered in October and was quickly renewed for a second season, while the second, Doom Patrol (which has not received a second season order), hit in February. Swamp Thing is the latest original, and it premiered on the streaming service on May 31st. The streaming service has also released the animated Young Justice: Outsiders earlier this year, and plans to release another, Harley Quinn, in October.

There are so many streaming options available these days, and so many conflicting recommendations, that it’s hard to see through all the crap you could be watching. Each Friday, The Verge’s Cut the Crap column simplifies the choice by sorting through the overwhelming multitude of movies and TV shows on subscription services and recommending a single perfect thing to watch this weekend.

Swamp Thing, Wes Craven’s 1982 movie about DC’s Swamp Thing, a comic book character created in 1971 by writer Len Wein and artist Bernie Wrightson. The film stars Ray Wise as Alec Holland, a scientist whose covert, government-funded work on the untapped potential of plant life — as both a food source and a bioweapon — draws the attention of a megalomaniac, Anton Arcane (Louis Jourdan). When Arcane’s guerrillas storm Holland’s laboratory, they kill Alec’s sister and chase him into the swamp where they assume he dies when the lab explodes. Instead, the facility’s various chemicals and experiments transform Alec Holland into the green, leafy, twiggy Swamp Thing. With the help of another government scientist, Alice Cable (Adrienne Barbeau), the creature seeks to stop Anton’s nefarious plans.

At WonderCon in Anaheim, California, DC Comics announced that Swamp Thing, its third live-action series its streaming service DC Universe, will premiere on May 31st. The company also provided a first look at its fourth upcoming series, Stargirl, and says that the company’s entire digital comics library will be added to the service for users in April.

The streaming service is a one-stop-shop for almost all of DC’s content, and includes access to existing DC film and TV adaptations, comic books, and original live action and animated shows. The first such offering was a gritty version of the Teen Titans, Titans, which premiered in October, while its second, Doom Patrol, came out in February. Its first animated offering, a third season of Young Justice, premiered in January.

Warning: A significant spoiler for Young Justice season 2 and minor spoilers for the new season 3 follow.

Superhero entertainment has changed significantly since Young Justice premiered in 2010 on the Cartoon Network. At the time, the show was unique for its relatively dark and mature portrayal of teenage superheroes trying to make names for themselves and escape the baggage of their mentors, families, and checkered pasts. But the show didn’t sell enough toys, so Cartoon Network canceled it after two seasons, replacing it with the much zanier Teen Titans Go!.

With DC Universe’s Titans ending its first season today, DC has announced that its next live-action television show Doom Patrol will hit its streaming service on February 15th. The announcement came with a brief trailer that introduced the show’s main characters.

The series is another live-action take on a classic superhero group, which was introduced midway through Titans earlier this fall. The cast of misfit characters includes Elasti-Woman (April Bowlby), Crazy Jane (Diane Guerrero), Cyborg (Jovian Wade), Robotman (Brendan Fraser and Riley Shanahan), Mr. Nobody (Alan Tudyk), Negative Man (Matt Bomer and Matthew Zuk), and The Chief (Timothy Dalton.) The series will follow the team, each of whom has acquired special powers and has faced alienation from society as a result. Assembled by Cyborg, they will find themselves “in a place they never expected to be,” with a “mission hard to refuse.” The group first appeared in comics in 1963 in the My Greatest Adventure comic title, and has featured a rotating lineup since.

Batman and Superman have had such a pervasive presence in American popular culture that plenty of people who’ve never read a comic book know their pertinent biographical details: the murdered parents, the exploding planet, the Batmobile, Kryptonite, and so on. The DC Comics super-team sometimes known as “the Titans,” on the other hand, have starred in multiple animated series, a few straight-to-video movies, and one feature-length theatrical cartoon released just this past summer. And yet only devoted comics fans are likely to know much about their history and mythology as a group.

That’s why it matters that Titans is going to be the first original scripted series on the new DC Universe subscription service. When the show’s first season premiere becomes available on Friday, October 12th (with a new one arriving every Friday thereafter, for 12 episodes in all), it’ll signal to superhero buffs that this channel is aimed squarely at them. DCU’s announced 2019 lineup — which will add deep-cut DC favorites like Doom Patrol, Swamp Thing, and Stargirl — should drive that message home even harder.

DC Universe premiered the first two episodes of its original show Titans last night at New York Comic Con, and while the show won’t officially launch on the streaming platform until October 12th, the company announced that it has already renewed the show for a second season.

Titans is the first of several live-action TV shows that DC will launch on its new streaming service. A darker take on the classic Teen Titans superhero team, it follows Dick Greyson and Raven as they team up with Starfire and Beast Boy to foil a plot that threatens the world. The show is a big part of the recently launched streaming service, which pulls together a large catalog of the company’s offerings, from comic books to classic films and television shows as well as discussion forums and a slew of original productions that will live on the service. Comicbook.com notes that fan reactions to the first couple of episodes were positive: those at the theater described it as fantastic and dark and a good start to the service’s offerings.

On the evening of August 29th, DC Universe introduced its upcoming video service to viewers in a live stream hosted by Kevin Smith, who brought a host of announcements about the streaming platform. The service is scheduled to launch on September 15th, while the first original show, Titans, will premiere at New York Comic Con on October 3rd, and will come to the service on the streaming service on October 12th.

The streaming service is designed as a one-stop-shop for all things DC, and it’ll allow members to draw from a huge library of TV, film, and comics. Warner Bros. announced the platform last year, saying it would come with a slate of original live-action and animated shows (as well as a daily news program) to draw viewers to the service. It’ll also have a wide range of classic TV shows, including Lois and Clark, as well as an HD remastered version of Batman: The Animated Series.

This month, the DC Universe digital subscription service will open a beta for its streaming branch, and next week, it’ll launch with a show called DC Daily, a news program about all things DC. The DC Universe platform is designed to be an all-encompassing home for the media company’s vast content library. When it launches this fall, it will be available on a variety of platforms, from iOS to Android, as well as home devices such as Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and Android TV.

In addition to a slate of original live-action and animated shows, DC Universe will also house classic DC films and television shows, as well as remastered comics, designed to be read on a television screen or tablet. At San Diego Comic-Con, DC noted that it wants to bring all its fans together under one roof. DC will hold a preview of the program on August 29th at 7:30PM ET / 4:30PM PT, hosted by filmmaker Kevin Smith, who’ll introduce fans to the program and DC Universe.

DC has unveiled the first look at its upcoming live-action TV show Titans, and it’s dark. If you’ve ever wanted to hear Robin say “Fuck Batman” before taking out a group of street-level thugs, this will be the show for you.

The show is a darker take on DC’s superhero team, Teen Titans. The trailer introduces us to Raven (played by Teagan Croft), a haunted girl who reaches out to detective Dick Grayson (Brenton Thwaites) for help. Grayson is a former circus performer who lost his parents as a child and moonlights as Robin, Batman’s famed sidekick. We also get a couple shots of Beast Boy (Ryan Potter) and Starfire (Anna Diop) in action.

Today at San Diego Comic-Con, DC announced that its streaming service, DC Universe, will launch this fall, and the company has released a trailer for its slate of forthcoming live-action shows for the platform. The first look at DC Universe reveals that it’ll go beyond being just a repository for the numerous television shows and films based on the company’s characters. It will also be a hub for all things DC, featuring a library of comics, an encyclopedia, and it will serve as a platform for fans to discuss their favorite characters and stories.

The goal of DC Universe is to gather all the fans under one roof to revel in their shared love of DC and its characters, which is something that company reps noted existing social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter weren’t great at fostering. The platform is intended to be a single stop for fans that connects the company’s various offerings, including films, television shows, and comic books. The site will launch later this fall, and the company says that it’ll be competitively priced against services like Netflix. It’ll cost $7.99 a month or $74.99 for an annual subscription. Subscribers who preorder will get an additional three months for free.

We’ve known for some time that DC Comics has been preparing its own digital streaming service, but today, the company revealed that the platform will go far beyond just TV shows. DC Universe isn’t a streaming platform so much as a subscription service for all things DC, including comics, TV shows, and movies. A beta version will be going live this August.

The new original TV shows that will premiere on the service have already been announced: the live-action Titans is scheduled to debut later this year, with Swamp Thing and Doom Patrol scheduled for 2019. On the animated side, the third season of Young Justice: Outsiders and the new Harley Quinn series will debut in 2019, as well. But DC Universe will also feature other films and TV shows featuring DC Comics characters, including movies like Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, the four original Christopher Reeve Superman films, and TV shows like Lois and Clark and the Lynda Carter series Wonder Woman. Conspicuously missing are more recent DC film adaptations such as Man of Steel, Justice League, Suicide Squad, and Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman. Given that several of those films underwhelmed fans, however, that could be considered a feature rather than a bug.

Last year, Warner Bros. and DC Entertainment announced they were launching a new digital streaming platform that would include both animated and live action series. Now, that service has a name — DC Universe — and an official landing page on the DC Comics website.

The landing page describes the platform as a “first-of-its kind, immersive digital experience designed just for DC fans,” with access to exclusive original series. Several shows have already been announced for the platform, including the animated Young Justice: Outsiders, the live-action adaptation of DC’s Titans comics, and an animated series focusing on fan favorite Harley Quinn. Today it was also announced that a live-action Swamp Thing series would be coming to the service.