Warning: The following contains SPOILERS for Titans‘ series finale.Trigon became the latest villain to fall prey to a problem that Titans seems to have with big-name villains, including Lex Luthor and Joker. The demon lord who sired Raven has not been treated well by the HBO Max superhero series, with his planned grand premiere in the Titans season 1 finale being delayed into an anticlimactic appearance in Titans‘ season 2 opener. It was hoped that Trigon might finally be done justice in Titans season 4, but that did not come to pass.
The story of Titans season 4 seemed to be building up to the grand return of Trigon, as the Titans fought against the Church of Blood and Mother Mayhem. Unlike the Organization from Titans season 1, the Church of Blood believed that a game designer named Sebastian Sanger was meant to be the emissary of Trigon rather than Rachel “Raven” Roth. Despite the Titans’ best efforts to either distance Sebastian from the Church or kill him before he became a threat, Sebastian ultimately embraced his destiny as Brother Blood and performed the ritual to bring Trigon to Earth.
Trigon’s Death Means Titans Kills Yet ANOTHER Major DC Villain
The end of the world seemed eminent in the opening scene of Titans‘ series finale, with Trigon emerging from a fiery portal in the Temple of Azarath and Brother Blood seemingly ignoring Raven’s warnings that he could not trust Trigon’s promise to “rule together as equals.” Shockingly, Brother Blood attacked Trigon, having grown sick of everyone in his life trying to manipulate him according to what they wanted and not what he wanted. Even more surprisingly, Brother Blood’s ambush was seemingly successful, and he ripped out Trigon’s heart before he fell back into the portal to Hell. This seemingly gave Brother Blood Trigon’s power and made him even more dangerous.
Why Trigon’s Titans Death Is The Weirdest Yet
The death of Trigon continues an odd trend in Titans, where DC Comics’ most powerful villains are killed off with surprising ease and with little benefit to the overall story of the series. This first occurred with The Joker in Titans season 3 premiere, which opened with the Clown Prince of Crime dramatically beating Jason Todd/Robin to death with a crowbar in imitation of the comics. By the episode’s end, Joker was dead at Batman’s hand. This should have been a world-shaking moment given Batman’s usual rule against lethal force. Yet Titans ignored the issue to rush the introduction of the Red Hood.
The same thing happened in Titans’ season 4 premiere, which introduced Earth-9’s version of Lex Luthor. A shadowy presence in earlier seasons of Titans, Lex appeared in person, reaching out to Superboy in the hopes that he might establish a relationship with the closest thing he had to a son before his death from Kryptonite poisoning. Instead, Lex was killed by Mother Mayhem, whom he had exploited hoping to use the Temple of Azarath she sought to save himself. Lex became a patron to the Titans in death, inspiring the theory that he would somehow be resurrected by the season’s end, but this did not happen.
Logistically, it makes sense that Titans would have to kill off The Joker and Lex Luthor after they each made a single appearance. Given how notoriously protective Warner Bros. is regarding licensing characters tied to the Batman and Superman families, it is something of a miracle that Titans was allowed to include the infamous archenemies of Batman and Superman at all. This makes the sudden death of Trigon all the stranger, as Trigon is primarily a Titans villain, thanks to his connection to Raven. There’s no reason why he shouldn’t have been the chief villain of Titans season 4 and faced all the Titans in the finale.
How Brother Blood Killed Trigon So Easily
Ultimately, the only reason Trigon fell so easily in Titans’ series finale was due to the power of the plot. Logically, there’s no reason why Brother Blood should have been able to defeat Trigon, even with the power he stole from Mother Mayhem when he killed her for the second time. It seems likely that the series’ writers either wanted to make Brother Blood seem all the more impressive or that Trigon had to be killed off to spare the Titans budget from a lengthy (and expensive) CGI fight sequence. In either case, Trigon’s death was anticlimactic in the extreme.
Titans season 4 is now available for streaming on HBO Max.
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