The Characters That Titans Fans Think Are Unnecessary

The edgy world of HBO's "Titans" features a remarkable variety of characters, many of whom would have been nearly impossible to pull off believably on a television budget just a few years ago. More than that, it serves as a possible introduction to new audiences, presenting them with comic book heroes with whom they might not have otherwise become familiar.

It's an exciting prospect for long-time comic book fans. Imagine the sense of wonder that some young newcomer feels, seeing Beast Boy transforming into a jungle cat for the first time. Think about how thrilling it would be to learn about the origin of the Red Hood with fresh eyes. Consider the spectacle of Superboy and Krypto as experienced by someone that might not even have known that these two heroes existed before. Then try to wrap your head around what it would be like to see Hank and Dawn tossed in with the rest of the crew and desperately try to understand what the point of all of that is supposed to be.

Yes, according to Reddit users, fans of "Titans" are currently going through the same thing that comic book fans have been experiencing since the late 1960s: Trying to understand what Hawk and Dove are even doing here.

The frustrations came to light in a recent post on Reddit's /r/TitansTV forum, where user u/Marcella-L posted the question "Why are Hank and Dawn even characters?"

"It feels like they contribute nothing to the cast," the poster continued. "If the two of them weren't main characters we'd probably have more screen time for Gar." It's a point of view that a few fellow users echoed.

Hawk and Dove have never been the superstar characters that DC wanted them to be, be it in the comics or on HBO's "Titans." Despite solid performances from Minka Kelly and Alan Ritchson, they're just not an easy pair to make conceptually interesting, at least according to fans. Other viewers posted on the thread in defense of the duo, with a few mentioning that they would have made more sense as a separate team, introduced in the early seasons and then spun off into their own series. The bad news is that a spin off never came to pass. The good news is that as of the third episode of season three, the issue of too much Hawk and Dove is now, spoiler alert, like 50% less of a problem.