Warning! SPOILERS for Reacher and Titans!With Reacher season 2 on the way, it’s more apparent than ever how DC wasted Alan Erichsens’ potential on Titans. Bringing long-running characters with a lot of canon material behind them to the screen can be a real challenge. However, these same qualities can also produce a memorable action hero, making it fascinating to watch one project succeed while another fails — especially when the same actor is involved. Such is the case with Alan Ritchson, who has roles in both Titans and Reacher.
An action-crime series based on Lee Child’s popular novels, Reacher centers on Jack Reacher (Ritchson), a former military police officer who ends up entangled in a conspiracy. Rooted in DC’s Teen Titans comics, Titans is a superhero action drama that follows the eponymous group of young heroes and their jaded allies, including Ritchson’s vigilante crime fighter Hank Hall, a.k.a. Hawk. Both Hawk and Jack Reacher are known for their strength and brutality, but Reacher‘s success makes it clear that Titans didn’t know how to capitalize on Ritchson’s talents.
Reacher Shows Alan Ritchson’s DC Hero Could Have Been So Much More
With their blunt-instrument approaches to problems, Reacher and Hawk are fairly similar characters. Balanced by his crime-fighting counterpart, Dove (Minka Kelly), Hawk is the aggressive, hard-headed part of the duo. Reacher, meanwhile, is an ex-military cop with prodigious fighting abilities — even though one Reacher fight proved he’s not invincible. Both characters come across as very black-and-white at first, and it takes some time for the series to reveal their depths — something that’s often helped along by a foil character, like Titans‘ Dove or Reacher‘s Roscoe (Willa Fitzgerald).
Despite these similarities, Ritchson’s role in Reacher only highlights how much more he could have done as Hawk in Titans, a series that’s already been dubbed DC’s most frustrating TV show. Hank Hall is more of a side character than anything else, and his arc in Titans is tied to his relationship with Dawn. On the surface, this isn’t a bad narrative beat, but it led to less exploration of Hawk as an individual. Hawk’s lack of character development is further compounded by the way he’s often used to further the larger plot of the show. In Titans season 3, Hawk is lured into a trap and killed, which ends his story before it even really begins.
Reacher Proves Alan Ritchson Should Lead A Superhero Project
The distinctive differences between the character development of Hawk and Reacher prove that Ritchson can carry stronger superhero plot lines. He’s definitely more than a bit-part player. Ritchson has the drive to portray an engaging hero while also selling the dynamic action sequences needed for an action-heavy project. Additionally, Reacher proves that he can pull off witty dialogue and is more than capable of playing a character with charisma — someone who’s fun to watch and not just relegated to fighting goons.
In Reacher, Ritchson also proves that he can bring emotional depth to a hero and carry the kind of complex character arc needed in today’s superhero projects, which often see heroes grappling with the consequences of their actions in an increasingly complex world. While Titans‘ Hawk was never allowed to develop into this kind of character — due in large part to his pairing with Dove as well as his untimely death — Ritchson’s convincing portrayal of Reacher’s checkered past illustrates the emotional nuance he’s capable of capturing.
Alan Ritchson’s Titans Role Could Hurt His Superhero Future
Despite Ritchson’s star-making role in Reacher, he may have difficulty landing a part in the DC Universe (DCU) thanks to his stint on Titans. Recasting Ritchson as another DC character could cause issues with DC’s cinematic canon, something the studio might want to avoid since its multiverse-spanning soft-reboot, The Flash, had a box office crash that made history. In the past, DC has also been somewhat averse to referencing its TV offerings on the big screen, which could lead to trouble if it wants to resurrect Hawk or introduce an alternate version of him. But this doesn’t mean Ritchson’s days as a superhero are over; there’s always the Marvel Cinematic Universe.