Teen Titans Go! animated series has always had a pretty dark sense of humor, but with Teen Titans Go! to the Movies, the creators may have outdone themselves. Arriving during a montage of the team altering the past to create a world without superheroes, an Aquaman gag might be one of the bleakest jokes ever about the frequently mocked character.
After deploying the “time cycles” (i.e. Big Wheel tricycles that come complete with Back to the Future music), the team is able to go back in time and change the pasts of key members of the Justice League. This is all in the name of keeping them from growing into the superheroes we all know and love. While some of the changes are fairly positive (the team helps Jor-El save Krypton and warns the Waynes not to go down Crime Alley), the fate of Aquaman is downright grim.
While the Titans sit on the edge of a pier, sipping cans of soda, Robin tosses the plastic six-pack rings into the ocean. Baby Aquaman (Aquababy?) swims past, and gets caught in the plastic rings. The Teen Titans walk away as air bubbles break the surface, apparently unfazed by the probability that they just committed infanticide.
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And that’s not even the darkest part of the sequence. After the Teen Titans return to the present to find it overrun by villains in the absence of superheroes, in the film they go back in time again, to cause the tragedies so integral to the origins of those icons, Seriously, that is darker than anything in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
Teen Titans Go! to the Movies stars Scott Menville, Greg Cipes, Khary Payton, Tara Strong, Hynden Walch, Will Arnett, Kristen Bell, Nicolas Cage, James Corden, Jummy Kimmel, Patton Oswalt, Halsey and Lil Yachty.
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