DC's ‘Titans’ Casting: Joshua Orpin Suiting Up As Superboy

[Koby]

The Titans cast just added some major Kryptonian muscle: Joshua Orpin has joined the ensemble for the series regular role of Conner Kent, aka Superboy, a key character in the upcoming second season of the superhero series on the DC Universe subscription streaming service.

 

Orpin, a Melbourne native and graduate of the prestigious Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, will be seen in the upcoming Foxtel drama series Upright and his most recent appearance was in The Blake Mysteries: Ghost Stories for the Seven Network in his native Australia. Orpin made his feature-film debut in The Neon Spectrum while his stage credits include A Midsummer Nights Dream for the Australian Shakespeare Company, The Matchmaker, The Tempest and The Diary of Anne Frank.

 

The name Superboy has a long but somewhat twisty history in the pages of DC Comics and on the small screen as well. The original Superboy was introduced in More Fun Comics #101 in 1945 as the junior alias of teenager Clark Kent during his school years in Smallville, the rural Kansas town where the future Man of Steel was raised. That Superboy has made his first successful leap to television with his own animated 1960s series and followed it with a syndicated live-action college-years Superboy series (100 episodes from 1988-1992) and then returned again with Smallville (217 episodes from 2001-2011) although that series opted to eschew the Superboy name and classic costume; star Tom Welling was simply introduced as Clark Kent.

 

The Superboy that is joining Titans for their upcoming season is based on the more modern namesake character who first arrived in the pages of DC Comics in the June 1993 issue of Adventures of Superman. Created by writer Karl Kesel and artist Tom Grummett, this Superboy was the alias of Conner Kent, who was introduced as a genetically-engineered clone of Superman. That origin story has been tweaked several times over the years and may be revamped yet again for Titans. The character appeared briefly in a fleeting, shadowy cameo in the Season One finale of Titans, which depicted the Teen of Steel escaping the confines of a secret laboratory after pausing to free his caged Kryptonian canine companion, Krypto the Super-Dog.

 

The character’s official description from the producers of the Titans series: “Superboy, aka Conner Kent, is the angsty teenager of steel searching for purpose and the truth about his past. While looking for answers, he crashes into the world of the Titans where he finds an unlikely home and surrogate family as well as revelations that carry more complications than he ever bargained for.”

 

Titans features the superhero squad that’s led by Batman’s former sidekick, Robin (Brenton Thwaites), and includes the hot-tempered alien princess Starfire (Anna Diop), the mysterious empath Raven (Teagan Croft), and the green-skinned shape-shifter Beast Boy (Ryan Potter).