Titans: Is Iain Glen really too old to play Bruce Wayne?

Is Iain Glen really told old to portray Bruce Wayne on DC Universe’s Titans?

Titans season 2 is finally upon us, and many fans have much to say after the first episode – chief among these is Iain Glen, the new Bruce Wayne. Remember, all fans are experts today and are quick to throw out their opinion. Browse through social media enough, and you can find plenty of people putting down Iain Glen as Bruce Wayne.

Already, some are attacking his performance. You may not expect this from audiences. After all, this is the guy who gave us Jorah Mormot in Games of Thrones. We can critique him and the episode all we want, but it certainly was no George Clooney in Batman & Robin. Iain Glen’s small appearance is hardly enough to merit a complete critique, though. Luckily, no one is trashing him on the level of a Schumacher Batman film. Instead, people are commenting more on his age. The average opinion is Iain Glen is too old to play Bruce Wayne.

Let’s be upfront with this, Iain Glen is 58 years old. Prior to him, our oldest cast Bruce Wayne was Ben Affleck. When Affleck was cast for the role of Batman and Bruce Wayne, he was 42 years old. Christian Bale was 30 when he was cast, and the others were all 35 years or older. Prior to Iain Glen, the average age for Bruce Wayne is roughly 36 years old. Our first fifty-plus-year-old Batman is a huge benchmark.

Fans probably feel a bit duped. In Season one of Titans, stunt doubles played Bruce Wayne. One of them, in fact, is only 38 years old. No age is given on the other, but we can only assume he’s no older than 38. Yes, we never saw their faces and true physical attributes. Nonetheless, one cannot help but assume these guys are relatively young, so the actor they cast will roughly in the same wheelhouse. On average, actors and their doubles are close to the same age, at least more so than two decades worth.

Age is changing all the time. Today, your thirties are your twenties, and your forties are your thirties. They say fifty is the new forty. Skeptics use age against Robert Pattinson as being too young when he is in his early thirties — a perfect time to play a young and fresh Bruce Wayne. Imagine if Ben Affleck carried the role on to more Justice League and Batman films. It may have been possible he would have been fifty playing the Dark Knight. The actor is 47 years old as of this writing. Yet no one brought this up years ago? Going off this and comments on Robert Pattison’s youthful vibes, the problem is not so much the age itself. Our problem lies in the idea that Iain Glen looks too old to play Bruce Wayne.

One cannot deny there is something about a middle-aged man, with no tie, shirt tucked in, slacks, sitting on the couch with a cup of tea and showing some balding. An image as such hardly screams sexy. “This is not Batman, this is my dad as Batman” is what some are claiming. However, this take offers a bit more realism. A man showing some balding at 58 is not that unheard of. Bruce Wayne is hardly ever the vain type. What do you think he cares more about – his quest for justice or making sure he makes a stop each month for some Rogaine for men?

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Bruce Wayne in Titans is not the a-typical sexy looking playboy. We are accustomed to this with the character through all of his interpretations. Bale, Affleck, all of them looked great as Bruce Wayne. Still, we forget that the role of Batman has to take an enormous toll on the man who is Bruce Wayne, especially physically. Here is a man we can assume has been on this crusade for at least two decades. Batman is known for his small micro-naps; he does not really take days off and go on vacation. You can bet in no time he starts showing some grey, lines, and wrinkles. Kudos to Titans for taking this route, willing to show that characters can age. In the comics, we’ll be lucky if Bruce Wayne ever hits his forties.

Old Bruce Wayne is nothing outlandish. The original Golden Age Batman went on to become Earth-2 Batman in Pre-Crisis. After he and Selina Kyle wed, he did retire for some time but took up the cape and cowl one more time in 1977. We have two birth dates for Earth-2 Batman, 1915 and 1916. Wow, this puts Batman into his early sixties by the end of his career.

Now, most comic book fans know of Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, where our hero is 55 years old. In The Dark Knight Strikes Again, he is right up there at the same age as Iain Glen. Move on to The Dark Knight III: The Master Race, and now Bruce is 61 years old. Yes, both of these are not true-canon as many will point out. Earth-2 Batman is more of an after product of editorial jurisdiction. Frank Miller’s world is simply the original Elseworld. Still, both of these takes are in the history and mythos of Batman. You can find influence from these two in television and film. The writers are not grabbing for otherworldly things such as Nosferatu Batman or American Civil War Batman.

What Titans is doing here is simply using old DC material to tell a new story. Already, there are changing so much here. Dick and Dove are an item in the past? Hawk and Dove are part of the original Titans? There’s no Kid Flash or Aqualad in the original Titans line-up? Starfire is black in this universe, and Dick is pushing 30 years old and hasn’t suited up as Nightwing yet? Bruce Wayne’s age is the least of your worries. If anything, this is season 2’s version of the backlash to Anna Diop’s casting as Starfire.